DVDs Obama Sent British PM Don't Work

Telegraph UK:

While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies - including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington.

Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem. The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen.

Read the whole story: Telegraph UK

Comments

[Mayoyo]

oh well...too bad!!!

[ckinsobe]

Quick! Call Q (or M) they must have a gadget that works!

[voltage356]

It's Q they would need to call up and fix the problem LMAO.

[inthecolour]

lmao!

God, this just keeps getting more and more embarassing.

[Shzron1946]

Not nearly as embarrassing or duplicitous as the last eight years...

[huffyfan2]

Only if you care about petty things, I don't.

[Sutungpo]

Most of you miss the point. Gordon, insert the dvd's into your laptop drive, click the icon for VLC (don't have it? It's free at sourceforge.org), enjoy! A computer WILL play all dvds with the right program.

This has NOTHING to do with drm. It's due to the fact that there are 2 separate sets of tv technology at work, PAL and NTSC. American tvs use a different technology from English ones. If Gordon is technologically deficient enough not to be able to figure this out it might pay his office to keep it to themselves.

[Birdman]

Well that is the PAL and NTSC format is an issue, but there is also the issue with the region DVD's sold in different countries only work on machines sold in the same country.

[cinesimon]

Pretty much all players and screens across the globe handle both PAL and NTSC since the 1990s

[marxmarv]

Doesn't matter. DVDs store compressed pixel data that is uncompressed into a framebuffer, which is then read out to the screen in a separate operation. DVDs, unlike laser discs and videotapes, do NOT contain a time-varying signal intended to mimic the video signal sent to the display device. Frame rate has exactly nothing to do with this beyond the possibility of a little flickering. Licensed DVD players are required by the terms of the license to respect the region code on the disc and refuse to play discs not coded for the player's designated region.

Mind you, in EU countries, region coding might be illegal.

[ctheokas]

Okay, so here's what you do: Go to Amazon.co.uk. Buy a REGION FREE DVD player. Attach it to your television. Plug it in. Play DVD. It'll cost about 30 quid. If they can't figure that out, they shouldn't be allowed to run a country.

[bpress]

So much for how well DRM works. You cannot give a DVD media gift to someone in another region. They have divided the world into 6 regions.

[chocolatecity]

It was a lame gift anyway. You give a head of state DVD's. I support the president, but I must call this a goof.

[canuck4barack]

That's what happens when you regift!

[HerbTee]

Did it ever occurred to you that PM Brown may be a movie buff who likes old movies and our President was only accomodating the PM's hobby with an appropriate gift? I am sure the President's staff does research on these things beforehand, i.e. a visiting dignitary's favorite colors, likes and dislikes of food, allergies, hobbies, favorite things to do, what sports they like, etc. Stop being spitefully and blissfully ignorant.

[poco767c]

Buy a multiregion DVD player cheapskates.

[Cinnamonape]

Ah...yet again the Murdoch owned Telegraph is snarking at our President, wonder why? I'm sure that Gordon Brown actually does have access to a middle range VCD player that plays both formats. One would hope that he doesn't use one of those cheap Chinese ones that doesn't have this facility. Or that he doesn't know where the format mode switch is.

Have to think...th­ough.

Notice the article doesn't actually say that Brown COULDN'T play the VCD's. It simply says the first thing that happened when he wanted to play them. So perhaps Brown simply "switched" the mode and watched the VCD's in the American format. Of course, it wouldn't be the least interesting as a story if they had said THAT!

[SangZe]

Yes. You can get a multi-region player for less than $100.00 U.S.

[howcome]

Some special Olympics guy must have handled this

[jazabelz]

Shut the f up!

[SoccerNana]

That was not nice. Please stop.

[Somali4Obama]

I knew when President Obama was elected there would be people who would see faults at every turn. But, I would never have imagined it to be this redundant. What I would suggest for you to do is look in the mirror, and reflect on your life. From the looks of it, you seem rather deprived and lonely.

[sasson]

On one hand, these sort of gifts are silly formalities which originated in a time long before our own. On the other hand, they are still formalities. It kind of reminds me of how annoyed I was when I had to write thank you notes to my relatives when I had already thanked them in person.

This obviously had nothing to do with our President, but either some one in State or desiree Rogers did mess up.

[Charmed]

So he needs to buy a American made DVD player....­.geez

[sasson]

And an adapter.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

Actually a lot of dvd players can easily be made region free by inputting a code on the remote at a certain screen. You can also buy region free players. It's not that hard to find out the info on this. It's been known for close to a decade on how to watch UK dvds on an American dvd player. I have several dvds from various places around the world that can play on my American dvd player. You just input a code on the remote and bam you can change the region to Zero.

This region changing to another region is built into a lot of dvd players since they just change the region code for each region at the factory before being shipped out to various places around the world.

[bigsioux]

Can HP do a poll for "Dumbest F ing Story of the Day." Today would be especially competitive.

[aliceinks]

Better send Hillary over the pond with a Reset button..

Most thoughtless gift ever gave by a sitting president . Jeez

[bedfordny]

Let's not forget the 'gift' we gave to the Iraqi people courtesy GWB.

[HerbTee]

Did it ever occurred to you that PM Brown may be a movie buff who likes old movies and our President was only accomodating the PM's hobby with an appropriate gift? I am sure the President's staff does research on these things beforehand, i.e. a visiting dignitary's favorite colors, likes and dislikes of food, allergies, hobbies, favorite things to do, what sports they like, etc. Stop being spitefully and blissfully ignorant.

[Cambridge9]

I took some old VCRs over to my sister and they didn't work. English electrical is 210 while ours is 110/220. So, just like a car needs the steering wheel on the right side of a car, so Mr, Brown will need a US payer and an adapter if he intends to use a plug in player.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

No he doesn't need a US player. Most dvd players you can change the region seting on either by going inside the unit and flipping a switch, use the remote to input a code to access a region setting menu that you can disable the region checking permently, or you use the buttons on the console instead of the remote to access this menu.

[Cinnamonape]

Almost all European DVD players have this facility..­.I will bet you that Browns' did...and the Telegraph simply left off that part of the story.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

Ours is 110-120. A lot of electrical devices these days have a voltage switch on them because the unit itself isn't taking 110 or 220 the actual unit itself requires 3 or 12 volts to run. You have a step down transformer that makes that 110 or 220 into the actual voltage the unit needs.

Step up transformers cause the voltage when it leaves the power plant to be several hundred thousand so it can transfer to your house where another step down transformer turns that into 110 or whatever your country has then the devices in your house may turn that down further with their own step down trasnformers.

What the hell do you think the box on your power cords for a lot of little devices like cell phones do? Those are the step down transformers in the cases of vcrs etc the step down transformer may be in the unit itself rather then the end or middle of the power cord.

[Cambridge9]

Please don't swear at me. I live in the wilds of nowhere and cell phones and broadband don't work here so I know nothing about them As far as step down transformers I had to buy a separate step-up/down transformer when I took my small appliance home because of the difference of the electrical power. However, the VCRs still didn't work.

[MESGAIN26]

I GUESS HE NEEDS TO BUY A AMERICAN MADE DVD PRODUCT THEN HUH ??