Buy:Animezine
04-02-02, 03:11 PM
For those of you who can't read Chinese, go to yangshouwen's guide to ordering from www.tcr.com.tw at members.lycos.co.uk/yangshouwen/tcrwalkthrough.html TCR is actually the web presence for Taichung Records, a music/movie retail chain in Taiwan. If you're looking for Taiwanese versions of certain DVD's, this is pretty much the only place where you can buy them (unless if you want to hop on a plane to Taiwan -biggrin- ).
I ordered the Taiwanese DVD versions of Totoro and Kiki's Delivery (both are R3 encoded) because these were produced by Buena Vista Taiwan, not the HK DVD's produced by IVL. If you do a little research at the animeondvd.com forums, you'll find that IVL severly screwed up the video encoding on their versions. IVL also made the bonus discs single-layered instead of double-layered and dropped the original Japanese audio on the second disc (which houses the complete storyboards). The video and sound quality on the Taiwan versions are the same as the more expensive Japanese versions.
OK, let me cut to the chase :D. I ordered both on 3/15 and my credit card was immediately charged. It actually shipped on 3/22, so be careful if your card is near its max limit! They did not email a shipping notification, but you can check your order status on their website. Their email customer service is pretty fast, but they only respond in Chinese. I chose the second shipping option and I received them today. The total was $41 for both. This is definitely a great alternative for anime fans who want Miyazaki's DVD's but can't afford to shell out $40 for 1 Japanese DVD. I'm definitely ordering the rest of his collection from TCR as soon as they come out in Taiwan.
I ordered the Taiwanese DVD versions of Totoro and Kiki's Delivery (both are R3 encoded) because these were produced by Buena Vista Taiwan, not the HK DVD's produced by IVL. If you do a little research at the animeondvd.com forums, you'll find that IVL severly screwed up the video encoding on their versions. IVL also made the bonus discs single-layered instead of double-layered and dropped the original Japanese audio on the second disc (which houses the complete storyboards). The video and sound quality on the Taiwan versions are the same as the more expensive Japanese versions.
OK, let me cut to the chase :D. I ordered both on 3/15 and my credit card was immediately charged. It actually shipped on 3/22, so be careful if your card is near its max limit! They did not email a shipping notification, but you can check your order status on their website. Their email customer service is pretty fast, but they only respond in Chinese. I chose the second shipping option and I received them today. The total was $41 for both. This is definitely a great alternative for anime fans who want Miyazaki's DVD's but can't afford to shell out $40 for 1 Japanese DVD. I'm definitely ordering the rest of his collection from TCR as soon as they come out in Taiwan.