Submitted by: arnesr
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13834.html
Time Warner's home video division has changed DVD's region coding scheme to make it even harder to play movies sold in one territory in another. Other DVD distributors are expected to follow suit. Sony subsidiary Columbia Tristar has already agreed to do so. |
According to a leaked internal Warner Home Video document
posted on Web site DVD Debate, the company began shipping
discs with an "enhanced" region code at the start of this month.
"This program is a response to the unauthorised practice of altering DVD video hardware players so that they bypass the region code requirements for DVD," the document states. "This is happening on a more frequent basis in many territories, and retailers are openly marketing these non-complying players with names such as 'region-free' and 'multi-zone'."
That's a reference to players from South-East Asia which are
nominally coded for a specific region but can easily be recoded to play DVDs from any territory. ...
Warner's enhancement "allows the disc to detect if a hardware player is region specific (as required by the CSS licensing agreement), or if it has been manufactured or altered in the market to be 'region free'. If the player is 'region free' the [Region Code Enhancement] will not allow the disc to play the program material. It will instead display a message on the television advising the
consumer that the machine is not authorised to play this disc", says the leaked memo.
Give it a couple of days? weeks? before the solution will be available
