I recently saw the DVD box set of Aliens Quadrilogy Head in Europe and Asia - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alien-Quadri.../dp/B000C0Y57W ... This of course made me wonder what else was out there that we don't get in America - Region 1, and it amazed me to no end as to the coolness of box sets and limited editions never before seen here. Check out this website for a small list of disc in Europe and Asia, but never here - http://www.skullface.com/

Needless to say I am unhappy at the companies that make our movies like FOX, and Anchor Bay, and Warner Bros. etc... I think America should get a least a chance to purchase the same DVDs a everyone else around the world, I mean we do make almost every single one of these and to send then send the best looking box sets ever overseas and give us some cardboard crap is just stupid. I would pay for the "Aliens Head" or "Predator Bust" or even the incredible "I-Robot - Sonnys Head" DVD.

Anyway, what we need is to petition the studio's to let us buy the same stuff if we want, and there is no reason why we shouldn't be able too.

This is just my opinion, so set me straight if I am wrong about this.

Avakko...

Then by all means do so. Your effort in complaining and writting petitions is wasted effort because frankly, your typical american consumer would not want that and thus it is not very cost effective for said companies to even bother with it.

But guess what. With that effort you put in trying to bring those to america you could put to better use by actually ordering those items online from those other countries. Simple as that. The international section of this forum is always talking about these items MONTHS before they are even released. So they give you the heads up as to where you can order them from to get them sent to America.

So stop your complaining and take the bulls by the horn and actually order them from the other countries that they are from. So if you're willing to pay for those items then by all means DO SO! There is online retailers that will provide you secure transactions for all of those items.


Avakko...


(for anyone who doesn't know this, you need not sign your post. Your name on the left shows you wrote said message. No need to sign it, it's not a credit card reciept)

While they may look cool, these sorts of things end up being pretty garish and just wasting space that would be better utilized as a keep case/digipack.

Not to mention driving the cost up greatly.

To be fair, they did release the Planet of the Apes ape-head set here.

If you really want the other stuff, then go ahead and import it. I own the Hellraiser box, Phantasm sphere, and the I, Robot head. Find out if your DVD player has a remote control region hack, and import away.

EDIT:

I've never seen that SkullFace site before, so thanks for that avakko.

This might not be 100% on topic but with the Married with Children sets in the Uk they still have the Original 'Love & Marriage' theme song intact with there season sets & they are ahead of us.
Sony doesn't even bother to pay the rights for it over here.
Plus they already have all 8 seasons of Will & Grace out on DVD and season 6 is just being released on may.1st, we get one a fricken year.

[QUOTE]
Whoa, I didn't realize how my "complaining" about this offended you so. I mean I just better go and order these straight away from another country, in another format and another region so I can watch them on my region 1 only DVD player. Or maybe I should pay more for shipping than for the DVD just to get them in the correct format, but O' wait, still the wrong region, but I could buy a DVD player from that NTSC region as well just to watch it. Or I could hack my own DVD player, voiding the warranty and stuff. This is all sounding awesome ladies...

If any of you think America wouldn't want "Troy" special edition in the wood box or "Band of Brothers" cloth LE with dog tags and stuff, the size of a digipack.

I don't want these movies for the boxes they come in but most of these special editions have extra disc's loaded full of stuff you CAN'T get here.

When American's are paying $50 for Criterion Robocop when you can buy all three for half that, don't tell me we wouldn't want it when we never have the chance to get it.

Hey JACK, what if they would have released "Nightmare Before Christmas" as just the movie, no extras, nothing more ever... Over in say, Hong Kong they have some real nice box set loaded up with all the thing you obviously never received for Christmas. Wouldn't you a least want the OPTION to buy the version that offered you some things you couldn't get her, without having to spend $50 a DVD on just shipping alone????


O' and JACK, before you criticize about my signature being out of place you should check your spelling.

Avakko

It doesn't offend me. But you asked a question and you get a serious answer. Now you don't like it when the answer doesn't follow along with your idea of a battle drum to get some online petition to get some niche market items here?

Guess what, no one owes you anything and if you want something badly enough, you'll go through the hoops to get it. Now you complain about the different regions? You're new here but most everyone knows where to get a cheap region free player for their collection. If not for these, for the many many MANY other dvds that will never see the light of day in Region 1.

Hey, if you want to dance you have to be more than willing to put on the right dancing shoes.

The average consumer doesn't care about that. Mainly because the cost of the extra packaging makes the price higher and the average consumer wants to pay the bare amount to own it. The level most of these companies are willing to go with this is limited due to previous experiences with offering these bundles.

then by all means get yourself the right equipment. I can complain all day about not being able to play football because the equipment I have is only for baseball. Or I could do something about it and get football equipment.

