When I first heard about DVD technology, I was pretty excited. 9GB on a single CD-sized disc seemed pretty cool. Having video on it seemed just like any other application of this technology… you got space, so put something there. What I thought was cool is that we’d be able to jump to any area at a time (like CDs), and that there could be lots of extra information along with the video. Listen to it in a different language, have subtitles in 10 languages – cool.

Well, imagine my disappointment when I first got “The Matrix” on DVD. English only. What? Why on earth would they put only one language on it? Can subtitle files be that big? Then I was introduced to the utterly stupid system known as regional codes. Region codes were invented so that the movie studios could keep their current business model of releasing a film much later in other countries, by coding a DVD to work only with a certain coded DVD player. The idea is that in each region of the world, you can only obtain DVDs and players of a certain code. Why they have this business model is beyond me (it’s certainly not a logistical limitation). How they thought this had any chance in the world of actually being effective, is even further beyond me (wait, not it’s not, these people also fought VHS…). When I lived in Guatemala, I could rent DVDs at the local video rental store before they had hit cinemas in the u.s. let alone in Guatemala.

Region coding is such a horrible idea – it’s like programmers who think all text is ASCII (or who think there’s an 8-bit ASCII). When I watch movies with my wife’s family, many times we’ll have Spanish subtitles turned on. Everyone can enjoy the original voices (Mexican/Western dubbing is atrocious), as well as get clarity on parts they might not understand. Well, of course, under this system, that’s impossible. Also, my family doesn’t use Spanish at all, but they live in Guatemala. Half of the hardware/DVDs available (well, nearly everything in the retail market) won’t work on their equipment. Fortunately pirate sales are all over ($2 for a DVD!) and have region encoding removed.

I got the “Tonari no totoro” DVD, but guess what? Fox thought “who needs Japanese audio?” and left us only with a horrible English dub. So much for enjoying their product. But I could always get a foreign version with English subs and original audio… oh wait, but that’s region 2, so I won’t buy it. So much for the business model. One exception I did notice: “Dr. Strangelove (Or How I Learned To Stopped Worrying And Love The Bomb)“ (Special Edition) has 7 languages, including Spanish and Korean. *That's* how DVDs should be made.

To make things worse, the geniuses who invented the DVD virtual machine, thought it’d be cool to have “Prohibited User Operations”. This allows the designer of a DVD to decide that you can’t switch subtitles, audio tracks, or jump to a different chapter/title. I just received Lost in Translation DVD from Netflix. When you start to play it (and after the useless and annoying FBI warning), a screen comes up saying “You may fast forward to the menu”. Excuse me? Fast forward? What is this, a tape? Sure enough – they disabled all skipping, *forcing* the user to watch their previews (even at a high scan speed). On the player I was using, going to another title (there are 4 or 5 of them before the menu) takes the playback out of scan mode and sticks it back into play. So here I am, in 2004, repeatedly hitting “Fast Forward” to get to the menu of the DVD. Sigh. On the bright side, most DVD ripping software (to make copies) removes prohibited user ops, so anyone with a pirated copy might not have to sit though this.

What a strange world it is when pirates actually get things better of than those of us who pay. The MPAA blames the Internet as the reason why people pirate. Perhaps there’s another reason (hint: Regardless of what the RIAA says, pissing customers off is not good for business).