Âé¶¹´«Ã½

Orbiting cinema

17 March 2001

Hollywood studio bosses are being undermined from space, by British company
Techtronics. DVD players on the International Space Station are designed to play
only North American discs. This is due to Hollywood’s “regional coding” that
ensures DVDs can only be viewed where they were bought. But space station crews
will come from countries in four DVD regions outside the US. So NASA hired
Techtronics, which modifies European DVD players to play American discs, and
commissioned similar modifications for the station’s players. This week, the
space shuttle Discovery delivered the kit, so astronauts can now watch movies
from any part of…

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