Region coding - why?!?

[Captain_Chaos]

I wasn't sure whether this was a "general" question which belongs in the general forum or a hardware question, but I figured it was more a politics issue, so posted it here.

Why do DVD player manufacturers adhere to the region coding agreement?

Wouldn't say, Toshiba sell a shed load more units if their players were multi-region out of the box?

What do manufacturers get out of being in the "DVD Forum"?

[tips4tnt]

I think you can only legally manufacture DVD players if you are a member of the "DVD Forum" ...possibly because the DVD Forum controls the (legal) allocation of the CSS decryption keys(?)

As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's an easy (e.g. handset) hack for the player then I'm happy :)

[nwgarratt]

It is not just about the CSS encryption.

Its all down to them trying to tell you when you can watch a DVD. DVD's often come out in America before the UK cinema. The UK film industry wants you to watch the film at the cinema (as well as pay otu for drinks, foods etc), rather than buy a R1 DVD.

I have had films on R1 DVD's months before the UK cinema.

[ccparkhill]

Regional coding is part of the DVD specification - you can't legally call a device a DVD player unless it has regional coding. I doubt it's enforced though.

Regional coding is just a way for hollywood to control markets. In this day and age it's a bit of a joke. Once digital cinema arrives and films can easily be released globally on the same day it will be unneccsary.

Although it does give some protection to rights holders, e.g. a film could be New Line in the states and EiV over here.

[DeadKenny]

Originally posted by ccparkhill
Although it does give some protection to rights holders, e.g. a film could be New Line in the states and EiV over here.

That's what a lot of it's about.

It's a bit like car sales. e.g. each region (country, county, town) has a franchise deal to sell a particular manufacturer's car and they like to protect that market and prevent you going elsewhere.

Same with films, even when the distribution is done by effectively the same company (Warner US, Warner UK, etc), each regional distributor has targets to reach and is treated as a seperate company competing against itself.

I can understand this and even the need to allow films to run in the cinema before people buy on DVD. Fair enough, and I'm not bothered about having to wait. However, what sucks is the differences. If all regions got the same treatment, I wouldn't care about importing.

It's complicated though as the distribution deals are partly staggered so they can see how a film works in one region and tailor the release for each market, especially where they think a particular film may be better supported in certain markets. This extends into the effort they make on the disc in terms of extras. If it wasn't for the fact they have to do NTSC and PAL compatible masters, there'd be less of an issue, because it costs money to do the extra masters for the PAL market and whilst they're at it they can decide if they put all the extras in (if they don't feel the market needs them, cut costs by leaving them out, especially when PAL takes up more space). Then there's the complication of censorship in each region (and certification costs).

So many versions required means releases vary in quality, and that's where it conflicts with the regional coding idea as people realise there are better versions available.

[Brian Blessed Badger]

Originally posted by DeadKenny
especially when PAL takes up more space

Does PAL actually take that much more space ?

The bandwidth required is that same for both PAL and NTSC (PAL has a better resolution but interlaced NTSC has more frames) - I realize this is skewed by the progressive NTSC encoding and the fact that the encoding itself may introduce size issues.

There is also a limit as to the maximum data rate the vdeo on a DVD can have so if the NTSC is close to that then I'm not sure how PAL can take more space ?

Phil

[kiran_mk2]

Didn't Australia rule that region coding was anti-competitive so all players sold in Australia have to be multi-region?

[nwgarratt]

Didn't Australia rule that region coding was anti-competitive so all players sold in Australia have to be multi-region?

Yes, all players have to multi region. It is to give people the choice of where to get their DVD's from.

[DeadKenny]

Originally posted by Brian Blessed Badger
Does PAL actually take that much more space ?

The bandwidth required is that same for both PAL and NTSC (PAL has a better resolution but interlaced NTSC has more frames)

From http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/dvdvideo/dvdvid_videnc.htm...

DVD-Video can comprise either PAL/SECAM (625-line) or NTSC (525-line) video material at frame rates of 24, 25 or 30 fps.

* PAL/SECAM video uses a frame rate of 25 fps (frames per second). Source video material will be at this frame rate. Film material will have a frame rate of 24 fps and is usually played back at 25fps (to avoid frame rate conversion) and the audio is pitch corrected before the encoding begins.
* NTSC video uses a frame rate of 30 (actually 29.97) fps which is identical to NTSC video material. Film material is usually converted from 24 to 30 fps by a '3/2 pulldown' whereby frames are repeated to convert the 24fps film to 30fps video. However this is not necessary for DVD since the player can carry out the frame rate conversion. Therefore the video can be stored on disc at 24fps and displayed by the player at 30 fps. The encoder embeds MPEG-2 repeat_first_field flags into the video stream to make the decoder perform 3/2 pulldown.

The result is that both PAL and NTSC versions of the same movie will comprise the same number of frames but as PAL frames are larger than NTSC frames they are likely to require more data rate for the same quality.


