Brian T

Dec. 12 only. For the few that might not have this already, it's a pretty fair price as long as you don't need guaranteed delivery before Christmas, which may or may not happen this close to the holiday.

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00HVJLMDC/

madmod20061

So tempted but I have so many versions between steelbooks, ultimate, etc...

Alan Smithee

I've got a ton of these too but might have to bite on this. The Canadian editions have the first movie as "The Philosopher's Stone" instead of "The Sorcerer's Stone". (I have both the US and Canadian HD-DVD box sets, individual DVDs AND regular DVDs of that! Hmmm, do I REALLY need this?)

Alan Smithee

Fuck it, I bit. Now just gotta wait for the UHD discs, and I won't buy the last movie on that unless it's in 3D (Deathly Hollows Part 1 was NOT released in 3D in theaters because the conversion wasn't very good, but it was put out that way on Blu-Ray anyways. Part 2 was released in 3D theatrically however, so purists should only watch that one in 3D- but I'm still curious to see it.) Guess I'll need some version of "Sorcerer's Stone" on Blu separately if I really want to be a completist, but I think the 2 I have on HD-DVD (plus one regular DVD) will do there.

I swear I don't normally buy the same movie this many times!

DJariya

Thanks

I picked this up too. Comes out to around $68 USD after shipping. Now I finally have this damn collection and this appears to be the best of the best. Never picked up any of the previous DVDs or BDs so this works out great price-wise as well. Looks like it's loaded with enough extras that I could feasibly not go to work for a week and just sit at my TV going through this set.

Question, do the Canadian UV codes work for this here in the U.S. or are they essentially useless?

DVD Polizei

Nice price. I have all the Ultimate Collections on Blu-ray so I'll pass, but I like that packaging.

That'sAllFolks

This was my question as well.

madmod20061

Some Canadian codes are interchangeable with the USA codes. Others you have to use a proxy work around. I know I was able to redeem Blackhawk Down CA UV code on the USA flixster without a proxy.

DJariya

Thanks. But, I think I'm probably better off trying to sell them to a Canadian poster than attempting to redeem them.

madmod20061

You can just put it in the USA MYUV (formerly UVVU) website to test if it works in the USA. It doesn't actually redeem the code. It will just tell you if it's a valid code and give you links on where to redeem it. Here's the link. https://www.myuv.com/en/us/redeem It's how I test UV codes if I get them in used blu rays.

cultshock

But if you are a purist, the Canadian release has the proper title of the film.

Alan Smithee

Not sure what I'm gonna do with the UV codes since I usually try to trade those. I got burned in a code trade with someone in England when they traded me a UK code for "Django Unchained" and told me the trick to redeeming it, it worked but I can only watch it on my computer, not on my Roku or any similar devices so without the 5.1 sound and slightly better picture quality it's worthless to me. I bought 2 Blu-Rays from the UK with UV codes and I just posted those on a Facebook group and let the first person who saw them have them. If there's no country issue with these I'll see if I can find someone with 7 movies who wants to trade for it, if there is I might just put it up for grabs on Christmas and make someone's day.

I'm wondering what the Harry Potter "purists" are considering the proper version- "Philosopher's" is the original title of the book which was deemed too confusing for us stupid Americans, but Warner is an American company and "Sorcerer's" was likely the title that most people there went by. On the HD-DVD I have the scenes bookmarked that are different than the American version. Would've been nice if they'd used branching and included both on the same disc.

The "Wizard's Collection" appears to be the 'best of the best'- content is the same but has much fancier wooden packaging, but seems like it's long sold out. They had announced a super-deluxe set that had a model of the castle with all the discs in a drawer underneath it, but I don't know if that ever came out.

I watched the series on HD-DVD (with the last ones on Blu-Ray) to break in my HDTV when it was new, I'll likely save this to break in the next one whenever I get that, hopefully before they put them on UHD or whatever it's called.

