Even Some Ditributors Hate Region Coding!

[drees5761]

Found this posted on Asian dvd guide. Eureka Entertainments BR release of the Japanese film Harakiri is locked to region B, but this is what is seen when a region A player tries to play it:



Great stuff... if only film companies would listen....

[CinemaScope]

Good for them. I've always had multi-region DVD players & have a lot of region 1 DVD's, but decided I've had enough of all that. My Blu-ray player plays region B, so when it conks out, I'll just buy another player, I won't have to scramble around looking for a multi-region player. If a studio releases a film in region A only, fine, I'll go without, they don't want my money, they won't get it. I'm sure the record companies would have loved to have region coded CD's, they didn't think of it or the technology wasn't around (or both). These huge multi-national companies want control more than they want to make money.

[Tompa]

Especially on small films like this it's really unnecessary. I guess it's just the JP distributor that doesn't want the Japanese to import it for half the price.

[Racetrack]

Region coding should be illegal. Kudos to Universal, Paramount, Sony and WB. Shame on Lionsgate, Disney, MGM and Fox.

[Stirling1978]

Just received swingers from amazon.com today, which is a lionsgate release, and it will not play. Although Apocalypse Now was lionsgate and is fine.

Thankfully, have ordered a multi-region player anyway so can order some criterions.

Region coding wouldn't be so bad if they would just release the films everywhere, that they don't is beyond a joke.

[Racetrack]

Originally Posted by Stirling1978

Just received swingers from amazon.com today, which is a lionsgate release, and it will not play. Although Apocalypse Now was lionsgate and is fine.

Thankfully, have ordered a multi-region player anyway so can order some criterions.

Region coding wouldn't be so bad if they would just release the films everywhere, that they don't is beyond a joke.

From what i've gathered the following is an estimate on region coding. Not official figures or facts, just a guess.

Paramount Pictures 100% Region Free
Universal Studios 100% Region Free
Sony Pictures 90% Region Free
Warner Bros 90% Region Free
Lionsgate 50% Region Free
Walt Disney 50% Region Free
20th Century Fox 10% Region Free
MGM 10% Region Free

[kandraks]

Originally Posted by Racetrack

From what i've gathered the following is an estimate on region coding. Not official figures or facts, just a guess.

Paramount Pictures 100% Region Free
Universal Studios 100% Region Free
Sony Pictures 90% Region Free
Warner Bros 90% Region Free
Lionsgate 50% Region Free
Walt Disney 50% Region Free
20th Century Fox 10% Region Free
MGM 10% Region Free

Warner's releases are 100% region-free

[manicsounds]

Some wrong there, There are a few high-profile Paramounts locked (Braveheart US, The Fighter US, etc) and with Sony, if you include the Sony Pictures Classics moniker, most of those are region locked.

[Racetrack]

Thanks for the info. How does this look?

Universal Studios 100% Region Free
Warner Bros 100% Region Free
Sony Pictures 90% Region Free
Paramount Pictures 90% Region Free
Lionsgate 50% Region Free
Walt Disney 50% Region Free
20th Century Fox 10% Region Free
MGM 10% Region Free

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Racetrack

Universal Studios 100% Region Free

Originally Posted by Racetrack

Warner Bros 100% Region Free

[The Driver]

I believe Region restriction is illegal in Australia. Still plenty of locked discs though so I'm not sure exactly what is 'illegal'.




It could have been much worse when DVD was 'invented' Philips (ie PolyGram) and Sony where pushing to have around 18 regions for the European Union -that was found to be illegal. It even caused a delay in the DVD format release and we ended up with 2 (DVD+ which is now part of the DVD format but it's still shit and broken) formats.

Sony are the worst of all. They lock their releases when it suits them and then have ABC when it can damage other distributors' products in other countries.

Multi-region is a must have to bypass these idiots.

[drees5761]

Its a great shame that multi region Blu ray players are not as easy to find and are a lot more expensive than multi region dvd players.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by drees5761

Found this posted on Asian dvd guide. Eureka Entertainments BR release of the Japanese film Harakiri is locked to region B, but this is what is seen when a region A player tries to play it:



Great stuff... if only film companies would listen....

Their copyright notice is written in the same manner. Really cool, it shows you that there are humans working in the business after all .

[Racetrack]

There is a lot of interesting info on this page about region coding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvd_region

Personally i think the only time it's fair game is when a distributor owns the rights to a particular territory and not the others. Otherwise it's just wrong. Thankfully Blu-Ray isn't as bad as DVD was.

What i don't understand though is the studio's that lock some of their releases and not others. Sometimes it's totally random like some seasons of LOST are region locked, others are not.

[The Driver]

There is -on very very few occasions- valid legal reasons for locking a lot of TV content and even some films. This can be to do with original artists (directors, actors, musicians and their performing rights' bodies) not being paid and legal action having been taken (usually the USA, France or Israel) to seize profit from the material (e.g. music licensing/rental in any country it's sold). I have no problem with that because there's people been left with no money for their hard work. That really is more of an embargo and it happens all the time with other products so there's nothing new here. Books and music can be 'locked' too and often are. People have always had to -or wanted to- import books, music food etc etc.

In general though it's unacceptable but I've never found it a problem. Just import a Blu-ray player from your country of choosing or MR your PC (takes a few seconds).

People need to be a lit bit less lazy and realise if they want to watch what they want to watch they should invest in the technolgy and not expect everything on a plate. Film watching is world-wide hobby for me and I'm not expecting everything to be at my fingertips.

As for that Masters of Cinema thing -well, a little disingenuous I think. They're a business not the devil's advocate.

[CinemaScope]

It looks like Fox have stopped region coding on their catalogue releases in the past few years, the bad news is, hardly any catalogue releases from them these days!

[Sky_Captain]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

To add further to the above image, Farewell is actually distributed by The Works. Site here: http://www.theworksmediagroup.com/di...tion/index.asp

Like Mongol and Anvil, they have simply used Universal to release their product. All these titles are region locked.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by Sky_Captain

To add further to the above image, Farewell is actually distributed by The Works.

Actually, this specific release is released and distributed via Universal's Indivision:

http://www.universalpictures.co.uk/indivision/

indi VISION team
Universal Pictures (UK) Limited
Prospect House
80-110 New Oxford Street
LONDON WC1A 1HB

Pro-B

[Sky_Captain]

In that case, is the UK release of Suck coded?

[Nielsb90]

Originally Posted by Racetrack

Region coding should be illegal. Kudos to Universal, Paramount, Sony and WB. Shame on Lionsgate, Disney, MGM and Fox.

Especially MGM! We will never see BD's of Return of the Living Dead, Troll 2, Amityville Horror etc. released in region B.. At least most Lionsgate and Fox titles make it over here..