However, I'm curious about this statement with respect to PAL films... "Film material will have a frame rate of 24 fps and is usually played back at 25fps (to avoid frame rate conversion) and the audio is pitch corrected before the encoding begins."

Which is news to me as I thought PAL film material was converted to 25fps at source and stored at 25fps (not to mention that only a few recent titles are pitch corrected as far as I know). This is from a DVD authoring company though, so you'd think they're right (if so, it raises hopes for progressive PAL to play back at 24fps, although if it's pitch corrected, then that would screw it :().

On the other hand, maybe they mean it's "played back" at 25fps when it's encoded, but then why go on to say the same movie in NTSC and PAL has the same frame rate :confused:


edit: - from the DVD FAQ....

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.4

Because film transfers for NTSC and PAL usually use the same coded picture rate (24 fps) but PAL resolution is higher, the PAL version takes more space on the disc. The raw increase before encoding is 20% (480 to 576), but the final result is closer to 15%, depending on encoder efficiency. This translates to an increase of 600 to 700 megabytes on PAL discs compared to NTSC discs.

You learn something new every day. Both NTSC and PAL discs actually store films at 24fps, just that the PAL discs decode at 25fps. I'm surprised as that would mean altering the audio. Hmm, or is it that the PAL discs store the audio already adjusted to 25fps, but the film is at 24fps, so playing back PAL discs at 24fps would be quite difficult unless you've got pitch corrected audio (like on LOTR, but that's flawed)?

Maybe it's more accurate to say that PAL discs are encoded for 25fps (even though the encoding was done at 24fps).

[cm-9]

If encoded at the same quality, PAL usually requires about 15% more disk space than NTSC (PAL DVDs actually have 20% more resolution, i.e. 576 lines instead of 480 lines, but 20% more resolution does not require 20% more space due to the way that MPEG2 encoding works). That does leave less room for extras and/or DTS soundtracks on DVD. On the other hand most disks are not in fact full, so there is often enough space for everything.

[DeadKenny]

Originally posted by cm-9
On the other hand most disks are not in fact full, so there is often enough space for everything.

Of course with PAL discs in Europe that can often mean additional lanuguage audio tracks that you wouldn't get with R1s :(

[Captain_Chaos]

So if the Australians can have multi-region players why can't the UK / rest of the world?

How can they break the DVD Forum rules in Oz, then uphold them in the rest of the world?

[Nick dVl]

Originally posted by Brian Blessed Badger
Does PAL actually take that much more space ?

Depends. As you've pointed out, broadcast NTSC and PAL use about the same actual bandwidth: NTSC has more frames, PAL has more lines.

On a film-to-DVD transfer however, the actual number of proper frames stored on NTSC and PAL discs is the same (they're just displayed at different FPS rates and speeds), but PAL has the higher resolution. So I would think that the PAL transfer will take up a tad more space....

[nwgarratt]

So if the Australians can have multi-region players why can't the UK / rest of the world?

Because it breaks Australian law, something we don't have here.

[Michael Mackenzie]

Originally posted by DeadKenny
Of course with PAL discs in Europe that can often mean additional lanuguage audio tracks that you wouldn't get with R1s :( True, but a good deal of US and Canadian R1 discs also have French and Spanish tracks on them.

[Walrus Man]

Slightly OT, but I'm confused about the term "3:2 pulldown" relating to the conversion of 24 fps to 30 fps for NTSC.
I can see a 5:4 ratio there, but where does the 3:2 come in?

[Mr Nice]

Originally posted by Walrus Man
Slightly OT, but I'm confused about the term "3:2 pulldown" relating to the conversion of 24 fps to 30 fps for NTSC.
I can see a 5:4 ratio there, but where does the 3:2 come in? Because 3:2 isn't a ratio (hence why it uses : not / ;)). It refers to the sequence of fields used per frame, which alternates between 3 fields and 2 fields.

[Walrus Man]

Originally posted by Mr Nice
Because 3:2 isn't a ratio (hence why it uses : not / ;)). It refers to the sequence of fields used per frame, which alternates between 3 fields and 2 fields. Ah, so how are fields and frames related, i.e. how many fields are usually in each frame?

[DeadKenny]

Originally posted by Walrus Man
Slightly OT, but I'm confused about the term "3:2 pulldown" relating to the conversion of 24 fps to 30 fps for NTSC.
I can see a 5:4 ratio there, but where does the 3:2 come in?


What The Heck Is 3:2 Pulldown? (http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_report/production_a_z/3_2_pulldown.htm)

How Film Is Transferred to Video (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/Ld/FilmToVideo/)

Effectively it means alternate 3 fields per frame, then 2 fields per frame to achieve 60Hz and keep the frame rate roughly right (24fps).

