SharkBait

I just bought a set of season 1 DVD's of the old Monkees TV show off of Half.com. It was supposedly new and sealed and at a cheap price. When I received it, it was sealed in plastic with a retail sticker wrap at the top. However, when I took it apart, the set of three holders were glue-gunned on the cardboard packaging and not hinged like one would expect. They were also glued over the text on the lining of the cardboard sleeve. When I popped one disc in to check for quality, the menu looked like cheap, faded, poor resolution graphics. The menu for the first episode not only looked cheap and faded, the picture graphic was pixelated-looking (broken up into squares). The episode played oka, but didn't look too good. I'm pretty sure this is a counterfeit, even though it has the logos printed on the sleeve and the discs themselves are silver and not DVD-R.

Has anyone had this happen when buying from Half.com or other online sources? Or am I mistaken, and the latest Monkees reissue just looks that bad, both discs and packaging? I'm trying to figure out how to proceed. The seller has a 99% rating over several transactions (hundreds of transactions, in fact), and offers many DVD's it claims are brand new and still-sealed. I though half/EBay was supposed to be on top of preventing counterfeiting, yet this seller has been on their system since 2009.

BobO'Link

^The packaging is *not* very good, but IMHO neither was the original fake phonograph packaging (my S2 is the original release). The packaging on the new sets is a simple foldout digipak design with 3 dual overlapping disk trays. There is no outer sleeve as you would normally expect with this type package. Yes, the trays are "glued" to the paperboard with a dab of glue in each corner and the trays cover the episode listings.

As for the disks. These are the same transfers used for the Rhino sets and have the same menus. The episode menus have a blue wash over a still of poor quality with "jaggie" text for the choices. They don't look very good. While the episodes don't look as good as other product from the 60s the quality of the episodes is mostly pretty good.

From what you've described I don't think you got a bootleg as it matches what I purchased from Amazon as soon as it was released.

SharkBait

Wow, it looks terrible, both the packaging and the discs themselves. That's why I hesitated to complain to the seller, because I wasn't sure what the quality was for the retail article was and maybe the official versions were just that bad. The seller was selling them so cheap, less than $15 a set, when I've never seen them for less than $35 or so a set, that I assumed they could be counterfeit. I guess I'll just keep them and not complain.

Numanoid

If you have Netflix, you could always get one of the discs and see how it compares.

BobO'Link

I was very disappointed in the packaging. I'd paid ~$35 for it and felt the packaging was more in line with a ~$20 set. Of course since I'd missed getting the phonograph version before it suddently went OOP I wasn't going to miss getting a copy of S1, especially at 1/3 the then going rate for a *used* copy of the original S1 release.

If you're truly unsure or just feel the need for confirmation I'd second renting a disk from Netflix to compare.

SharkBait

I'd have to rejoin Netflix for that to happen. I'm one of those people that got alienated when they changed plans. I actually did borrow a couple of discs from Netflix a few years ago when I did belong to them, and I do recall the picture on the videos being somewhat poor. I remember it struck me at the time that the picture quality on the Rhino DVD's was not any better than the VHS tapes I owned (I had a couple of "Best Of" VHS tapes).

Since I was somewhat expecting the picture of the episodes themselves to be somewhat poor, I was expecting the packaging of the 2011 reissues to at least look professional. It doesn't. But if you, BobO'Link, say that your Amazon-purchased DVD's also had a glue-gun look appearance, then I have to believe this set could well be legit. I can't complain too much for paying around $17 with postage for the entire first season of the Monkees. Part of the reason I held off on buying both seasons from this seller at such as cheap price was to check out the quality of one set first, just in case there was something "off" about it. The menus look so amateurish, too, but as you say, they were like that on the first Rhino run. I also looked at the reviews on this site just now and they had a picture of the menu, and the picture of the menu there looks just like the one I bought.

Thanks for the information and advice, Bob and Numanoid.

BuckNaked2k

Also worth looking out for is re-shrinkwrapped cases sold as "new". I've received a few of these from some half.com sellers with 100,000+ ratings. Obviously, big operations with a warehouse and (likely) their own shrinkwrap machine.

I could tell because the shrinkwrap was that soft Saran wrap type, as opposed to the crinkley type they use commercially. I could also see bits of the original shrinkwrap stuck to the case where is had been fused when it left the factory. Everything quality-wise was OK, and most people would never know, but I did.

WOODPRODUCTIONS

I recently received an order I placed on Amazon for Seasons 1 & 2 of the Monkees. I paid $60 total which included shipping. It looks very authentic and new to me, just like the ones I had seen at a Barnes and Noble bookstore, but those were priced at $40 for each season. The only issue I had was like someone mentioned, is the lack of an outer sleeve. I've always had a good buying experience with Amazon, that's why I have no problem making purchases from them/thru them. I am very reluctant to make purchases from some of the lesser known sites, especially if the pricing seems to be too good to be true.

thetao

I am not familiar with this set, but a couple years ago had the misfortune of buying a counterfeit of Doctor Who season 4. The price was so good that before opening it, I scrutinized the fine print on the back and found...typos! Instead of the "British Broadcasting Corporation" it was made by the "British Broadcasting Corporotion". So maybe get out your magnifying glass?

