darkhawk

Don't know how long this will last. It's normally priced at $45-50.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

ktg

Thanks for the heads up.

257 user reviews at Amazon, with an average of 5 stars. Seems like a safe bet.

Perkinsun Dzees

Is this a lot better than THE FAT BOX SET?

Shuman

According to Camel Camel Camel, The Thin Man Collection has been £11 - £12 on Amazon UK since the beginning of April. There seem to be many deeply discounted collections on Amazon UK. The Sherlock Holmes Definitive Collection has been recently discussed here, and there are others.

The Night Gallery Season 1 ("Series 1" in Britain) has been under £11 for months. In that same time it's never been below $30 through Amazon US.

For a stark alternative to Criterion prices (if Cadillac transfers are not essential):

the eleven film Powell and Pressburger Collection has repeatedly been around or under £18 in the last two years (£24 currently),

the six film Jean-Pierre Melville Collection has been around £16 for months,

the seven film Douglas Sirk Collection has been around £16 for months,

The Third Man and two other Carol Reed classics (one unavailable in US, +1 more film) can be had for £14.

Here's a tool to mine for others: www dot jungle-search dot com/UK/

Drake

I bought this box on Amazon last Dec. 9th and paid $23.39.

Trevor

Great films, paid $30 or so a few years ago and it's well worth at least that imo.

Cheato

Good information, but as should always be mentioned in a post like that (for people who may not be as familiar with the ins and out of international DVD purchasing):

1) Movies and TV shows that were not filmed for broadcast on TV in the UK (and most of the rest of the world) will suffer from PAL speedup, which makes them unwatchable for some people (me included).

2) Since they're in PAL, and typically Region 2, you will need a region-free DVD player that can handle PAL, or a Region 2 PAL player (not a Region 2 Japanese player).

smurr05

Shuman

Thanks for the caveats, Cheato. It should also be mentioned that PAL speedup is entirely eliminated by certain region-free players. The (also upscaling) OPPO 981hd, although no longer made (recently selling on eBay ~$170), can do this. Not sure about current players (would be interested to see list).

Brian T

There's no reason NOT to have a region-free DVD player in this day and age. They're plentiful and cheap. Search the thread about the £12.99 Complete Sherlock Holmes set (vs $106.99 on the U.S. site) and someone mentions a top brand player that can be had for around $30 or $40 at Costco. The money you'll save buying stuff from Amazon's U.K. site, not to mention various other international retailers, will cover the cost of the player in about one order.

No point in buying any region locked players (from Japan or elsewhere). It's just so much cheaper to buy region-free right here in North America.

Finally, MANY U.K. box sets are actually NTSC, and region free, and thus can be played on any DVD player. Finding out which ones requires a bit of diligence, but it's not impossible.

As for the U.K. THIN MAN set, the price drops to £10.20 after the VAT is removed for overseas buyers. That's $15.50 U.S. Shipping to the U.S. is £3.08 or about $4.68 U.S. (which is, frankly, unbelievable). So your total is just a hair over $20 U.S. In this case, Amazon's U.S. price of $28.99 is reasonably competitive ($23.39 was even better), but were it up around its usual $40+ price, there'd be a chunk of the cost of a region-free player right there!

ktg

Seems to me that a list of such box sets would be a big hit on this forum. Can someone get it started? Every set I've happened to look at AmazonUK was listed as PAL, including that Sherlock Holmes set. Are you suggesting that some of the sets marked as PAL are actually NTSC?

Cheato

It's true that some of them may be marked PAL, but are actually NTSC. I've seen comments to that effect in the reviews of items on Amazon UK. Kwaidan is one of those.

I have the Female Prisoner Scorpion set, and the box and DVD cases say nothing about PAL or NTSC, but say Region 2, and the discs are region-free and NTSC.

