What will HD DVD and BluRay players do with region encoded DVD?

[StooMonster]

I have a feeling in my waters that a Region 2 BluRay or HD DVD player will enforce stronger region protection for DVDs as well as HD discs.

I can not see a situation where Region 2 player will only play Region 2 HD movies, because of regional protection, but will allow you to play Region 1 or Region 2 SD (DVD) movies.

I believe you will no longer be able to play R1 SD discs on R2 HD player, or vice versa. So I imagine I will be keeping a "region free" DVD player in place for many years to come.

Agree? Disagree?

StooMonster

 

[mmace]

totally agree, either that or just use my PC to play DVD's from a different region

 

[criggy]

found this posted by "amillians" over at avsfourms:

Okay, regional coding is a go for Blu-ray. They will confirm it either today or tomorrow most likely. Don't expect any press releases.

Although The DVD Forum is still debating using RC at all, it appears that a BD-only studio demanded it...and got it. Hmmm...where have we heard this before?

As was leaked some time back and debated here, the world is now 3 regions according to the BDA. For SW, it's up to content owners to elect to declare a region, and HW is required to respect that.

Region 1: N. America, S. America, Japan, Korea and most of Asia (but not China)

Region 2: Europe and Africa

Region 3: China, Russia and other "pirate" countries (their words, not mine!)

You kids on the bottom/top of the world--AKA Australia and New Zealand--aren't currently in a region. The BDA isn't quite sure what to do about RC coding being illegal down/up there.

A sampling of BD content owners indciates that the first wave of titles--AKA crap they don't care about and are willing to sacrifice to the format--won't be region coded, and further noted that they will selectively use RC, just like they will selectively use ICT. Looks like tentpole titles may have some extra 1s on the disc.

Again, it was also confirmed that Toshiba's two decks won't recognize region code flags, even if The DVD Forum decides to adopt RC in some form. It is unknown if non-RC-aware HD DVD devices can be firmware flashed to enabled RC-awareness if that's the way the cookie crumbles in The DVD Forum.

Toshiba confirmed a 3/28/06 debut for HD DVD, HW and SW, for the hundreth time. Of course, Sony is still saying spring for PS3, so you never know. But a Sony spokeswoman was quick to piont out "We never said what year!"

 

[davegriff2]

Of course, Sony is still saying spring for PS3, so you never know. But a Sony spokeswoman was quick to piont out "We never said what year!"

 

[StooMonster]

found this posted by "amillians" over at avsfourms:

Yeah we know all about Region Encoding on HD formats (BluRay and HD DVD), and or course there is the added complexity that regions are slightly different too!

So it makes the question of how they will treat DVDs even more difficult to answer.

StooMonster

 

[criggy]

Yeah we know all about Region Encoding on HD formats (BluRay and HD DVD), and or course there is the added complexity that regions are slightly different too!

So it makes the question of how they will treat DVDs even more difficult to answer.

StooMonster

sorry!,i misread your original post i think you're right,unfortunately

we will know for sure on the 28th if this is the case.(hd-dvd)

 

[ash]

I think it will be region locked, it might me suicide allowing DVDs region free, because then people will be buying R1 dvds a lot more, maybe seeing more UK shops selling R1, and us seeing films on DVD that are jsut coming out in the cinema in UK, they wont allow us.