LJG765

If it helps, it may not have been used, just reshrink wrapped. I used to work at a store that sold DVDs and we would frequently get DVDs/BR in that were either not shrink wrapped (and this is coming from the distributor not somewhere else) or the wrapping was torn too badly to put out on the shelf. So, one of my jobs was to take the old stuff off and put new ones on. Never watched, just made nicer. Also, if there were floaters, I'd open them and see if they were scratched. If not, I'd rewrap. If there were, I'd just send back as damaged-saved us time and energy in the long run. Not saying that it doesn't happen, (I have gotten things that were "new" that were obviously not-finger prints and all.) but just giving you another point of view.

BKenn01

I am going to say it is probably a bootleg based on price. If they are that much cheaper than Amazon on a regular basis they are likely selling bootlegs. Since others have noted that the quality of the Authentic product is crappy then the manufacturer of the bootleg likely just replicated the same standard for the knock off.

If you can find (I wont point them out) the wholesalers of the bootlegs you will see that they have gotten nearly perfect in replicating packaging, etc. so it is nearly impossible to tell. I found the Monkeys seasons on there cheap enough that they could buy them and make a nice profit at what you bought them for.

If you want to find the bootleggers on ebay look for sellers who have many of the newer mainstream tv shows on dvd but not blu ray. You will likely find them selling titles with a $59.99 list for $19.99 or less. Often half what Amazon has for preorders. That is a sure sign of a bootlegger. Nobody that sells on ebay has the buying power of Amazon. Bootleggers have not yet began mass producing Blu-ray. Look out once they do.....

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I wouldn't. Importcds is selling it for around $15 and a few other places have it a little over $20.

SharkBait

I think it could be a bootleg. I have a hard time going back to the original menu if I'm playing it. If I press menu, it pauses and goes back to the scene instead of going to the menu. I never have that problem when playing regular commercial disks on my player (though sometimes do with DVD-Rs). I still will keep it, I just won't buy Season 2 from that seller. He has a feedback rate of over 99%, but the few that left him negative feedback, mostly said it was because they believed it was counterfeit discs on everything from "Dr. Who" to "How I Met Your Mother." His prices are super-low on everything. What's odd is that none of the other several thousand customers seemed to notice. No wonder counterfeits are such a huge problem in the industry.

PhantomStranger

Feedback on bootleg sellers is often worthless, as many of them have adopted a practice of completely refunding the purchase price when anyone raises a question about the item's authenticity, in exchange for silence. A few negative feedback complaints though still slip through.

speedy1961

I used to reshrinkwrap when I used to work at Borders.

Shannon Nutt

Yes, a a lot of reshrinkwraping simply happens because the original wrap comes off due to poor handling by employees or just sitting on the the shelf (or getting moved from shelf to shelf) over long periods. That's why most studios still use those stickers across the top/side of the disc - still the best way of determining if you have a bootleg or previously-owned copy. Although there are ways of getting the disc out without breaking that sticker if you know how to pry a box properly...did a few times for titles that studios refused to provide screeners of.

SharkBait

My Monkees DVD set did have a sticker on it. It was really easy to get off, though, and it looked a little on the small size. I'm not sure having a sticker or not is necessarily a sure sign of it being legit. If they can copy the rest of the package that well, I'm sure making and applying a sticker isn't that much of an extra step if it can help them avoid detection.

thetao

^^ Yes, the sticker is no obstacle anymore. I once received a professionally-wrapped, counterfeit Criterion with a security sticker. Looked perfectly normal from the outside, but not after it was opened.

Another suggestion: I've read on other threads that counterfeiters often won't press dual-layer DVD's to save costs. If the originals are DVD9's and yours are DVD5's, that would be a really clear sign that it's unofficial.

BKenn01

It is showing at $25.39 plus $2.99 at importcds for me.

My point is that if a retailer on ebay or Amazon is always significantly cheaper on everything that Amazon they are usually selling bootlegs or stolen merchandise. Especially if they have new releases. it is my experience that Amazon is on the whole cheaper than most retailers. Several ebay sellers use Amazon to drop ship their product.

That is my opinion based on what I see. As I said I found the Monkees on a bootleg site that the seller could have made a good profit at what the OP paid.

And the sticker is really no obsticale. There are places you can purchase security seals on the net. A few years ago there was some guys on a popular wholesale forum selling bootleg disney dvd's that included security seals and the Buena Vista stamp. The chinese who make most of these bootlegs have gotten very sophisticated.

SharkBait

I looked up the difference between DVD5 & DVD9, and it says the main difference can be told by the amount of data, since dual layer holds twice as much as a standard DVD. So, I put one of the discs the drive in my laptop and it is indeed a standard size, single layer DVD. I have no idea if the originals are single or dual layer, but since it's multiple episodes per disc plus extras, it seems likely.

PhantomStranger

Dvds from Hollywood studios almost never use single-layer DVDs anymore.