Short story: Region codes are bullshit. Long story: I have struggled to really get my point across about how fucking bullshit they are. Because most people (not all) I know didn't tend to watch a lot of foreign and/or indie films, they weren't ever stuck with a bunch of region 1 DVDs, like I am. Also, my impatience led me to ordering several DVDs of movies I loved from the US rather than waiting the however many months or years it would take at that point to finally get a region 4 version in Australia. The other nightmare associated with this is if a not so popular US or international series came out on DVD here, they'd release 1-2 seasons, not factor in people who wanted a box set and were refusing to buy a third of what they wanted because they assumed the box set would come out, until the distribution companies refused to release the remaining seasons due to poor sales of the first seasons. So I might have News Radio seasons 1-2 on region 4 but the rest are all stuck on region 1. And that's JUST my DVD issue.
Enter the BluRay problem: Okay there's only 3 regions but go fuck yourself if you want an actual multi-region BluRay player that works straight out the box. I was on the look out for a region free player for years and refused to pay around 300 bucks for one. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have encountered the same problem with the 89.00 one I picked up today in the hope I wouldn't have to fuck around with any codes or locks. I was wrong, and I knew deep down, I'd be wrong. If you ever see one advertised as "region free or multi-region" it's not entirely a lie, but it's not the absolute truth. It can "support" all the BluRay regions if you're willing to fuck around with it. I don't understand how these are still being manufactured with separate functions to force the player to do what it should just do automatically, but after some bullshitting and realising I have to use HDMI or else (which is fine), the fucking thing decided to work.
I had this argument with a fucker in Harvey Norman many years ago and I refused to accept a DVD player that had to be coded to accept other regions. That player is getting old and I really wanted to replace it one day but I didn't want another DVD player. A BluRay player has more flexibility, at least with most discs, but when it comes to that archaic bullshit region locking issue, you're just not "allowed" to have a machine that works automatically. You've bought a multi-region DVD player that you have to "jimmy" to make it play other BluRay regions, and you have to keep changing it back to make it do what you want depending on the disc. And there's a function you can change countries but that has absolutely nothing to do with the region codes themselves, so even that's password protected for no fucking reason because it seems to make no fucking difference to anything.
I also decided to go back to watching Twin Peaks so either I just use my DVDs like I was doing, or I "jimmy" it back to region B (in this case 2). It's something I have to ultimately live with. I'd like to just watch the BluRays I have without having to muck around with hidden settings they can't just legally fucking give you as part of the actual interface.
You go through this BS and this is all while you're thinking this is what I get for trying to do the right thing and not steal every fucking movie I want. End of the day, physical media has to exist if you want a copy of what you like forever. I would have watched Twin Peaks on Stan but it's gone now, all of it, including the Return, which they had exclusive rights to. And you can think, oh, maybe one day it'll come back. Doesn't mean it won't disappear again.
This is how much shit people go through just to watch a fucking movie. And now I'm finally about to get one particular movie on BluRay, hopefully as it's not locked, I won't have issues dealing with it.
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