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by barsoom_redux on April 21st, 2009
Long story... please bear with me.
The DVD Redbook specification was codified two full years before the first DVD was manufactured. The actual production of Discs however, was held up by the MPAA in the US. They would not let any US movies be released on DVD unless there was a region lock-out available if the copyright holder wished to implement it.
Why? You may ask.
Because Hollywood (and it's MPAA Gestapo) makes a lot of its profit in the foreign distribution of its movies. The profit line of so called "second tier" movies is enhanced if they can point to a large profit in domestic sales.
For example... "Memento" (released March of 2001) cost $9 million to make. In domestic release, the movie made $25.5 million with $6.5 million in it's first two months of release. Armed with this data the studio went to foreign distributors and asked for bids for the foreign distribution rights. They were able to show with their domestic numbers just how much profit the foreign distributor could be expected to make and the bids were scaled accorcingly.
Six months after the release of the movie a Region 1 DVD was released, to pretty good sales numbers. Two months later the foreign distributor released the movie in the theatres worldwide (Hong Kong was first in October of 2001).
If there were no region lock on the US DVD, there would be nothing to stop someone from ordering and recieving a US DVD of this movie even before it was shown in the theatres in their home country. The worldwide distributor's profits and therefore the studio's profits would both fall resoundingly.
An earlier but still applicable personal example is when my ship sailed to Australia in late 1995. We had a copy of "The Quick and the Dead" (1995) on VHS on board and when we arrived in Oz I was surprised to see a "coming attraction" trailer for this movie at the local cinema.
So to sum it all up in one phrase... It's all about the money.
BTW... HD-DVD was region free and one of the important reasons why studio support fell into the Blu-Ray camp was that Blu-Ray did have the ability of implementing a region code if desired.
Hope this helps.
by Sucksatrelationships on October 1st, 2009
Licensing. Intellectual property laws are different from one region to another. Basically it's on the books as to whether or not you have the right to distribute that media in that area blah blah blah.
by nutmegcollector on April 21st, 2009
What region code is in your area? Region code 1 is for the U. S. DVD players bought in the U. S. can only play code 1 DVDs. you can buy code free DVD players which can play any DVDs
http://www.220-electronics.com/dvd/dvdorig.htm
by anddeb on April 21st, 2009
To keep out pirated copies.
by nutmegcollector on April 21st, 2009
Regional codes on DVDs to discourage people from buying cheap imports and make copies of them.
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Comments
Even so, why don't they release all the old back-catalogue stuff now? What's stopping them from releasing films from the 80s or 90s on DVD now, in all regions? In other words, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET ALL THE ONES I WANT?
by Andy B has left AB on April 22nd, 2009
That's a different story.
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Back catalogue releases are driven by many things (all to do with money). The biggest of these is the perceived profit to be realized. In other words, if you want a movie out in your region, it doesn't really matter... If 20,000 people want it, then it becomes a possibility.
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Another reason would be production capacity vs. profit. Why tool up to produce 100,000 copies of a movie that most likely will sit on the shelves unpurchased at $16.95, when the same production capacity can make 100,000 movies of a current film that will sell immediately at $26.95.
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For movies that aren't released yet, there is always the possibility that the studio doesn't have a copy good enough to transfer to a digital form without extensive and costly restoration.
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And there are other reasons. As you can see I've done a lot of research. This is because I'm in the same boat as you. Too many films and not enough released. Now compounded by the addition of Blu-Ray to the mix
by barsoom_redux on April 25th, 2009
Surely, if 100,000 people bought a certain film on VHS before they had DVD players, those 100,000 would want to buy that film on DVD now. Not only that, but there will be more people wanting to buy it now if it was an age-restricted one. People who weren't old enough to buy it on VHS 20 years ago will be old enough to buy it now, thus boosting the sales to maybe 150,000. Isn't that reason enough to release them?
by Andy B has left AB on April 27th, 2009