After the attention the IT Crowd gathered from the posts on Slashdot, I was one of many who watched the show via the website, and loved it. Channel 4 then removed access for users "outside the UK" which makes sense from a bandwith perspective. So no more IT Crowd for me after Episode 2
But then, I read the announcement that the IT Crowd is being released on DVD! Awesome! Now I can watch the show in the US....except that the DVD is REGION 2 ENCODED. Why would the producers of the DVD choose to do this? Because of this stipulation, my only recourse to watch the show would be to pirate it, which is illegal...but I have no legal path to take. (Aside from, I suppose, buying a DVD Player from the UK as well as the DVD, which is a bit extreme).
I understand the basic idea of region encoding and its benefits to show producers, but in this instance, all it does is negate income for the show. I know there are plenty of US citizens who would love to watch the show, and buy the DVD, but not if it won't work in their DVD player. Why not just make the DVD Region-Free?
DVD Region Coding was created by American movie studios to stop us backward nations (ie - the UK) from watching movies on imported American DVDs before the movies are released in our countries at the cinema.
Region Coding has been completely defeated in the UK and with a little knowledge we can buy players and TVs off the shelf that will play any DVD.
All Bush or Alba DVD players are multi-region out of the box and any UK TV can display the American NTSC TV standard as well as our own PAL TV standard.
I doubt it is as easy for you in America to watch our Region 2 DVDs as they will be in PAL format which I doubt your TV sets can display.
Call me bitter but it gives me a slight thrill that this American invention has come back to bite at least one American on their bum.
Heh, don't take it out on me, I might live here but I sure didn't come up with the backwards region encoding idea. I suppose you're right on PAL vs. NTSC, even IF the DVD were regionless. Which means I'd need to rip it through the computer and recompress into an NTSC compatible format, or at least a format that my DVD player can interpret and display (I've got a Phillips which plays AVI & MPG with varying codecs as well as VCDs - it's supposed to be regionless, but I've never actually tried it).
My point is though, why encode the disc to UK only if the majority of the UK has regionless players, why not make the disc regionless? It's not the US that's stopping this pressing of the disc from being regionless (I suppose more than being regionless, it would have multiple region codes, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#Region_codes )
You'll note too, that it can happen that movies are released in the UK first and they don't want to affect sales in the US (see the above Wikipedia link) so we consumers in the US have been on the bitten plenty of times as well.
Of course, those in the US could just grab it via other illegal means, giving no money at all to support the production of the show and would certainly be the path of least resistance, but I'd like to take the legal path and support the show.
Companies that restrict their product have only themselves to blame for loss of revenue.
As you say you could always buy the Region 2 DVD when it comes out and rip it yourself. I think DVD Shrink will let you change PAL to NTSC and removes any region coding. And if you haven't got a multi-region DVD player on your PC DVD Genie will let change the drive's region code as many times as you want.
In the UK we all got to download the episodes for free from the website so I'm thinking it wouldn't be so wrong for you to get hold of copies as long as no one profits from it. If this isn't the case why did we all get it for free?
I love love love this show I was recently in England this summer on holiday from the states and I watched the show and absolutely loved it and i did illegally download them cause there was no other way to view the show. its great great stuff. Ah well.
No offense to the Americans in this forum, but American networks have no sense of humour whatsoever. They'll never be able to do British-style comedy as well as the Brits do. The IT Crowd is 100% Brit-style comedy, so my advice to any American writers is to completely forget about the I.T Crowd and do something from scratch. You'll never be able to imitate the Brits.
Just because we don't do your kind of comedy; and just because the networks wouldn't let us do your kind of comedy; and just because the audience would turn its back on us for doing your kind of comedy; and just because I've gutted my own point here, it does NOT mean we CAN'T do your kind of comedy.
I'm from Canada and you're bang on about not being able to do that type of Comedy. Too subtle or too dark flies right over a lot of people in north america for some reason.
I dont think that the new IT crowd will resemble much the same as the UK's version, as they'll probably have a much higher production value, which isn't always a good thing.
One thing I'm pretty happy about is that "Moss" is coming overseas to do it. I guess that'd spell the end to the UK version though you'd imagine
I am from the U.S., and I love the IT Crowd. Please don't let the U.S. butcher this show. This show is perfect the way it is. Roy, Moss, and Jen (Katherine Parkinson, Richard Ayoade, and Chris O'Dowd) are insanely funny; this is the version that should be sent to the U.S.
