Region 4 has the curious distinction of being divided into two distinct parts two parts:  the English speaking Oceania countries of Australia and New Zealand (DVD's for both countries are generally manufactured in Australia) and the Spanish-speaking countries of Central America. 

The editions released in Australia and NZ are therefore quite different in terms of cover etc and are recognised as such by DVD distributors.  It would therefore make sense to reflect this and provide for the correct designation in the the drop down section in PROFILER.

Quoting Fogeltje:

Quote:
Isn't that what 'locality' is for? Using locality you can distinguish between the different Region 4 releases.

Yes it is!

richardw, as mentioned above, we use Locality to distinguish between different areas of a region. For R4 in your part of the world there are Australia and New Zealand. If others are needed, you have to put in a Feature request, providing the rating system for the requested country/area.

Quoting skipnet50:

Quote:
Australia and NZ are not unique in the world in this regard.

Skip

Huh

Did you mean in the regard, that they are part of a DVD Region? Otherwise you entirely lost me on that one.

Achim:

He is refering to Locality issues is he not  and that NZ and Australia are in the same REGION but different localities. That is NOT unique in the world. What's to not understand?

Skip

K

Skip

Even a bigger distinction exists in R2, not because of all the European countries and languages, but because of the Japanese discs in different video format: NTSC. That does not seem to create any serious problems... (not that I support this Hollywood divide and conquer strategy).

Quoting Staid S Barr:

Quote:
Even a bigger distinction exists in R2, not because of all the European countries and languages, but because of the Japanese discs in different video format: NTSC. That does not seem to create any serious problems... (not that I support this Hollywood divide and conquer strategy).

And New Zealand and Australia are PAL while the South American countries are (I understand) NTSC.  This causes a lot of 'fun' when a Region 1 disc carries a Region 4 coding as well but is only for South America.  I can recall one of my contributions ruffling feathers on the "old" Profiler when I pointed out that out - "Locaility" did not mean a thing on that occasion!

I am right with you on "the Hollywood divide and conquer strategy"!  For five years - covering the period from when the shiny dsc first arrived on the market until it entered mainstream - I compiled and edited the NZ news DVD page and took a consistent edtorial line that consistently attacked the artificial nature of region coding and the ignorance of those in the Hollywood studios who conceived it as a means of 'protecting' the differing release dates around the world of movies to the big screen. 

With a background in sales and marketing, I could not comprehend how the so-called marketers of the Hollywood studios thought they could control something by technical means when the internet gave consumers the ability to not only shop worldwide, but download programs that would crack all their codes! 

Some years ago - about 1 year after DVD hardware really hit the market in volume -  I talked with a sales assistant in the big dutyfree store in Changi Airport and asked him if the models they were selling were region-coded.  He said "heck no, not now.  If they were not chipped, we wouldn't sell any at all."

Soon after, regional coding became essentially irrelevant in New Zealand  - virtually all DVD hardware except that in computer drives sold in New Zealand and (surprisingly) Sansui players - and, Australia  now multi-region so we can buy and play discs from anywhere - if we want to. 

As for lumping Region 3 into something called 'East Asia' , well words fail me.  Tell the Chinese, the Malays, The Thais, The Filipinos etc that they are East Asians and watch this space!  When it comes to "the shiny disc" most of the people in those countres don't care anyway about "regions" .... if they know what thy are!  I won't elaborate other than to say who is going to argue at $1 or $2 bucks  (!)but it makes my point about their artificial nature .... and how the Hollywood studios see the world!

Well, I think I have made my point in supporting your posting.  Coding is now, of course,  really a used as a marketing tool. as its weakness in combatting "piracy" has been shown to be useless at best.

Cheers!

Richard