Now you're talking about out of print dvds and that's a different story.

Simply put. It's a free market and with the internet you can easily get anything and everything you want. Will it be at a cost? yes. But that also can be fixed by using this very same site to price out the lowest and best place to order it from.

Nothing is stopping you from buying these so how would the companies be short changing you?


See, this is a terrible example on your part because I'm used to importing things that are only offered in other countries. Especially when it came to NBC. Back in 1997/1998 I was buying Jun Planning Nightmare stuff that was only offered in Japan. Ranging from nice (and I mean really nice) Pocket watches that were made by Sega and offered only in Japanese vending machines as prizes to collectibles. Around sometime in 2001 they started importing stuff over but they never brought over everything. Now would I want the option for the stuff to be local? I didn't like it when it was offered in that way because the market was oversatured with total shit that you see at hot topic now. I'm willing to shell out the money to get those items and I used the internet to get all those imported items. I didn't start some thread suggesting to start up petitions that would never work anyways. So when I didn't have the option to buy things in the states I went directly online and can easily find any and every item I wanted. See, I have the option. You have the option. anyone has the option these days with the very same tool you are using to complain about the situation. Use it to get those items. Simple three second search on ebay found the alien head:
http://search.ebay.com/search/search...ead&category0=

so it's not region 1. Guess what, a region free player will be something you will need in the long run. SPACED is a great series. It'll never be released on Region 1 for copyright reasons. So your best bet is to get a region free player. Same goes with the different version of Kill Bill Vol. 1. It's pretty much more bloody and worth getting in region 2. Not to mention it came with an awsome box with a t-shirt. Who the hell knows when QT will release it in the states since he pretty much has a habit of saying something and acting on it a couple years later. The list of titles other regions get that are better is huge. get used to it or be proactive and do something about it and get a region free player.

-Avakko

Before you criticize Jack's spelling, you should check your own punctuation. The word "Americans," plural, doesn't have an apostrophe.

And this thread belongs in the DVD Talk area, not Movies, because it's discussing DVD releases, not the movies themselves.

But other than that, I agree with your main point. In fact, it's the reason I recently got a multi-region DVD player.

Never mind then...

Actually it would probably just end up getting moved to the International Forum, where people would tell avakko to get a regionless player Which can be done w/o making any sort of physical modifications to the player, or voiding any warranties, you just need to buy the right player.


Mod note:
Overall though I'd have to say the tone of this thread is starting to get a little troubling. A new user asked for some information and in less than 10 posts we already have people getting snippy w/ each other. I know sometimes things are not always read in the same light as things are written (so for example a sarcastic comment might not come across as the author intended) but if everyone can just take a step back for a moment I think you'll find noone is really trying to be confrontational here.

BTW avakko welcome to DVDtalk.

Welcome to the forum indeed, avakko!

I agree you should look into a region free player. Although, there is plenty of demand for exclusive sets in America (just look at how fast Best Buy exclusives fly off the shelf, not to mention the ridiculous prices American collectors are willing to pay for SE sets on Ebay). But a region free player is an easy fix for instant gratification. The international forum has a wealth of information on non-region 1 titles and where to obtain them.

On the whole, I'll take a vastly superior selection of releases over a few special packages, and so I consider myself lucky to have easy access to region 1 discs & players.

signed: JACKBURTON <-- my signature

avakko, you're on to something that a very large number of DVD collectors have known for a long time. More than just crazier packaging, very often you have to go out of R1 to get a particular film on DVD at all. Or for one with a decent transfer. Or full bitrate DTS track. Or whatever your particular technical/aesthetic fetish may be.

You can forget petitioning. There's no point to it. The studios release what will sell, and the American consumer, en masse, will never be crazy for special duded-out editions like the Japanese or Koreans routinely release. And, unfortunately, the English and French routinely release superior editions and transfers of certain sorts of films (generally European artfilms, naturally), and these do tend to be a bit more expensive to purchase (though not crazy expensive like a lot of Japanese sets). In R1, we have Criterion only for these sorts of releases, and the rest of the studios -Facets, New Yorker, Kino, Wellspring, to name a few - release only second, third, or fourth rate DVDs. If there's any silver lining, it's that Korean and HK releases tend to be about the same price - or even a little cheaper - than the American counterparts. Even some of the limited editions with the cool packaging can be economical.

So, the sad truth is that R1 dvd studios are routinely outdone by any number of other studios around the world. And distribution rights are another factor. Warner Brothers has a deservedly good reputation for their DVDs, but they don't have distribution rights for some stuff in R1 that they have in other regions. For example, in R1, Facets has the rights to Kieslowski's "Dekalog" and have released it in substandard sets. But in Poland, Warner Brothers has the rights and has released a far superior set. This is what sites like DVDBEAVER and DVD Basen are all about... helping you find the best release of a given title for your own tastes.