Alan Smithee

It got here a few minutes ago, and I opened and inspected it. Nice package, even though the obsolete standard DVDs for each movie bloat it a bit. Haven't played them but the Blu-Rays appear to be newer than the original BD releases were and might be missing a few features like the in-movie experience the HD-DVDs have (hope those don't rot before I can check them out!) the DVDs on the other hand look to be exactly the same as the original releases. The "game" DVD disc that was in the HD-DVD sets isn't included with this either, no big loss for most I imagine.

As expected, the UV code only redeems in Canada. Not sure if there's a workaround that would get it playable on Vudu or any of the other services as the UK code I redeemed earlier won't do that; it expires in March so that'll give me time to decide what to do with it- likely I'll just give it away on Facebook since I don't care too much about this and already have an SD copy of the last movie on my UV account anyways. (Yes, digital is the future, and harder to beat than any disc's region coding!) In the meantime, back to studying for my last ever college exam and then graduating on Saturday!

PhantomStranger

Congratulations, Alan!

Alan Smithee

Thanks- don't know why I'm looking at this again when I'm not QUITE done studying, but I'm sure to at least pass at this point. Anyways, my other experience with redeeming foreign UV codes was when I traded for a UK code without knowing until afterwards. I did the plugin thing to make it think I was in the UK and the movie added to my library, but it did not show up in Vudu or Cinemanow. It did show up in MGo but it was not playable there. The only way I can watch it is on my computer, which doesn't do me much good. If I can't get these to work on a Roku then there's no use redeeming them- and this brings up yet another issue with digital movies; what if I move to another country? Apparently I would lose at least some of my movies even if I moved to Canada! But I could move to Zimbabwe with my region-free player and bring all my discs and also watch whatever I bought there.

One of the ways I'm paying back my parents for their financial support is to sign into my Vudu account on their Roku and I'll pick up the tab for anything they want to watch on it, as well as having access to what's already on there- so having the Harry Potter movies on there would be good in that regard. I'm also going to take them out to dinner every week, though they said they're not sure if they actually want to do that.

Brian T

Yes, but we'll give you free health care. And we have more space up here to store massive physical media collections. Plus, at the rate our dollar keeps dropping, if you stockpile your American cash before you move, you'll be a millionaire as soon as you cross the border. Just bring a toque.

Alan Smithee

People in Canada often complain about the media covers being in both English and French. This Harry Potter set is entirely in English except for the outer card advertising its contents.

I see people on Facebook post pictures of Canadian VHS movies that are dubbed in French; I'd have to sort through those if I ever went thrifting in Canada I reckon. I have a few 8-tracks from Canada and the labels are more bootleg-like than the US counterparts.

That'sAllFolks

Thanks! I've been looking for something like that. Bookmarked.

Brian T

I forgot to mention the English-only packaging on this in my first post, since I wasn't at home when I posted it and couldn't actually check the set I bought last year (for $100, somewhat regrettably).



Depends on where you settle, I suppose. Outside of Quebec, you don't see much French-dubbed VHS in the used/thrift shops, although it does turn up. Otherwise, it's pretty much all standard English but, as with DVDs and Blu-rays, you often have to suffer with hideous, overcrowded bilingual package design. In fact, this was a key factor behind my signing up for a U.S. postal box nearly 20 years ago. On rare occasions do I actually buy stuff on Canadian soil, unless the price is simply too good to pass up. Thankfully, a lot of boxed sets -- such as this Harry Potter collection or the previous Bond 50 collection -- keep the bilingual crap off the main packaging and put it on the disposable outer cards.

Mind you, I do understand that the nature of our country dictates bilingual packaging on almost everything, especially considering the added production costs associated with printing English AND French DVD/Blu sleeves rather than just printing one that satisfies both markets. Although in many cases, even this is something of a fallacy because separate sleeves are often printed for Quebec, with the French logos and plot synopses given prominence over the English. Strange.