Few of you will know I am a HUGE fan of NBC's TV series The West Wing which sadly, has now been cancelled after 7 amazing seasons.
I bought the first season a few years ago in HMV in Hong Kong, and now that I have watched all seven seasons, Ive decided to go back to the very first season and start all over again (yes, it is THAT good, trust me). Imagine my horror when both my DVD players, one a Philips and one a local brand, BU BU GAO, refused to play these discs because they were region 2 discs and China has the dubious honour of being the only country with a regional code all to itself (region 6 if anyone is interested!).
The DVD region system was created to restrict software piracy, because of different movie release dates in different parts of the world.
But it is so ironic that I now need to go out into the streets of Shanghai to find a PIRATED version of the West Wing season one, so that I can enjoy it all over again because my legitimate original discs won't play here!
(Incidentally, the system is so well implemented that even my Apple Powerbook which I am using to write this blog will not let me play a region 2 disc, although it does give me the option to change my region to region 2 if I like. I am reluctant though because you can only change region a limited number of times before it locks you out forever!).
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