Movie Release Dates
<div class="IPBDescription">Promoting piracy</div> So I'm looking around the net this morning like I always do, and I see that Hellboy has been released. Great!, I think to myself, hoping over onto the local cinema website to find out when it's playing.
September.
Five MONTHS.
Now I'm not one to pirate stuff all the time. I will watch movies in the cinema (I prefer to watch them there in fact) and I will buy games. But when a movie is released in the US and isn't released here in Australia for another five months, what do you think a lot of people will do? Download the movie from the web and watch it.
What, if any, is the logic behind delaying a movie like this? Every day it's delayed just makes more people pirate it, people who otherwise would flock to the cinema to see it, thus giving the movie studio MONEY, as oppossed to downloading it for FREE. I want to see it in the cinema, and so do all my friends, but odds are now that one of us will download it instead of waiting 5 months.
Movies being delayed like this are not, I might add, uncommon.
So what does everyone think? Does delaying overseas releases of movies promote piracy, and why do movie studios do it?
September.
Five MONTHS.
Now I'm not one to pirate stuff all the time. I will watch movies in the cinema (I prefer to watch them there in fact) and I will buy games. But when a movie is released in the US and isn't released here in Australia for another five months, what do you think a lot of people will do? Download the movie from the web and watch it.
What, if any, is the logic behind delaying a movie like this? Every day it's delayed just makes more people pirate it, people who otherwise would flock to the cinema to see it, thus giving the movie studio MONEY, as oppossed to downloading it for FREE. I want to see it in the cinema, and so do all my friends, but odds are now that one of us will download it instead of waiting 5 months.
Movies being delayed like this are not, I might add, uncommon.
So what does everyone think? Does delaying overseas releases of movies promote piracy, and why do movie studios do it?
Comments
Hell even taking the obvious piracy out of the equation and you still have the issue of if the movie is crappy and gets bad reviews, everybody will know its crappy by the time it gets to the other country due to there being 5 months of reviews on the thing...
Any one know why they do this?
(recently some one game me a decent explenation of region encoding, so mabey more?)
And there-in lies the basic insanity of holding these movies back: release them here at the same time and most people won't pirate it. They'll do what they actually want to do: go to the cinema. That's why I can't for the life of me figure out why they hold back on release dates: it's a win-win situation to release it here as well!
It would create a much more steady flow. That, and they can gauge more accuratly how well it will run everywhere else, if it didnt go too crash hot in the US, spend less on advertising and stuff in the other coutries to save a buck.
Nowadays people KNOW that it's out in america 5 months before it comes over here and it just annoys them.
Ironically, DVDs originally didn't have regions, nor was the technology going to until the movie industry threw a tantrum about it and the pioneering companies responsible (I remember one of the two was philips) grudgingly introduced it to all future players and DVDs. Hence if you'd bought one of the first DVD players out you can quite happily watch anything you want from anywhere ^^
I'd like to see world-wide releases become the standard across all genres from game to film; this 'regional release' nonsense has gone on far too long and it's from an era long-gone utilised by an industry that's far too used to getting it's own way like some 4 year old brat. Luckily, from the games side of things there have been attempts at worldwide releases already... quite a few got stumped by the sales idiots of the companies involved but there's still been a few successes =D
i'm not sure about the legality of it, but there are ways to get a player to play movies from all regions
it has to deal with the rainy season like he said
Though I can see why some people would do it. I guess this concerns mostly just movie fanatics(like someone who really liked Matrix or LotR).
i'm not sure about the legality of it, but there are ways to get a player to play movies from all regions <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah just buy a region free DVD player... walk into any retail store and ask for one...
The region lock is both on the DVD player and the actual DVD.
For example. A Region 4 DVD can be played on any Region Free DVD Player, but a Region 4 DVD cannot be played on a DVD Player Locked to Region 1.
Actually I think a vast majority of DVD players(*) on the market today are region free.... which makes the whole region business retarded.
Who cares...
*rolls in piles and piles of Region 0, 1, 2 & 4 DVDs*
*Fixed
It was only really put in to shut the movie industry up rather than be a air-tight security system ^^
<b>edit:</b> It'd still be nicer if the movie industry had bothered it's bottom to just release things worldwide though =/
i'm not sure about the legality of it, but there are ways to get a player to play movies from all regions <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah just buy a region free DVD player... walk into any retail store and ask for one...
The region lock is both on the DVD player and the actual DVD.
For example. A Region 4 DVD can be played on any Region Free DVD Player, but a Region 4 DVD cannot be played on a DVD Player Locked to Region 1.
Actually I think a vast majority of DVD players(*) on the market today are region free.... which makes the whole region business retarded.
Who cares...
*rolls in piles and piles of Region 0, 1, 2 & 4 DVDs*
*Fixed <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe that it's still law, or whatever, to have region encoding locked on DVD players when you buy them. But unlocking them is usually a case of a short code or something. I know for a fact that it was illegal to sell my DVD player if it was deregionalised, but the same store we bought did something and made it region free for us, which wasn't illegal, apparently. It's odd.
But as to the whole movie delay... I know, it sucks. What i used to do is import DVDs from the US. If i saw a movie i liked, chances are it would see a US DVD release before it even sees a UK cinema release. I got a whole bunch of movies that were pre-release. It's a lot better than pirating the movies, for obvious reasons, and you get to own the movie way before anyone else in your country does. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Moral of the story? Don't buy brand names.