HD DVD and Blu-ray head for a regional lockout mess

October 2, 2006

In an aim
for the studios to control sales of their titles around the world, Regional Playback Control (RPC) was first introduced to the market with the launch of the DVD format to split the world up into 6 different geographic regions, along with one for special purposes (such as aircraft) and a spare. The purpose was to allow titles be sold on DVD within one or more designed regions without consumers from the other regions where the titles are not being sold (such as titles still in the cinema) from being able to play these titles imported from a different region where the titles are available.

Unfortunately for consumers, the region locks also
effectively prevents them from buying their titles from a different region where the titles are cheaper. However, with many manufacturers offering 'backdoors' to disable region protection, stores selling modified players that no longer enforce region control to even some manufacturers distributing players region-free out of the box, it seems at this stage that region control is no longer effective. But this has not stopped the next generation disc formats taking it on: Blu-ray is already capable of enforcing its own version known as BD Regional Playback Control (BD RPC). Unlike the DVD standard, Blu-ray will split the globe up into three designated regions.

Region
coding for HD DVD is still being explored by the DVD Forum and for the time
being, existing HD DVD drives are considered "region-free". As the big studios are unlikely
going to have RPC restrictions on Blu-ray without any RPC control over the
competitor, HD DVD is
almost certainly going to have RPC locking at some stage. With the current series of HD DVD players lacking RPC support, it is unclear at this time whether this will be provided as a firmware update, if players before a certain date be exempt from RPC, how many regions HD DVD will have or worse still if new RPC restricted movies will only play on upcoming RPC locked HD DVD players. Thanks to ROPC for letting us know about this news:

Few efforts in the history of DVD have been as controversial or proven as futile as Regional Playback Control (RPC). Justified as necessary protection in a free-for-all world, condemned as yet another shackle of capitalist oppression and circumvented at every turn, RPC is now the latest problem for next generation Blu-ray Disc (BD) and HD DVD.

(further down the article)

It's against this backdrop that optical storage architects have decided to again embrace RPC and incorporate renovated versions into Blu-ray Disc (BD) and HD DVD. Employing similar curbs to its DVD predecessor, BD Regional Playback Control (BD RPC) portions up the world differently, reducing the number of regions from eight to three (see chart) and helps pacify some past dissenters, especially Japanese and Korean audiences yearning to see movies at the same time as those in North America. It's a good bet, however, that not everyone will be thrilled by this benevolence.

Rival HD DVD is trickier. Although video players and drives have been on the market for many months, the DVD Forum has only just now begun exploring the mechanisms and policies necessary to implement HD DVD RPC. This delay, aided by tightlipped promoters, has led to the conceit that HD DVD is somehow "region-less." But, hopefully, the reality that HD DVD RPC will eventually be on the way won't come as a shock. After all, it's inconceivable for the big studios to require RPC for BD without demanding it of its competitor.

The full article can be read on EMediaLive here.

In my opinion, with the movie industry fighting as hard as they can against piracy, never mind trying to persuade consumers to go HD, they really should just forget about their infamous Regional Playback Control altogether. For example, if a consumer decides to buy a movie from another region because it is not available in their own area, this is still better for the movie industry than if the person decided to download it illegally from a file sharing network, knowing that this is the only way to get it. From what I can see, if the manufacturers and studios do succeed in implementing a very difficult to break RPC locking system, then they will be effectively giving another good reason for consumers to not upgrade to a HD player.

Source: EMediaLive