So, fret no more and put away those silly petitions. The best way you can bring R1 studios around is to spend your money elsewhere. Get a region-free all-format player (these can be found for under $100 and all the way up to dishy prices), and unshackle yourself from being exclusively R1. You'll be glad you did.

Welcome Avakko, I agree, more than just this post. Many around here quickly evolve into this...

Maybe he kicked Jack's dog??

Anyway like many have already pointed out, a region free player is the way to go and there are quite a few that are very inexpensive.

Personally, I can feel avakko's pain. Little things like neat packaging and statuettes are nice (now I'm curious about that Phantasm sphere), but what really gets me is availability of the movies in general.
I am planning on getting a region free player at one point (when I have money to burn). However, I consider this to be a pain in the ass.
I'm low on receiver ports as it is and still have to do research to find out if there are any region frees that aren't basically disposable. That's just a private worry of mine, like I say...I haven't done any research.
What really chaps my hide, though, is that I'm doing this so I can own The Krays and The Crow Road. ...Two frikkin' shows!


(Hopefully I will want more later as the world of international DVDs blossoms before me.)

It's no more of a pain or expense than a de-featured DVD player that won't play all region/all format discs. And all-region/format players are no more "disposable" than similarly priced, de-featured players. Simply put, there is no reason whatsoever not to get one.

Just to get the ball rolling for you guys who haven't done any research, I'd suggest you look at the players that Oppo offers. They have three, ranging in price from about $150 to $225. Each can be made all-region/all-format by simply inputting a code via the remote.

The least expensive, the 970HD is a Mediatek-chip player with HDMI and component outputs. It can output 480i and upconvert to 1080i. If you burn a disc and flash the firmware, you can even get upconversion via the component outputs. This, of course, requires a bit more work on your part (downloading the file, burning a CD-R, "playing" the CD-R in the DVD player in order to flash the firmware), but if you have an HD-TV with no DVI or HDMI input, then this is one of the few players that will allow upconversion via components.

The next step up is the Faroudja-based 971H model with DVI output and upscaling capabilities (it also has component outputs, but the quality suffers).

The highest model is the Faroudja-based 981HD with HDMI output only, and can upscale to 1080P (yes, "P"). Again, with all these players, you simply enter a code via the remote control, and - voila! - you can play any disc from anywhere.

And guess what? These players have gotten among the highest marks of any SD-DVD player on the market. Check out the tests performed in the "Benchmark" review series at Hometheaterhifi (among the best and most complete DVD reviews on the web) and you'll see that the Oppos score among the very best DVD players: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-b...deInt=0&mpeg=0

In short, it's a no-brainer. There is simply no reason to purchase a de-featured DVD player that limits you to R1 discs. Not price, not quality, not anything.

I honestly doubt writing letters or petitions would do much because so many people will still buy the DVDs without all the nice packaging that it wouldn't make sense to go through the trouble of producing these for the domestic market.

Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't care less about the plastic statues, yo-yos, specially packaged boxes of corn flakes etc that these special editions contain. It's particularly ridiculous when you consider that some of these special editions cost hundreds of dollars and feature no more real content then a 15 dollar disc available at Best Buy.

I only really care about solid anamorphic widescreen VQ, a good DD/DTS and maybe a nice director's commentary. I'll double-dip if an I own a version of a film without those features and a new one comes out with them.

Jack Skeleton made some good points.


- tb

It is not just you. I also do not care about "special editions" with extra fluff. Just give me the movie, and I am a happy camper.

Woah, man, you need to ease up a bit.

Agreed.
I know i havn't been here as long as some of you but there is no need to insult peoples grammer or complain about someone signing there post.
I hate to be a goody two shoes but don't ruin the fun for other people that like to come and post stuff, There is no reason to be rude.
This is a fun place to come to so don't ruin it for other people. Plain & simple.

I don't think I insulted his grammar. I'm sort of the last person to do that. So how should I ease up on that when it wasn't something I did. It was the new guy snapping back on me about my grammar or spelling. I didn't touch on that subject in anyway as you can see, I only jumped on him for the signning of the post.. which I always mention and in that first post it was made in a sarcastic way anyway)

I did respond in both responses fairly balanced. Stating my opinion that petitions do nothing and you should talk with your wallet and take the action to get what you want regardless of what region you are in.

So was it wrong to tell someone to stop complaining about something they have an option on? Just saying.


-Avakko

I think that was his whole point, he would like to have that option here in the USA not just overseas. Not everyone feels comfortable purchasing overseas or eBay... or want to purchase another DVD player to be region free. He was mearly point out that they have these options overseas and we do not here and was looking or support to get those options here. Which sadly will not happen...

-d2cheer