Brian T and I must be buying mostly different stuff, as most of the things I have wanted at the cheaper prices at Amazon UK (I have to pay shipping from Amazon US, too, as I am not in the U.S.) are PAL. My 2 region-free players do not have speed adjustments, and when I researched things like PAL true-speed like five years ago, there were mixed reviews, with some saying it wasn't accurate and that there was downshift in audio pitch, but it still didn't sound right, and that the video judder was more noticeable, and even desyncing of sound and video.

manicsounds

Very few UK DVDs are in NTSC. And I can tell you that Warner Brothers sets or other major studio releases are always in PAL.

It's only the smaller studios who can't afford to make a new PAL transfer just release them in NTSC, affecting the small percentage of european players and TVs that can't handle NTSC....

Shuman

Not to barge into an unrelated conversation, as I'm not quite sure what sort of product truespeed is, but when searching for the best region-free solution a couple years ago I learned from this forum about the Oppo player mentioned above. I've used one as my main player since, and can report that there is no studdering whatsoever (dolly shots and what not are perfectly smooth) and no apparent pitch change. The region 2 PAL experience seems identical to region 1 NTSC on this player (with an NTSC TV).

Cheato

Thanks for the info, Shuman. If I get an opportunity to buy one, I might do that. I have never seen Oppo for sale here in Japan, and I have yet to find a place willing to send a DVD player here. I'd like to get some TV sets that are only available in the UK. I have tried to watch 3rd Rock from the Sun in PAL, and I just can't handle the audio pitch-shift. The first two seasons on DVD are the syndicated ones in the US, but the uncut versions in the UK.

danwiz

Cheato: I am also in Japan and I ordered my OPPO DV-981HD directly from the OPPO website. At that time the players were all shipped out set to Region 1, but they sent mine to me as a Region Free Player. Wonder if they'd do the same thing if a person ordered one of their Blu-ray players? By the way, they shipped it very quickly and it was packaged very well! I was impressed.

rdf8585

These THIN movies are notable today for one reason: ANOTHER THIN MAN has a cameo by Stooge Shemp Howard.

Brian T

My primary point earlier was that some U.K. discs are NTSC. But, as someone with a region-free Malata player nearing eight years old that has never given me any of the troubles with 'import' discs that Cheato reports (video judder, desyncing, etc), I no longer need to care where my movies come from as long as I don't have to wait until I'm a senior citizen to see them, or break the bank paying to see as many of them as I can before I'm a senior citizen! Amazon U.K. has been rather helpful in that regard.

Also, I tend not to buy U.K. "studio" releases as much as I do indie box sets, such as the COMPLETE SHERLOCK HOLMES box mentioned here and in another thread (and the FEMALE CONVICT set, which I just ordered last week, along with a HANZO THE RAZOR three-pack that was briefly reduced to £7.97!!). Even if there IS a PAL speedup on any of these discs, I'll consider it (as I always have) a minor distraction because I've only ever seen three of the HOLMES movies, and one each of the FEMALE CONVICE and HANZO pictures, previously, and that was many, many years ago. Paying over $80 more for the American HOLMES collection, for example, simply to avoid such a "problem" is simply not an option at this point.

One small advantage here in Toronto is that certain used places will actually buy import discs as reasonable prices, meaning there's a good chance I can flip these U.K. sets—should I find I don't need to keep them for future revisits—for something closer to what I actually paid than I would have had I bought the equivalent sets in the U.S.

I realize the "pitch shift" Cheato mentions is a huge thorn for many people, but it rarely bothers me too much, even less so if I'm unfamiliar with the movies in the first place. The only time it did jump out at me—and even this was minor—was on an Australian Region 4 edition of RAISE THE TITANIC (in part because I've seen the movie several times prior), but after the first few minutes, I was able to adjust and focus on the film at hand, happy that I was finally able to source what was then (and probably now) the only widescreen DVD presentation of it on the planet.

Apropos of nothing, here's another fave from Amazon U.K. that should be available in the U.S. and isn't: CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD. I'm betting North Americans will see that on the Warner Archive some day, at best. Some day . . .