IP: DVDs & Apex

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> X-Priority: 1 (Highest)
> Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 11:12:22 -0400
> To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)
> From: "Richard J. Solomon" <rsolomon () dsl cis upenn edu>
>
> Dave:
>
> Well, after I woke up in the middle of the night from my 24 hour 
> journey from Land's End in Cornwall, UK,  to Massachusetts, I tested 
> my new Region 2 & 4 "PAL" CDs on the Apex 600A, the hot, region 
> circumventable available until recently at Circuit City 
> <http://www.circuitcity.com>. They work great!
>
> First of all, the PAL/NTSC designations on DVDs encoded with MPEG-2 
> are phony. There is no such thing. All the MPEG-2 DVDs are the same 
> as to encoding, including SECAM. What is different is how the DVD 
> player outputs the signal, and the aspect ratio (which is often an 
> option). The Apex outputs either NTSC or PAL, (or RGB component to a 
> computer monitor, for that matter), and a choice of aspect ratios. 
> So the "PAL" DVDs that I just bought in London & the "SECAM" in 
> Lille, France, worked fine on my NTSC system. Better than that, they 
> looked like HDTV on my interlaced 27" set at couch potato distances. 
> My ProLogic surround sound system didn't hurt either, but with a 
> stereo TV isn't really essential.
>
> Apex says they will change the codes, but the codes are built into 
> the remote, which I understand is true of almost all the DVD 
> players. Only the box is different. Since the code is just an 
> elemental key -- easy enough for a junior-high computer scientist to 
> figure out -- it doesn't sound like Hollywood has a chance to 
> effectively restrict region hopping. Of course, the reason they did 
> this in the first place is that they charge double or triple for the 
> same DVDs in Europe than they do in the U.S. I bought a Region 2/4 
> PAL "The Big Lubowski" (our family favorite) for  £19 (> $35) -- it 
> sells discounted in the U.S. for around $12. I did find a store that 
> gave me a two-for-one deal (still priced), so I also got "Citizen 
> Kane" in B&W, marked "PAL only", which is nonsense for a monochrome 
> video. B.S. I also got some railroad steam DVDs made in China and 
> Europe that I don't think I can easily get in the U.S. Oddly, the 
> Chinese Steam video (excellent quality if you only look at the 
> pictures -- the soundtrack was pure hilarious Communist propaganda) 
> was marked Region 2 "NTSC". That's because its primary market is 
> probably Japan which is NSTC, but Region 2 like Europe. (The U.S. is 
> Region 1.) Weird.
>
> All in all, the Region nonsense is bound to fail. I visited a major 
> display manufacturer on the Continenet and they felt the policy was 
> against any manufacturers' interest to support. It also is not good 
> for independent producers -- just the majors who wish to practice 
> discriminate (called by economists, "Ramsey") pricing.
>
> BTW, while it is illegal to sell Region 1 DVDs in UK stores that are 
> licensed by the movie industry, it is not illegal to buy them via 
> mail order from the U.S., and it is not illegal to modify your 
> Region 2 DVD player to play all regions. Chips are available for 
> just that, but it is easier to just re-program the players from the 
> remote.
>
> Richard