Amazing news for Satyajit Ray films

[Jafar]

Originally Posted by ravenus

It's not merely a question of piracy. The license fee Criterion has to pay for getting the rights may vary depending on which regions they want to cover. Also in some cases they may not get the rights at all for other regions if some other studio has secured them. I suspect they have opted to lock all their releases to A to have a consistent catalog where there is no confusion for the customer

I'm aware of the licensing issues and all that mumbo jumbo which goes behind region locking concept. However, I also know (and own) a number of films with different distributors in different regions, and yet some of them being region free. So, it is clearly not something which can't be worked out between studios. I'm of the opinion that anyone should be able to buy a legitimate copy of any film from any part of the world and play it without any complications.

I suspect they have opted to lock all their releases to A to have a consistent catalog where there is no confusion for the customer

I fail to understand how region locking a catalogue makes things easier for a consumer They can as well keep their catalogue region free, and it will still be consistent.

hacking your player firmware

There's no such thing as "hacking a firmware" to make a BD player region free. Unlike a DVD player which can be unlocked using its remote, a BD Player requires hardware modifications to make it compatible for all region BD playback. I've spoken to the guys at Sony customer care couple of times and I'm yet to find a technician who would do it for me. Either they don't understand what I'm talking about, or they just don't know how to do it, or both.

getting multiple players of different regions

Now you're just being absurd

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread with my own rants and would rather let the Ray fans take over and do the talking