Quote:
Originally Posted by bbusybookworm
Nitpick - Any DVD player in the USA
The region system affects those of us outside the US most usually as most movie's and TV shows are released in the US first and months later in the rest of the word and sometimes never.
And I'm in Region 2. those in Region 3 & 4 have it worse off as it takes even longer and fewer make it there.
It cuts the other way for people who like foreign films, as most of those don't get released for R1 or R2, so you need to buy a region free player which in many places is not available or requires a hack.
And DVD drives on computers? they are region coded and allow a maximum of 3-4 changes before you are stuck on whichever region disc you last watched. While there are workarounds, you should not have to do that to play a disc you purchased.
With Mobi, while you are limited to PID's at least there is no limit to how many times you change the PID in the database.
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There was one shop that sold Mobipocket format at a discount and they went under. Any books purchased there are now locked into whatever PID(s) the files have.
As for DVD players, there are some that will allow unlocking the region code. I have a Phillips and before that another Phillips. They both allow me to have it set to region 0 so it plays all regions. So I can play region 2. The older player did output PAL format with PAL DVDs and NTSC with NTSC DVDs. Don't know about the newer one as it upscales to 1080i and doesn't matter the original format. And you can get DVD players in the UK that will play NTSC DVDs.
I know there is software available that will allow you to play DVDs on your computer regardless of the region.
But, out of the box and for the average person, DRM is an issue. DRM locks you in a specific place. Lets say you have a Gen3 and the screen breaks and you decide not to get one. As an average person, your choices are to get another Gen3, a V3, or an iLiad Book Reader if you want to keep your content. Otherwise, you buy something else like a Sony 505 or 700 and lose what you have and start over. DRM is supposed to be preventing pircay. But all it does is prevent the average user from sometime having access to legall purchased content.