DVD region code blocks British Prime Minister from enjoying Obama's gift
By Darren Murph 
posted Mar 20th 2009 5:43AM
posted Mar 20th 2009 5:43AM
[Via techdirt, image courtesy of AmericaLives]
posted Mar 20th 2009 5:43AM
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Many standard DVD players in the UK and elsewhere in Europe can play region 1 source material. In fact, on Amazon.co.uk they have a section devoted to region 1 DVDs.
I'm sure PM Brown was able to figure it out :-)
Brand name DVD players are still region locked. Do you think the british prime minister has the latest Sony BD player or a cheap chinese import from the local supermarket that cost 20 quid? With the Sony, you are pretty much screwed. Because that company takes the region code dead serious.
"a gift of a pen holder, carved from the timbers of HMS Gannet, built in Chatham shipyards 130 years ago; timber from its sister vessel, HMS Resolute, was used in the Oval Office desk."
I could care less if it was made of extinct wood extracted by pygmies using OJ Simpson's Jock strap. It's still just a pen holder, and it's still just a desk. I don't understand the fascination people have with this crap.
@Andir: It's called symbolism. The HMS Resolute was involved in anti-slavery patrols and Obama is, you know, black. It's a thoughtful gift which reflects the progress made by African Americans since the end of slavery.
A bunch of DVDs that won't even play in the PMs DVD players is just shockingly thoughtless. The White House is stock full of historic artifacts and the best they can come up with is a boxed set of DVDs from Best Buy?
@wjousts:
"A bunch of DVDs that won't even play in the PMs DVD players is just shockingly thoughtless." – and therefore utterly, utterly brilliant. Brown has a serious case of the try-too-hards without any actual brain, and Obama clearly thinks he's not worth the time of day. I hope it was a calculated snub; I may not be the Great O's biggest fan, but it'd still be nice to think he agrees with the rest of us that our PM is a talentless dick.
"The double irony"
Triple Irony i suppose would be the vast majority of the movies were written/directed/starred and produced all by Brits...
@Hawkman: As much as you might dislike Brown, I think when world leaders meet, a snub tends to be seen as a snub of the whole country, not just the PM. As a Brit living in the states who likes Obama (and is no fan of Brown), I was embarrassed by the whole thing.
Actually, Obama is half-black. But most people perceive a half-black (half-white) person to be black anyways.
And yes--a very thoughtful and symbolic gift on Brown's part. Obama's... not so much. Surely one of his team could've put a little more effort into researching the gift, and at least (if they were going to stick with the DVD idea) throw in a $100 US-region DVD player.
@Mike P
Actually, he's not even half.
He's 50% White, 43.5% Arab, 6.5% Black.
I thought most DVD players allowed you to change your region at least 5 times.
@andir:
"I don't understand"
That's correct, you don't.
I would have given him region free blu-ray ripped .mkv's from TPB
Much more thoughtful... and more HD'er
@Vanillacide
It is a bit lame to reply to the first poster, just so your post can be 2nd in the list. Your post had nothing to do with what you replied to.
It's still just a pen holder.
Man, I'm a fairly big Obama supporter but I have to say it was mortifyingly embarassing for Brown to have given Obama a pretty awesome gift and for us to have given him...unplayable DVDs.
I don't think it was meant as a snub, I can only presume that the new administration isn't sure what kinda stuff it can be giving away from the White House yet. And mostly I think it was just that they didn't realize that Brown would show up with such a well thought out gift.
It's not every day that a foreign head of state shows up with a gift nearly as thoughtful, so it's kind of hard to expect the US to have known in advance that they should think up a similarly great gift.
The DVDs are pretty pathetic regardless of what Brown brought though. *sigh*
How is that a great gift. "Here you go. A long time again we gave you guys a really cool desk you can't use because it is one of a kind, so just look at it. This is the pen holder that was suppose to have come with it. Sorry about the 4 or 5 decade delay."
sudo apt-get install regionset
And thats why i love Bownbuntu
Every DVD player and DVD drive in my house is region-free. I frequently travel overseas and like to buy DVDs of local musicians/bands/groups, and can't be bothered worrying about the latest Morning Musume disc being region 2 or BoA disc being region 3.
