After reading everybody's posts, I agree that YesAsia doesn't require you to send back damaged digipacks. Their email was not worded very well.

I noticed that my film cels were different than the first poster's - he had a shot of Oh in his set. Pretty cool. Mine are kind of boring.

KoreanDVDs seems to be the only ones with stock of the UE left. They also posted a message on their site regarding replacements. Another confusing message: http://www.koreandvds.com/notice_rea...93&kind=notice

It looks like the UE is using Sony's new ARccOS copy protection (http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go). I have a theory that this is what's causing the layer change problems on some players. ARccOS works by putting "dummy" data in the DVD files. It's supposed to confuse DVD drives and rippers (they read data) but not cause a problem for settop DVD players (they read streams). It's pretty stupid. Eventually the rippers are going to workaround it and go on their merry way, while the studios are going to produce non-compliant DVDs that could cause problems on some players. Yeesh.

People must either be wanting to hold onto this set, or everyone has damaged goods. I don't see any of them on eBay right now, and only one has been sold in the past two weeks or so.

The one that was sold on eBay was damaged, so I don't think that's stopping people from selling them.

I just noticed that as well. I guess this is just one of those things that most people buy, and want to hold on to. I can't say I blame everyone though, as this is one sweet set.

Inevitably, I find myself asking questions like, "Was this all really worth it?" Even with the damaged cases, a problem to be sure, you won't see me tossing this on ebay anytime soon. The layer change issue is blown out of proportion, IMO, as i've seen disks whose changes are far more jarring than this one. And the commentary by Knowles had me in stitches at certain points due to it's absurdity... the behind the scenes footage is golden. One moment in particular, you see Min Sik-Choi sharing a lewd gesture with one of the cast or crew, his, "I forgot you were here! I hope you didn't get that on camera" look is classic stuff. For a "heavy" movie, the filmmakers sure had a good ol' time! :lol:

I completely agree.. I might just be one of the lucky ones who got off easy, but my tin is in perfect condition, one of the boxes has a little scuff mark (Nothing big) and I didnt even notice the layer change..

But after seeing the problem with some of the cases I just kept saying to myself "Is that it?" - I was expecting to see nothing but white cases (With everything scratched off the spines, and the covers with large marks as if someone dragged a nail over it).

The documentary is awesome (I've just finished Month 1 and it had me glued to it from the start), and like you mentioned, Harry Knowles is simply a weirdo with some of the bizarre stuff he throws in (One of my favorite moments is around chapter 12/13 :p ).

This is definately something I'm going to keep for years to come, and was real glad I got ahold of this. It really is a shame that only a few thousand people are going to get to see the documentary though.

Some people are anal about their DVDs. Usually I don't care, but when a nice set or a limited edition is damaged I get irritated. My Anchor Bay Herzog / Kinski Collection has one digipack that won't snap shut - it annoys me still, but I couldn't get Anchor Bay to replace it. I don't lose sleep over it, but when I open that set up, it bothers me.

In this case, I paid $100 for a limited edition, and the damage occured in 90% of them, so yeah, I was righteously indignated! :)

I'm glad Starmax is doing the right thing. If they come through, any negative feelings about price extortion will be forgotten. We paid a high class price, but also got a high class DVD with high class customer service.

Re: the layer change, I believe some people reported that the disc actually crapped out at the layer change and wouldn't play past that point. A lot of that is player based and only affected a small percentage, but again, this isn't a $10 HK disc we're talking about here. I'd be mad too if I had to buy a new DVD player to watch my new $100 DVD.

Sounds like life imitating art... :lol:

No, Oh Daesu is wrathfully furious! ;)

Check this out. Wanna buy the UE for $199 (before shipping)?
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID....qx/details.htm

Indeed. :)

And no, $199 from HKFlix is outrageous! By the time they ship, the R1 DVD will be out. :lol:

I'm all over that! I mean, come on, it says the following on the site:

SRP: $283.99
YOU SAVE 30%!
LOWEST PRICE
GUARANTEE!

