Film is Pwn

There are very few things in my life that upset me – I am a pretty laid back fellow.  But there is one thing that angers me more than anything else.  It makes my heart race, my blood boil, and even makes me want to speak in a volume above the generally accepted social norm.  That thing is DVD region coding, the greatest injustice of our time.  For those of you not familiar with DVD region coding, let me explain.  Before I do that however, I want your word that you won’t grab the nearest blunt object and run off to the homes of DVD industry executives.  You promise?  Good, here goes:

DVDs have what is called a region code (numbered 0-8 although 7 is not currently used and 8 applies only to international venues).  Code 0 is great, it means the DVD can be played in any DVD player.  After that is where the true horror begins… the codes limit you to using only DVDs in your region:

REGION 1 — USA, Canada
REGION 2 — Japan, Europe, South Africa, Middle East, Greenland
REGION 3 — S.Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Parts of South East Asia
REGION 4 — Australia, New Zealand, Latin America (including Mexico)
REGION 5 — Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa
REGION 6 — China
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