No region codes for HD DVD?
The "DVD Forum Japan Conference 2005" is being held in Japan today, and because of the time difference, it's already over. The primary topic of the meeting was, as expected, HD DVD. Plenty of information is emerging from the conference, such as the steps towards finalizing standards that we won't bother you with (though they did announce "HD DVD-RR," a sort of HD DVD version of DVD-RAM). But one statement from Toshiba Digital Media Networks' Hisashi Yamada was particularly intriguing: "We've gotten a variety of opinions about region controls. Even in the Steering Committee, they are extremely unpopular; we decided to not put them in. HD DVD probably won't contain any region playback controls." Of course there's still that "probably" in there, but it's nice to see someone up there realizes how ridiculous DVD region codes really are.
