Interesting...

[ffutures]

I noticed that the Dresden Files DVDs were due out on the 7th and not terribly expensive, so ordered them this morning. This afternoon I got an email saying they've been posted. Not unreasonable, since they'll be coming from Jersey and probably won't be here until Monday 6th at the earliest, but nice anyway.

Comments

[draconin.livejournal.com]

What a dilemma for me in Australia. Buy now on Amazon and get it in NTSC format (which sucks) or wait for an unknown amount of time and get it in PAL format?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The quality of most NTSC DVDs I've bought so far hasn't been too bad - and the price difference on things like obscure TV shows that will sell only to niche markets more than makes up for the quality in my opinion.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

You're right, it's not too bad. However, there *is* a noticeable difference and, given a reasonable choice, I'd prefer to go with the PAL version. I notice that Amazon UK has it in PAL but it's AUD$61 vs AUD$32 for the US version. That's a hell of a lot of money to pay for PAL, particularly when it's still the wrong region code!

And BTW, WTF?? Nearly double the price in the UK? Man, sucks to be British at times eh?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

UK DVD prices tend to be extortionate. That's what region codes are for, hadn't you realised? Lets the studios / distributors screw the maximum possible profit out of the punters. I bet the music companies wish they'd thought of it when CDs were invented. But there are sources a lot cheaper than Amazon, e.g. play.com and cd-wow.com

If it's anything really important I'll always wait for a PAL version - I've got hacked DVD players so I'm not too worried about region beyond that. E.g. it was at one time cheaper to import some of the Buffy stuff from Australia than to buy it locally, so some of my Buffy stuff is Australian. Some of my Highlander disks are German. And so forth.

[draconin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we have the same problem with CDs here although it has changed since the govt changed the legislation about 5 years ago.

I made quite a bit of money from the Buffy DVDs! Originally they'd been selling for ages at a best price of about AUD$80 per box set. Then my local (JB HiFi) had a sale where they sold both Buffy and Angel entire for $35 per box but they were still going on eBay for about $65-70! I bought about $3000 worth of them (the *look* on the salesman's face!) and sold them on eBay for a tidy profit! :-P Don't know that I'd do it again though - it was a bit of a risk.