Differences on Regions

[koontz1973]

Can anyone answer why films from Region A and Region B/C have different covers, bonuses, codecs. I understand why America gets most films first (bigger market).

Region A does seem to get a lot of the good stuff.

[Evangelion]

Guess it's just all about business ~

[Jerome]

some examples will be welcomed.

there are different covers because there are different languages. Sometimes different companies own the rights in some countries.

[koontz1973]

Originally Posted by ash595

some examples will be welcomed.

there are different covers because there are different languages. Sometimes different companies own the rights in some countries.

Different languages, subtitles I understand, Why would the US release have and German front Hungarian subtitles.

Sin City, Canadian or US Both R1
Rob Zombie's Halloween R2 steel book extended or R1 theatrical

These are two that I could come up with on the top of my head, but there are a lot more.

[koontz1973]

Originally Posted by ash595

Sometimes different companies own the rights in some countries.

This is the explanation I came up with, but it surprises me that two competing companies would not share resources and cost in delivering a title to different regions.

[OrlandoEastwood]

Originally Posted by koontz1973

Can anyone answer why films from Region A and Region B/C have different covers, bonuses, codecs. I understand why America gets most films first (bigger market).

Region A does seem to get a lot of the good stuff.

I would guess it's due to as another poster said; "different companies own the rights in different countries".

Sometimes when you buy the rights for a movie, I don't think that the international studio would actually own the rights to all the material for the film; like multiple audio tracks, subs, bonus material, etc. With DVDs, I think that the reason why like German subs are not seen on US releases is due to the fact that the studio in US might not own the rights to the film in German speaking countries or if they do and there's no German subs on the US release it's due to make money off their own domestic release in Germany, Austria, and the German speaking areas of Switzerland. With the Blu-Ray releases from Warner Bros, which is the one I notice the most of the time for having an ass load of subtitles is probably due to saving money on replicating the discs. Since Blu-Ray has more space and for the fact that Warner Bros probably maintains most of their releases overseas they just make that 1 release with all the subs and audio track so they don't have to make multiple versions of the film because it could be costly and less efficient to do like an individual release for each country.

[koontz1973]

Different companies seems to be the answer. Thanks for everyone who answered this for me.

[OrlandoEastwood]

No problem. I noticed the whole Warner Bros thing first hand while living in Germany. I was wanting to buy The Matrix on DVD and upgrade my VHS copy. This was like back in 2003 after Matrix Reloaded came out. The US R1 DVD on the U.S. base was like $17. For me, a movie that has been out for 4 years on DVD wouldn't be worth that price to me. So, I went out to Kaufland which is a German store and I decided to look around and see what they have on DVD and I noticed that the German DVD was only 8 Euros. So I was like; "Get the German DVD". Most of the time I bought German DVDs if they were cheaper or not out on DVD in the US before their US release. I got the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, the Unrated cut, on DVD two months before it's US release. It came out on DVD in August in Germany and the US release wasn't until like October 2004.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by koontz1973

This is the explanation I came up with, but it surprises me that two competing companies would not share resources and cost in delivering a title to different regions.

Well, they're competing. So if one company pays money for documentaries and stuff to put on a disc, the other company can license it from them. I guess sometimes it costs too much, and they make their own batch of supplements.
Here in The Netherlands we have a company that basically decides extras don't have to be in HD, so they put them on the disc in SD. It's all about money.