Seriously though, I ordered one from KoreanDVDs.com earlier tonight for right at $84.xx, sounds good to me. I didn't actually order it though, my dad bought it for me so it makes it that much better. I explained that it was something of a limited edition collectors edition, and he just up and bought it for me. Woohoo!

BTW, what was the shipping cost? One of my friends has eyes on my set and I want to get him one for Christmas. :)

84$ sounds about right with the shipping if you use that 25% coupon thing, I guess is only if you've never ordered from them before. or it comes to 101 +/- with EMS.

Random question about EMS shipping: It says on the KoreanDVDs site that you have to be home to accept the shipment, if you 're not home they try twice and then it gets sent back. Is this true in the US? Can you call the courier to hold something so you can pick it up?

I believe that ultimately its handled by the USPS so I figure that it goes by their terms or at least if you are like many others here, your local post office might know you very well and hold it for you or something. Once I get mines (knock on wood) I'll let you know. I just hope it gets here before the 21st because I'll be on vacation for 2 weeks.

Angel

Know you very well, as in, you're the freak who gets boxes of DVDs delivered every other day?

;)

Here are some places that have Oldboy UE still available, although the best price is still from KoreanDVDs. Prices shown are before shipping.

KoreanDVDs.com $91
http://www.koreandvds.com/dvddetail.html?id=19912

AsianDB: $120
http://asiandb.com/store/detail.pfm?num=3125

HKFlix $199 :lol:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID....qx/details.htm

They were available at DVDFromKorea last night - all gone now.

DVDBeaver has their comparison up:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare7/oldboy.htm

Some interesting notes there about how the UE is *not* Chan-wook's preferred transfer - he supervised the SE transfer, and the UE transfer was studio produced. Of course, I don't always think directors do the best job transferring their films to DVD. Todd Haynes intentionally softened the Safe transfer because he thought the DVD transfer was too sharp, and the results were not stunning.

I think the biggest problem with the transfer, are the different colorings of the scenes..

Its been a while since I watched the special edition, but in the trailer:
http://www.cinemas-online.co.uk/trailers/OLDBOY_FF.mov
the elevator scene is a greenish color, in the Ultimate Edition, It just looked the standard white color.. Other scenes like the winter one have the same thing:
Old > http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCom...dboyse1.52.jpg
New > http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCom.../oldboyue6.jpg

Precisely. My mailman said I was breaking his back so he will only bring stuff on saturdays unless it requires a scan. I'm sure is similar for many others. The funny part is they all think that is CDs but CDs are about 30% now a days.

A part of me likes how the SE looks the best. The darker and grittier colors fits the film better in my opinion. The example up above, the two standing outside in the show, it just amazing. It looks to me like it could change the entire feel of the film.

My question is, what did it look like in the theatre? Someone in the thread mentioned that the UE colors looked closer to the film print.

The thing is I dont care what it looked like in a cinema or what the director wanted (fact is a lot of people ajust the colour, contrast etc.. to suit them so its the same thing really).

I want what looks best to me and from them 2 images, to me the colour packed new transfer for me looks better in a cap form, but actually seeing it running on a TV may be very different, but as I sold my old dvd of the film I will never be able to compare them :)


also anyone know how long Yesasia is taking to get back to people? :)

I've not heard a word from Yesasia since the form letter was sent out...

I totally agree with you Brent... The darker, subdued tones in the SE fit OLDBOY much better than new telecine transfer on the UE/FE dvd's. The SE transfer (not the UE transfer) was also supposedly supervised by Chan-wook Park and his DP, which makes this a no-brainer IMHO. I'll be sticking with my SE for sure.

Oldboy UE numbering
 

Okay,
I went over the statement from Starmax dated the 14/9 where they comment on the number of pre-orders, that the release might slip to late October and some other general things.
At the bottom of the of the notice, Starmax has clearly stated that all cases would be numbered 1 to 2754 ONLY (no other numbers to be used)

So, I now know of 2 people who have numbers outside this range, one is a friend of a user here, and the other recently posted a comment on the official Oldboy site, asking why he got number 2776.

Price on ebay
 

Out of curiosity how much did the UE set go for on Ebay?