Teca

I'm sorry if this has been asked over and over.

Lately I've been purchasing a lot of international DVDs and one thing I notice is Region 2 DVDs being 3 or 4 times the price of Region 3 DVDs, why is this? R2 AV's being anywhere from $40-$60 USD and everything else is $25-$50 USD, that's more than HD-DVDs.

I had 7 Japanese titles that I've been wanting to buy but when I went to purchase them I had to make a decision, go with the HK version and have food on the table or purchase the JP version and eat ramen for two weeks.

I use yesasia.com

Tutut

It's not a question of regions, life in Japan is more expensive than in Korea or in China and the quality of their editions is better.
You're lucky the films you want are in R3 too, I have some that were released in Japan only.

logboy

japan has historically been both one of the most expensive countries in the world, and has also had a video / laserdisc / DVD market more connected to the rental field it seems - laserdiscs were frequently cheaper than VHS tapes back in the 90s, DVDs are produced in a more 'make a good job of it once, don't need to do it again' fashion so the attention is greater, the resulting costs higher, and the market size seems smaller too. japanese don't tend to consider what they buy without the aspect of the amount of space needed to be dedicated to it once it is owned, and this also results in a habit or consequent series of purchases (or lack of) that reflects this - this also seems to affect the price things need to be in order to cover costs / keep profits going / maintain employment etc.

the UK is also region 2 - thats a different series of issues altogether...!

kevkev

it all depends on what you are buying. in the uk new dvds usually cost between 12.99 and 19.99 the prices have got better since dvd got really popular.
region 3 discs although often having full bitrate DTS tracks, can be much poorer quality. i think they make them cheap to tackle the war against the pirate market. not sure why japanese are so expensive. it probably costs alot more to import from japan than any other country.

benedict

The good thing is that the prices will often halve within 6-12 months. I almost never buy when first released unless the price is already within my definition of "reasonable".

visitor Q

R2 DVDs are generally at least twice more expensive right out of the box than R3 or R1 DVDs simply due to currency exchange as well. But, you already answered your own question - partially. Try searching around for better pricing or better put, the best DVD version released first: http://www.dvdcompare.net/

Check out the international etailer thread on DVDTalk for ideas. For starters, check out amazon.co.jp, cdjapan.co.jp, hmv.co.jp. Don't limit yourself to just Yesasia.

Also, give this site a try: http://www.dvdscout.net/index.php?language=en

wildeny

Like others said above. R2 DVDs are expansive in the new release but can be quite cheap after a while.
For instance,
The Wizard Of Oz (3 Disc Collector's Edition) [1939]
In Amazon.uk it's only £6.97 (you can still remove VAT for international buyers)
while Amazon.com $36.77 at this moment.

Dane

"Taken 6-Disc" is another god example that R2 sometimes are much cheaper than R1. This Box-set can be bought for mere $15-17 brand new.

But due to the low Dollar currency exchange rate Region 1 DVDs are very cheap at the moment.