In the department of “isn’t it kind of late for that?” is this little tidbit. HD DVD backers had touted the fact that HD DVD discs will be region free. This would have been an advantage the HD DVD format had over the BD format, which does include region incoding, to my chagrin. Now it looks like the DVD Forum is looking to add region encoding to HD DVD discs. The “feature” is dubbed Regional Playback Control (RPC) and the DVD Forum is in talks with Hollywood studios to hammer out details.

One problem is that current Toshiba HD DVD players do not look for RPC on HD DVD discs. Does this mean that current HD DVD players will be the only region-free players available once region-aware players come to market?

HD DVD to Intro Region Coding