The region coding system is a serious annoyance to all film connoisseurs. Most DVD's have a code embedded into them to prevent them from being played in other parts of the world. For example the US is region 1, all of our DVD's as well as DVD players are encoded for this specific region. If you try to play a DVD from China or England (respectively regions 2 and 6) they will not work on your DVD player, unless you have the elusive region free dvd player. Naturally the reverse is true, and American DVD will not work in any countries that live outside of the region 1 zone. Naturally most countries produce their most popular titles in various region codes so that they can be exported to other countries.

The problems arise when you want something that isn't popular. If you are an American like me, a lot of wonderful forign films and tv shows are simply not available for purchase in the region one coding. While the US is great at exporting out films to every corner of the earth, we arn't too good when it comes to importing them.

When you step off the beaten path and manage to fall in love with an awesome Korean Drama like Princess Hours (or Goong as it is called in Korea), or find yourself enthralled in the guilty pleasure that is The Tribe you inevitably find yourself in a sticky situation. If you buy the DVD's and do not have a region free player you are stuck searching for codecs so that you can play the DVD on your computer, and only on your computer. Or you can illegally download, which is dangerous on several fronts, not only is there the possibility of viruses you have to worry about the coppers getting you.

The worst thing about the region coding system is that I can see no reason for it's existence. Did some executive actually sit down and say to themselves "I only want people from my area to buy this, screw those guys over there. I only wanted a limited audience." I can kind of understand why countries like China, who have very strict control over what their people can watch would want the region coding. It would act like a line of protection against rebelious outside thoughts, I don't like it but I get it.

What I'm saying here is can't we all just get along. How about a little world unity. If everyone stopped putting codes into their DVD's then just about any DVD player could play them. When you begin respecting another cultures art and people then it's a lot easier to have peace and understanding between cultures.

Ok I'm not saying that removal of the region codingsystem will cause world peace, but it sure as hell couldn't hurt. If nothing else it would make for a lot of happy film snobs out there. Able to buy DVD's online from the far corners of the earth and be able to watch it on a televison with friends and family, not cramped in front of a computer screen.