2:2 pulldown is apparently what's applied on PAL discs which gives you 2 fields per frame to fit 50Hz. The result is the film plays at 25fps instead.

(I wish we had an FAQ here ;))

[ryonhilluk]

Money.

[Planescape]

I wouldn't assume that if films are digitally filmed the future that it will mean worldwide release dates.
Countries that are in the later schedules like the UK tend to watch the USA takings before taking on a film, this way they can see if it's worth putting the money and time into it or leave as a straight to video. On the other hand, worldwide releases do stop piracy to a point, though i know a lot of people who downloaded films with simultaneous release dates just because they didn't want to go to the cinemas.

Suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Region coding is simply to control the market so taht people don't import. Not just from hollywoods end because either way they get the money, its the industry in the UK that suffers from people importing. But then maybe the industry should try and find a way to keep their customers coming to the UK retailers etc.

[gertrude]

Originally posted by Planescape
I wouldn't assume that if films are digitally filmed the future that it will mean worldwide release dates.

There is also the fact that the films stars can only be one place at a time!! So, if the premier is in the US, the UK media will give it far less if in fact any coverage.

And free advertising is really what a premier is, advertising, which is what Oscar Deutsch did with a lot of his new ODEONs to get them noticed.

Seriously, if it wasn't for the news of the premier I would never hear of films that I want to go and see :|

G

[Wezzy]

Also, as someone else alluded to, cinema-going habits vary from country to country. For instance the summer is the busiest time for cinemas in the US, with blockbusters coming out every week, but a lot of European countries, Italy & France in particular, go really quiet. Even here in the UK, if we have a heatwave you hear how it affects B.O. - not so in the States.
Also distribs can finetune the marketing to suit different cultural sensibilities, or play up the prominence of a local star in a supporting role in a pic. And they would have to be aware of going up against any locally made pics that look like being hits.
It's a lot more complicated than it seems.

[StuBruise]

Originally posted by Wezzy
if we have a heatwave you hear how it affects B.O.

You can smell it too :gag:

~~stu

[Tom-Lux]

So can you guys in Oz buy R1 dvds on the highstreet?? If not then it kinda defies the point really. Anyways. I think the best place fior DVDs is either America where you can get some good ones (assuming you never need R2 or others othersie you are stuffed) or LUXEMBOURG. yep that's right. I haven't seen a R2 only player in years and we can buy R1 in most supermarkets:p

as for the dvdregioncode. The EU is investigating the region coding as well as the australians believe that it is against free market competition aso.

Until then we have to get along like it is rightnow.

BTW England also has that annoying thing called BBFC and the video thingy act. so anything without a BBFC logo cannot be legally sold.

same goes for Germany and their FSK. For Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium ratings are only advisory and so R1 is no problem. For France they need french audio and subs I believe . Not sure though but it is harder to find R1 in France then in the Benelux.

HTH

[DeadKenny]

Originally posted by Tom-Lux
BTW England also has that annoying thing called BBFC and the video thingy act. so anything without a BBFC logo cannot be legally sold.


Doesn't Australia have a similar thing (and far more intrusive logos on the packaging)?

Worse, many films are cut in Australia R4 thanks to BBFC and shared discs between UK R2 and R4 (not all though).


It's important to note though that R4 also covers some of South America, though most people seem to completely ignore it as a source of DVDs.

[Tom-Lux]

C'mon it already hard enough to decide between french R2, german R2, UKR2, dutch R2, spanishR2, belgianR2, USR1 canadian R1, all the different R3 versions . the last thing I need is another region to compare with:p

[samuelowens]

Just to clarify the Australian state of play: it's NOT illegal to sell multi-region players. It's just that, in a free market, the players that came region locked simply didn't sell and members of the DVD Forum aren't going to challenge its removal because they know that they'd have to fight the ACCC.

It's illegal to import DVDs for resale in Australia without the copyright holder's consent as well, so there aren't too many R1s floating around in shops.

Australia has frigging annoying rating info plastered across the front and spine of DVDs.

There are only a couple of discs that suffer BBFC cuts. Australia often gets the Euro master if the UK master is cut (eg Temple of Doom).

[StuBruise]

Originally posted by DeadKenny
It's important to note though that R4 also covers some of South America, though most people seem to completely ignore it as a source of DVDs.

I've looked at one site (can't remember where but linked from DVDPricecheck) and although I just looked at mainstream titles, the (fairly small) price difference wasn't really sufficient to "buy blind" as it were (not sure how extras compare etc.). However I've noticed that http://www.dvdbrazil.com appears to be an all-English site so even if it's cheaper to buy from the other place, this might be a useful resource for checking extras etc.

One point to note is that Australia occasionally get South American titles -- eg. the Powerpuff Girls DVDs released there are NTSC and fairly featureless compared to the R1s, and the subtitles provided point to it being aimed at the South American market, with Australia almost an afterthought.

~~stu