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1.  

   Hmmm

   

   msykes, Jan 16th, 2002 @ 10:03am

   
   

   Okay, admittedly I am no expert, but I always thought that much of the reason DVDs were zoned was to prevent people in Europe from watching american DVDs, before the films were even released in theatres in Europe as this would ruin theatre traffic. I guess with VHS this wasn't a problem due to NTSC/PAL encoding (? is this encoded on the tape ?).
   
   If they removed regions, they would have to release movies simultaneously across all of the regions. Frankly I think that's all a good idea though...
   
   msykes

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2.  

   Re: Hmmm

   

   Mike (profile), Jan 16th, 2002 @ 11:04am

   
   

   Yeah, that is the "official" reason. But most people admit that the real reason is to prevent piracy (some of this is discussed in the article). They point out, by the way, that most VCRs can be set up to play both NTSC/PAL without a problem (and without it being illegal).

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3.  

   No Subject Given

   

   Hartti, Jan 16th, 2002 @ 5:47pm

   
   

   If DVDs cannibalizing movie visits was the reason (creating the locks), region locks would have expiration timers, so after certain date the DVD could be played everywhere. Right?
   Apparently too open solution for movie producers.
   

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4.  

   What bizarre reasoning you have

   

   Phillip, Jan 16th, 2002 @ 7:19pm

   
   

   How does zoning stop piracy? You can either copy a DVD (in which case you copy a US DVD to sell in US, copy a EU DVD to sell in EU, etc) or you can't. Zoning is there to artificially create scarcity in different regional markets, giving the ability to selectively inflate prices (or rip us off in the UK, as we tend to say). And NTSC/PAL has nothing to do with DVD which is recorded in plain MPEG-2 format.
   
   

   Phillip.

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5.  

   Re: What bizarre reasoning you have

   

   Mike (profile), Jan 16th, 2002 @ 8:02pm

   
   

   The idea is that most piracy of films for the US take place in other regions, and are then sold around the world. By making it impractical for a piracy shop in Asia to make copies of American DVDs, it cuts down on a lot of piracy.
   
   Also, it's more difficult, since instead of just having a single source to make all those copies you need ones from various regions.
   
   And, the NTSC/PAL point had to do with videotapes, not DVD.

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6.  

   um

   

   chris, Sep 12th, 2007 @ 4:35pm

   
   

   I had thought that most dvd players that you can buy these days were multi zoned anyway, meaning that its only a problem for people watching films on laptops, i travel around a bit and pick up dvds (mainly old ones) from various differnet zones but watching it on the laptop is hard to do as its only got so many before it locks you mentioned that you can hack and sort this problem any tips?

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