RCE and alternatives?
 

I am new to this forus, so please forgive me if this has been asked before.

Surely as an alternative to the companies putting all the technology in-place to prevent R1 DVDs being available in other parts of the world, why don't they just make the content the same across the regions? That way, everyone sees the same content/extras and this eliminates all the hassle all round. It may be a simplistic view, but it is just so common-sense to me, that I cannot understand why this has not been though about...

[Just curious]
 

What <i>is</i> the intent of the studios?

How does your suggestion align with that intent?

The purpose of RCE from Sony (Columbia) perspective is to protect their cinema receipts in Europe as most of the films with it on have the same extras when they come out here. The problem arises because some films may come out to buy on DVD in the US (after 4 - 6 months from theatrical release) before the UK cinema release. An example being A Knight Tale which does have RCE.
Therefore rather than spend around £15 for 2 people to go to the cinema here I can buy the US DVD for around the same price.

The solution would be for simaltaneous worldwide cinema releases, which is unlikely because of promotion issues, and tying in to holiday periods etc unless its something like Star Wars Ep2.

There are also rights issues to consider - many films are distributed by different companies in different regions/countries. Region coding is designed to enable them to all put their snouts in the trough, regardless of how crap the DVD release is (this is a particular problem in Australia where quite a few distributors such as Rainbow and Siren feel it's quite acceptable to dump VHS masters onto DVD).

Fortunately, virtually every well-educated consumer outside R1 has long since gone and bought themselves multi-region machines.