Why is their region coding

[jmspls72]

I am interested in what was the original reason for DVDs and Blu-rays

Secondarily feel there’s no need for it in today’s world. I make this assessment based on the fact 4K Blu-ray’s are region free. why don’t distributors just make their non 4K Blu-ray’s and DVDs region free. thank you.

[Phillip c. Niethe]

Just Wiki search that under region coding

[jmspls72]

Thanks though it would be great if all disc were region free

[Jar Jar Stinks]

Originally Posted by jmspls72

I am interested in what was the original reason for DVDs and Blu-rays

Secondarily feel there’s no need for it in today’s world. I make this assessment based on the fact 4K Blu-ray’s are region free. why don’t distributors just make their non 4K Blu-ray’s and DVDs region free. thank you.

Distribution rights. If I have the North American rights to a film, I don't want some overseas distributors undercutting my sales with their competing discs.

[Phillip c. Niethe]

Originally Posted by jmspls72

Thanks though it would be great if all disc were region free

Buy a region free player.

[cochon]

May be, plain stupidity and greed from the powers above?

Without getting deep into details. The original region zones for DVD's were changed for blurays which means if you buy a bluray from another country which is bundled with the corresponding DVD (rare these days but a fantastic example) the bluray might play in your player but the DVD might tell you is for a different zone or the reverse situation could happen too. To make the stupidity more official now the 4k releases are zone free and yet you might not be able to play the bluray bundled with a 4k disc.

There were always ways around the region coding and they are not too difficult to find.

[RadRen]

Originally Posted by cochon

Without getting deep into details. The original region zones for DVD's were changed for blurays which means if you buy a bluray from another country which is bundled with the corresponding DVD (rare these days but a fantastic example) the bluray might play in your player but the DVD might tell you is for a different zone or the reverse situation could happen too. To make the stupidity more official now the 4k releases are zone free and yet you might not be able to play the bluray bundled with a 4k disc.

This mainly happens with Japanese releases. DVDs over there are Region 2 while BDs are Region A. Why they chose Region 2 has always been a mystery to me considering they used the NTSC standard and PAL discs would not work on many Japanese TVs and players, but I'm gonna guess it was to prevent Japanese consumers from importing American discs which can be way cheaper.

[bubbamoo]

4k's are region free. imo blus should have been as well. id guess distribution is more consolidated than it was in the dvd days.

[jmspls72]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

Distribution rights. If I have the North American rights to a film, I don't want some overseas distributors undercutting my sales with their competing discs.

That is a good point

[jmspls72]

Originally Posted by Phillip c. Niethe

Buy a region free player.

I know I can buy a player. My inquiry was more for curiosity purposes. The fact that 4K is region free. It would be great if future traditional Blu-ray’s are region free

[jazzontherocks]

I agree that region free would be the best way, given we live in a globalized world.

[jimidini]

Originally Posted by Jar Jar Stinks

Distribution rights. If I have the North American rights to a film, I don't want some overseas distributors undercutting my sales with their competing discs.

Which still doesn't really make sense, because anyone can simply not just import discs, but also a player.

There is almost no one who imports discs. There is almost no one who imports video games.

What do certain companies do to prevent someone from France to import a disc from Britain?
They are silly enough to not include French dubs/subtitles on the disc sold in Britain. That's also silly (sometimes that's even done even when the right holder is the same, yes I know yada yada subtitles + dubs have costs attached - there are even French movies that have English subtitles already on DVD and the publisher releases it only in France without English subtitles, and it's released nowhere else - that's basically saying: I don't want to sell as many copies that I could have sold otherwise). Sony does the same nonsense regarding PS3 games. And that's not even a classic region-import, but an import from a European country to another European country.

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by jimidini

Which still doesn't really make sense, because anyone can simply not just import discs, but also a player.

There is almost no one who imports discs. There is almost no one who imports video games.

What do certain companies do to prevent someone from France to import a disc from Britain?
They are silly enough to not include French dubs/subtitles on the disc sold in Britain. That's also silly (sometimes that's even done even when the right holder is the same, yes I know yada yada subtitles + dubs have costs attached - there are even French movies that have English subtitles already on DVD and the publisher releases it only in France without English subtitles, and it's released nowhere else - that's basically saying: I don't want to sell as many copies that I could have sold otherwise). Sony does the same nonsense regarding PS3 games. And that's not even a classic region-import, but an import from a European country to another European country.

It makes 100% perfect sense when one studio owns US rights and another one owns French rights, for example. You can’t legally sell a product someone else owns in their territory.

[jimidini]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

It makes 100% perfect sense when one studio owns US rights and another one owns French rights, for example. You can’t legally sell a product someone else owns in their territory.

That's not my point.
The point is about importing, not about officially selling a product in country X.

When it's just about importing, no one is stopping anyone to also import a player from the other region, which makes the whole region locking absolutely pointless.

As I said, only a very tiny minority imports DVD/Blu-rays/video games anyway and for these people buying a region free player / a second player is not a problem. When you spend $1000+ on importing Blu-rays, it's not a problem to also import a $100 player. At the same time it's silly to have to import one, because there is no point in that scheme because you can buy one.

[LMFAObros]

Greed. Even if one company owns the film worldwide like Fox or Lionsgate they still lock their discs to Region A/B/C. Its also common for when different studios/distributers have different terriories of ownership

[tangerinewolf]

Originally Posted by Phillip c. Niethe

Buy a region free player.

I've been an advocate of region free players ever since DVDs hit the market in the US in 1997. I currently have three region free blu-ray players in my system. It opens up the whole world to my DVD and blu-ray collection. So regional coding is a non-issue to me.

Thankfully 4K UHDs are all region free.

[emgesp]

Well for DVDs it made sense since there was no global standard for Standard Definition. NTSC is 60hz where as Pal is 50hz, so they wouldn't be compatible.

Blu-ray on the other hand does use a global standard, so there is less of an excuse for being region locked. UHD proves this by going fully region free.

[adamclark83]

I think the reason is because local distributors always want people to buy their releases instead of overseas versions, regardless of the work they put into it.

For example, the UK DVDs of The Bill were better quality than what Australia got. In Australia the work that Shock did was pretty average to say the least, not to mention they didn't care less about all the factual errors they made. I could've supervised the production of a much better quality product than what they did. For the simple reason is that I care about the show.

[Swissangel4616]

Originally Posted by jmspls72

I know I can buy a player. My inquiry was more for curiosity purposes. The fact that 4K is region free. It would be great if future traditional Blu-ray’s are region free

4K is still a small market while still a lot People have only DVD. I suppose thats currently the only reason to make 4K Region free. It's about Marketing, Distribution, Copyrights, Money, Economy...

Why should I buy a more expensive DVD/blu/4k media in my own Country when I can get it cheaper imported from the USA? it's Economy. that's why They made a Region Code that I have to buy it in my own Country.

But since 4K medias are codefree... some Online-Shops (Amazon.com / Amazon.de) are not shipping anymore from the USA to ... Switzerland. So it doesn't make sense to have 4k codefree medias.

[gZa]

Is the fact that 4K Blu-rays are region free one of the reasons none of the smaller labels (Criterion / Arrow / Eureka ) bother with them.

e.g. I can't imagine one label bothering to get the local rights to a title that's already got a stellar (region free) release elsewhere.