Trinitron

Here's an interesting one. After attending a recent Rolling Stones concert, I wanted to add "Rolling Stones Live at the Max" to my collection.

As any conscientious DVD Talk-trained collector does first, I checked DVD Price Search and Best Buy.com came up significantly cheaper than the competition at $14.99.

So, off I went to Best Buy.com, and yes, there it was.

But I noticed something kind of funny in the picture, because the "THX" logo that's on the cover for some reason wasn't in the picture on the site:


Compared to:


"That's odd," I thought. So I went to DVD Profiler, and I assured myself that there was only one R1 version of this title. I ordered with confidence.

I just received the DVD. Not only was it missing the THX logo, it appears to be a GERMAN DVD! There's a big "NTSC" sticker on the back, the cover looks a little bit like it was printed on a home computer, a German logo of some kind pops up before the program, and it's in 2.0 sound only instead of the 5.1 sound on the R1 disc! Plus, the picture looks a little washed out, but since I haven't seen the original I can't say whether it's supposed to be like that or not. DVD Profiler has never heard of the UPC on this puppy.

Now, the interesting thing is that Best Buy actually sent what they advertised. There was no sound format specified in the listing, and the DVD sent was the one pictured. I don't care enough about this title to send it back, especially since I've opened the thing and have no desire to argue with the Best Buy drones.

Caveat emptor, though. Why is Best Buy selling foreign DVDs on their website? I wonder when someone's going to get stuck with a PAL or non-R1 DVD they can't play!