DDDHouse and HiVizone piracy?
 

I'm sure this subject has been broached here before, but I did a search and came up empty. Since the prices are so much cheaper (many DVDs are almost a giveaway at just over $5) than the domestic HK sites, I'm wondering about the legitimacy of DVDs from DDDHouse and HiVizone. I haven't ordered from either one yet, and I won't if I find out they sell bootlegs.

What is your collective knowledge on the matter?

They are both very reputable companies. The reason they are so cheap is that DDD is based in HK, and I assume HiVizone is as well (it's somewhere in Asia), where legitimate DVD's are riduculously cheap. Domestic retailers employ a large markup to cover the costs of importing and carrying stock.

It's a secret but
 

Look for the Tai Seng sticker to be assured you are buying a
legitimate product. rotfl

But seriously, a good place to start:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...&highlight=faq

I don't understand why my thread title was censored from "DDDHouse and Hivizone piracy?" to its present incarnation. It was not meant as an accusatory statement, but rather as a question; hence the question mark. Oh well...

In the past there have been instances of persons accusing places of selling bootlegs. Most of the time these were just posts bashing a given company. I'm sure the thread title was just changed so that it didn't give the wrong impression. Don't take it personally; no harm, no foul.

<b>Will Vielficken</b>, I am sorry if my title-editing upset you.

Although I nearly always include a note on locking a thread and sometimes post "signed" comments in the capacity as a Moderator as below, I have no current plans to make an announcement on each occasion of that kind of minor editing.

On this occasion I'll explain it by asking the following rhetorical question: <b>if you owned or worked for either of the two named businesses what would you think if you happened across this forum and saw such a thread title?</b>

Yes, there was a question mark but that isn't really the point, IMO: the matter could just as easily have been broached <i>without</i> using the "p" word and so I simply rectified the position.

(Ordinarily I'd be thinking about locking the thread now as your questions have been asked and answered and things are veering off-topic....)

Anyhoo, as <b>Aghama</b> says.... :)



Benedict
[email protected]
Moderator, International DVD & Movie Forum

Yes, Hivizone is also in HK. I don't happen to have the address handy, but all the packages have come postmarked from HK with their street address on them.

cheers,
Gabe

Re: It's a secret but
 

I know that you were joking but there are a lot of people that might see this and believe it. In fact, many may remember the kinds of hijinx that Tai Seng used to try and pull on usenet.


For those that missed the sarcasm:

IT IS NOT TRUE!

well no one has really answered the original question. The answer is not that the HK prices are so low - it's that the prices are much higher in the U.S. mainly because of Taiseng. As the exclusive distributor of many HK titles in North America, they mark up the prices considerably on many of the titles, and as such, the retailers that buy from Taiseng also sell at this price. Anyone not buying from Taiseng for their DVDs is considered to be selling grey-market items and Taiseng has been known to send their triad goons, er lawyers to stop these stores from selling. Taiseng has every right to mark up their prices to what they feel is an acceptable market price though. It's lucky that we as consumers have choices that simply didn't exist say 4-5 years ago (i.e. the Internet).

If you look at the legitimate Mongkok street prices in HK for titles (which are pretty close to wholesale prices from what I'm told), you would see that DDDHouse marks up their DVDs around 10-13% and Hivizone marks their prices up around 15-20%. So DDDHouse and Hivizone are making money as well I would presume.

Actually, I think the original question was answered, though the revised topic had not. :)

yeah I guess I was reading the topic question...

Thanks for the answers everyone!

I guess I can safely order from them. Of the two, I decided to go with HiVizone because the DDDHouse website is not as West-friendly (ie. prices in HK currency; no search function that I could see).

DDDHouse and Hivizone do NOT sell pirated items. They are cheaper because DVDs are cheaper in HK... it has something to do with trying to compete against the pirate market. That's why studios release DVDs to market so quickly after the theatrical run as well... otherwise everyone would've already bought the film on VCD and DVD sales wouldn't be there. HKFlix and Pokerindustries are more expensive because they are US based and they import the DVDs and VCDs and you're probably paying a premium for the piece of mind of ordering from a US distributor and not having your Credit Card used overseas.

I personally have ordered hundreds of DVDs from DDDHouse and almost a dozen from Hivizone and they are both legit and offer great customer service. IMHO poker is overpriced and Hkflix is like the DDDHouse of the US - they are super nice and their prices aren't too bad. Part of it is also that US dvd prices are between 20 and 30 bucks, so places like HKflix can charge 14-17 bucks for a DVD from HK (even if it only costs 5 bucks over there) and it doesn't look like they're charging a huge amount. I think HKFlix also gets some of their stuff from TaiSeng which is a company that imports DVDs and places a sticker on em and charges 30 bucks retail. TaiSeng also makes their own transfers of HK films, so they aren't all bad. :)

Just wanted to clarify that HKFlix does NOT get anything from Tai Seng at the moment. $$$$$$$

My bad. :) Was I fairly accurate about the rest of it?

I actually wanted to order something from either Hivizone or DDDhouse, but was hesistated because of the high shipping cost. I know that the total cost could be cheaper than those found in US. But it doesn't hurt to save a few bucks.

I was thinking to get another person to order together, so we can save more on shipping. Anyone interested ?

One of the other sites I looked at is www.dvdshelf.com. They have a whole bunch of DVD for US$3.8.

Check it out.

Thanks.
-Chuen-

That we're super nice? Yup, dead-on. And we're humble, too... :)

Yeah - I would probably just wait until you have about 10-15 DVDs to order and order from DDDHouse and get the discounted shipping. Their shipping prices are pretty good when you're quite a few and not bad when ordering one or two. There's a shipping price table somewhere... hmmm... where could it be? I can't remember... hmm... oh yeah - it's in the Official HK Newbie Help thread at the top of the International forum. :) There you'll also find a link to DVDShelf as well as a slew of other online stores.