Region coding was doomed to failure from the beginning. Studios should remove the unnecessary coding because it is so easy to bypass. Then again, thanks to DeCSS, copy protection is also unnecessary since it is so easy to bypass too.
ROFL.
HAHA I couldnt help but laugh myself. Why would a redcoat want to watch american classics?
You know, it's funny, I made this joke when the British press were pissing and moaning about the US' gifts being lame... I said "yeah, they're really gonna be pissed when they get home and it won't play in their DVD player due to region coding!" To me it was a joke because I'm sure they can come up with region-free equipment... heh. oh well.
Fock the Queen. And the Browns. Gordon and Mallok. I'm glad Obama returned the bust of that Empire loving Churchill.
That article (not this one, the source) sounds like a rubbish joke to me. No Dvd player sold in the last 5 years in the UK is incapable of playing region 1 DVDs.
Almost all medium to high end DVD players are locked to Region 2 in the UK. It's mainly the cheap ones that are made region free (and even they are locked originally).
i cant remember the last time i saw a locked region 2 dvd player here
+1
Another nail in the coffin for optical media
Can we just have a moments silence for the billions of wasted hours trying to get your freakin
DVD-R/X/Y/Z/-/+ to work on your mates DVD player.
It all descended down from a technical laser/coating-whatever problem to
'Is your DVD attractive to the DVD player, even then it might recovering from a recent incompatabilty and not looking for any laser-pit relationships right now'
This is about companies' stupid DRM and craps, not about optical media. -_-"
However the vast majority of players need a hack to become multi-region. Some of those hacks are very easy (code entry) but they still do not play multi region out of the box.
Wow. You "download only" morons will go to any length to sound the death knell for physical media.
They're doing the same thing with digital. You can't buy certain things from online stores (iTunes for example) from other regions thanks to international licensing agreements. Its the same reason why dvds and blu-ray are region encoded, but its a bit dated since most major companies and many of the independents could sell their work internationally on their own anyway.
YOu'll find it funny when your DRM-riddled downloads are unusable if the company decide to close its doors.
Does engadget not now what purpose the dvd regions serve?
Say a dvd costs 20$ new.
Now you want to sell it in some poor third world country as well. Who there can afford to pay that price? No-one, so you set the price at 3$ instead.
And now you need a system to prevent people from buying up all the dvd's there, to resell them in richer countries.
I know that the British economy is doing badly but it's not quite a third world country yet.
So effectively you're saying we in the "Developed" world are getting ripped off because if the studios can afford to sell it for $3 why should we pay almost 7 times that.
Did anyone in the DRM industry consider that if we provide it for the same price everywhere we will increase our market penetration and abolish piracy because at $3 its not worth some guy in china ripping it off.
@Aaron
Well, there are already rickshaws here in central London for tourists from Region 1...
Yep, and they charge about 20 times as much as they do in India.
So I can't go & buy a Region2 disk in Lesotho (where I expect they're not £12 each) and play it in a UK locked player?
Madness.
I fully expect Brown threw the lot in the bin and fired up some British classics like Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings or Trainspotting anyway.
The dollar sign comes before the number.
@Hussain: No, we're not getting ripped off, we rip the 3rd world countries off. That's why they can't afford to pay 15 pounds for a DVD.
best to buy cheap players from china, they will play about anything
Even Crysis? :P
Yes. Even Crysis.
they even play betamax
Even the new format discussed in RvB?
When it comes to technology, there are very few times when living is Australia has its perks -this is one of them! Most players are sold region free and it is legal and quite often free to have locked players unlocked when purchasing.
Then again, nobody gives a shit about Australia... ;)
I do.
@loocas are you kidding in Risk the best place to own is Australia but only when you also own Indonesia(choke point FTW!).