Originally posted by britboy
If i purchase a DVD from america (and believe me, i often do ), then i've paid for a license to use it. All the companies involved get their fee, and everyone's happy. What difference does it now make if i use that DVD, for which i've paid, in a different country?
Theaters. They do not want you to buy the DVD before they have made all the possible profit out of theater screenings, and pathetically, many movies around the world are realeased in DVD before other parts of the world have had them at the theaters.
Well, that is at least the premise movie companies used. However that is not always the case, since because of region blocks europeans usually suffer from having less extra features added to movies in DVD, and many of them are classics which had their time at the theaters a long time ago but have been rereleased because of the DVD new wave.
In the end, my opinion is that region locks are end up only being there to protect the inefficiency and low quality of overseas DVD authoring companies.
Originally posted by dukestreets
Damn, so if I went to Europe and brought my TiPB, bought a DVD it wouldn't work unless I hacked it?
No, region settings apply diferently for computers. While they are still there, you are usually delivered a non-region-free non-region-locked DVD drive. The first DVD you put inside the player will dictate the region that DVD is to be locked, warning you first of what is about to happen. And you usually have about 5 possible changes in case you screwed up. So you could safely buy a TiPB in Europe, just watch out for the power adaptor's voltage.
Originally posted by Royal Pineapple
is the combo drive on the iBook 500mhz region free?
No. No Apple computer including a DVD is region free un less you hack it changing the firmware. Selling regionfree DVDs is not legal due to the DVD license every DVD player manufacturer has to pay and put up with, for every single DVD player they sell, AFAIK. That is so since 1999 or 2000 or something (that did not apply to the first gen DVD players because I think the license was rewritten at some point later on, including that limitation.)