Anders Johansson wrote:
On Sunday 19 March 2006 13:08, Kevanf1 wrote:
The cynic in me says that this has been done as a way to stop people [in Europe] getting cheap hardware from the US.
I can think of many words to describe US technology, but cheap would not be one of them. Most US companies have their stuff manufactured in the far east now, to get away from the high cost of production (of course the same is true for Europe)
A similar thing as the DVD region coding.
That had nothing to do with prices, it was all about timing. Movies premiered in cinemas much later than in the states, and they didn't want people buying them on DVD before they had their run in the theatres
It would be nice if that regional coding had an expiry date. For example a DVD could be played anywhere 2 years after release. This would accomodate such market protection, while allowing full use of purchased DVDs. As it stands now, what happens when someone buys several DVDs and moves to a different area? If they move from Europe to North America, they'll likely have to buy a new player and won't be able to play their movies.