Who cares what kind of comedy makes you laugh. The common factor is laughter itself! It binds people together, creates good feelings, and overall makes life better. Who gives a crap if it is made by different people, different ways. Humor develops the same end result. Adding racism and other junk to it simply takes away from it.
To add a relevant note, if you would like to see The IT Crowd but it isn't airing on tv, you can find it on google video if you search for "The IT Crowd episode X" with x being episode numbers 1-6. I encourage to purchase the DVD as I already have after watching all six episodes. Bring the money back to the brilliant minds of the series.
Originally posted by CrankyOldBugger: No offense to the Americans in this forum, but American networks have no sense of humour whatsoever. They'll never be able to do British-style comedy as well as the Brits do. The IT Crowd is 100% Brit-style comedy, so my advice to any American writers is to completely forget about the I.T Crowd and do something from scratch. You'll never be able to imitate the Brits.
Fawlty Towers, anyone?
to be fair to the americans may i bring up 'brighton belles'? the uk version of the golden girls...
so bad... you could tell which episodes they where trying to do (almost a direct copy with us references replaced by uk ones)...
the golden girls rocked... was shocking...
----------------------------------------------------------------------- ~Deputy Sheriff of Stationary Village~ i'm the nuts one! my room and board depends on it... * Hufflepuff of the A-team thread #5 of Des's Sexy Accent Club! * #4 JEAD * #2 of the IT Crowd Fan Club * #1 of the Moss Fan Club
Isn't most DVD burner software regionless? Just burn the copy and play, its yours and you paid for it, so why wouldn't you be allowed to make backups. I do not mean the ones you download, but the ones you actually purchase.
I should mention that I'm Canadian too, so I get both the US networks as well as the BBC and other British channels/shows (can't get Channel4, though...)
There are good American shows, but the style of humour is completely different from British humour. It depends on what you're used to. British humour is an 'acquired taste', as is American humour.
But seriously, there will never be another show that matches "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers. It's incomparable!
Im English and ive lived 1/2 my life in the States. My humor is still very British even though ive kind missed the last 15 years of British TV. A lot of Americans dont get it and it flies right by them,my wife included. I have however been able to keep up somewhat with the use of certain "things like proxy servers and other ways that wont be named. Ali G & The Office were two shows that the Brits did the best even tho the US version of the office has great cast members after seeing the originals it just isnt the same. Ali G was crap on his HBO specials in the USA. His red nose day and original UK series is still top notch in my book. I have all eps of the IT crowd and think its great, to all Brits the US version will not be as good, To all Yanks you may enjoy your version and may never wish to see the originals. Thats OK. I also read they are going to do a US version of Little Britain but i have no idea how they will pull that one off. Finally im so sad i missed the end of Only Fools and Horses, The start and end of Bottom and the live shows, Im upset i missed the Catherine Tate Xmas special. But im happy to say IVE NOW SEEN THEM ALL AND PISSED MYSELF AT ALL OF EM...
PS Sorry USA But Threes Company was no Robins Nest. If i think of any thing else ill let ya's all know.
Sorry i said a bad word! Also i have a peice of crap portable DVD player that cost my dad $30 that will play PAL and NTSC. You can also use DVD shrink to copy a DVD to make it play in your "area" i suggest having Nero 7 to go with that little proggie.
Im don't now how American, but i was see it's at December. I was download from local network FREE!!! Im from Ukranian, and our people understend English humor. Wait for second season. I will seen it, on russian, earlier American. Pirat ...
If you really want to watch it in the US and you can't play the DVD, then go find a bit-torrent or newsgroup and download it. Each episode is about 200MB. I play it on my home theater system using a modded xbox hooked up to my home network.
I heard about the US version of the show -- bad idea!
I think it's a bit cruel to generalise a whole nation, based on what the corporations and networks give us, we're forgetting the actual American people here.
Having said that I REALLY hope they don't do an American IT Crowd!
But just think of the cool stuff America has given us.....
The X-Files, Elvis.... blah, blah, blah... loads of cool stuff!
VVarder it really is a great investment to get a region free DVD player. GOD we LOVE ours!!!! I mean we can pick and choose what DVD is a better version. Like the UK has a WAY better Titanic than we do. BUT more over then that you can get so much stuff that isn't put out over here in the state. Because I guess the powers that be here in the US think good movies and TV are ONLY ones where something is being blown up in order for it to be package and sold here.We order our IT crowed from Amazon UK and it plays perfect along with the Titanic and Dead End! Anyways You can get region free DVD players not that much more than what you would normally pay for region one.I'd never buy a non region free player again!
