[SweetCheater]

That perennial question...

I have just had my DVD player 'chipped' and it can now play R1 DVDs. There are loads of movies out right now I want on R1 but there seems to be a deluge of sites that offer this and that.

From all your experience, which one offers;

Cheapest prices

Quickest delivery

Secure and safe payment?

I know various people will have their own faves but if we can get a consensus, I'd be grateful.

Cheers

[James]

ive ordered quite a bit from play
www.play.com

[kemlyn]

I've also found play.com to be good.

To buy direct from Region One, I find the Canadian site http://www.dvdboxoffice.com/ to be excellent. They price their DVD's in both Canadian and US dollars, and as the exchange rate is 'better' between the Canadian dollar and the Pound compared to the US dollar/pound rate then the price is better than buying from a US site if you choose to pay the canadian dollar price. They also have free worldwide delivery, which is excellent. They use secure payments, and delivery is as good as you can expect for free trans-atlantic shipping.

[monkeysoup]

Cheapest prices - play and cdwow seem to do pretty well (14-18 quid for just about everything, and that includes the postage)

Fastest delivery - play seem to win (4 or 5 days, often arrive couple of days before official US street date)

Secure payment - no probs with play and amazon

Also to consider:

Riskiest journey through the postal service - had play shipments go missing (read the thread further down)

Biggest selection - amazon

Differences between US and Canadian versions (play source discs from Canada) - check the specs on each disc, although usually just slight packaging differences and different language dub tracks (and who cares about those?)

Play and amazon seem to work pretty well for me, but try a selection of the established vendors and see what works for you.

[TheCableGuy]

Quote:

Originally posted by James
ive ordered quite a bit from play
www.play.com

Yes i would recommend this site for R1 and R2 discs. They also sell games and music. They have very good prices (in my opinion), free delivery and quick delivery - considering it gets sent from Jersey.

[mpark]

For the cheapest prices see DVD Price Check.

As for the other factors, like you say, everyone has their favourites.

Murray

[GDK]

Play is very good, and has the advantage of being based in the UK (Channel Islands) if you ever need to return a disc.

Another one I've used since the days of laserdisc (they were called Ken Crane's then) is dvdplanet. I use them when it's a disc that Play don't carry.

Graeme

[DaisyMaisy]

There's also cd wow
But my favourite is ezydvd. Price is more important to me than speed of delivery, although they don't take an awful long time to get here. Although they're mostly in R4, I don't think they're all that different from R1.
Oh and don't forget about RCE.

[Phantom Flan Flinger]

Region 4 is worth considering as GBP to AUS$ is even better than the Canadian exhange rates.

Region 4 is also PAL as opposed to the NTSC of Region 1 if that is a problem for you.

There's usually not much differences between Regions 1,2 and 4. Check here for a good site of region comparisons.

HTH.

[wakey]

hmm i would personally disagree. The Region 4 and Region 2 discs are normally the same as each other (in fact are often duel encoded) but region 1 is almost always supperior for content. This is mainly due to the fact that discs aimed at the European market (and thus the R4 market at same time) include considerably more audio and subtitle launguages than the US equivilent resulting in extras. This causes the region 2/4 discs to have to have extras cut off the disc to fit these lanuaguages on. Of course if your the type of person whos only bothered about the film and wont watch the extras then its not much of a problem but if you like your extras then its something to think about

[technoflare]

Wouldnt these american sites be liable for customs taxes for each disc? If you have bought from them and not been charged i'd like to know.

[Jarrak]

Quote:

Originally posted by technoflare
Wouldnt these american sites be liable for customs taxes for each disc? If you have bought from them and not been charged i'd like to know.

As far as I know importing from outside the EU is liable for VAT and customs handling charges so importing a DVD from the US/Canada is liable for taxation.
However if the product is below £18ish then there is no charge and for every package checked there is probably 100 that are not checked. Couriers I believe are more strict and you are more likely to be charged import duty using them then the standard postal services.
In over four years of importing DVD's for my own use I have only been charge import taxes once and that was for a Boxset.

[matlane]

Has anyone ever been charged import duty after buying from Play (Jersey) or CD Wow (Hong Kong)?

[mpark]

Quote:

Originally posted by wakey
...region 1 is almost always supperior for content...

That's simply untrue. It may once have been the case, but in my experience of over 500 titles many (perhaps even most) R1 and R2 releases these days have identical contents.

But rather than using sweeping generalisations, it's more sensible to compare individual titles before you buy. There are a few sites to help you do this, including DVD Compare. They also happen to have running totals on their site of which version is best:

R0: 140
R1: 652
R2: 484
R4: 044
Draw: 1234

So more titles have identical versions than non-identical versions.

[pyphon]

R1's carry dts as well as dolby digital though, we just get dolby digital, mostly

[JoseyWales]

Quote:

Originally posted by matlane
Has anyone ever been charged import duty after buying from Play (Jersey) or CD Wow (Hong Kong)?

The only time you'll get charged is if the DVD costs £18 or over - and Play include this in the listed price.

I was charged once on a box set from Play, but you just need to contact them and they'll refund it. In fact, I think they now have it clearly labelled that duty has already been paid, so you shouldn't have any problem.

Personally, I now use Future Entertainment - generally quicker, usually cheaper, and they often have discs in stock in advance of the official release date.

[Jarrak]

Quote:

Originally posted by JoseyWales
The only time you'll get charged is if the DVD costs £18 or over - and Play include this in the listed price.

I was charged once on a box set from Play, but you just need to contact them and they'll refund it. In fact, I think they now have it clearly labelled that duty has already been paid, so you shouldn't have any problem.

Personally, I now use Future Entertainment - generally quicker, usually cheaper, and they often have discs in stock in advance of the official release date.

Play do not cover the cost of VAT and import duty on R1 disks sent from the US. If the order is over £18 then they inform you that you are responsible for any additional costs.
Play did indeed once upon a time refund the import costs but everytime that happended they lost a few pounds on the order which is not the way to run a business

I still use Play as they have proven to be reliable but I also order from Future and occasionally DVDboxoffice.

[mpark]

Quote:

Originally posted by pyphon
R1's carry dts as well as dolby digital though, we just get dolby digital, mostly

Again, another sweeping and untrue generalisation!

The Back to the Future Trilogy, released just a few weeks ago, contained DTS in R2 but not in R1.

Don't listen to any of the R1 is always best tripe, check out each title individually before you buy.

Murray

[wakey]

Quote:

Originally posted by mpark
That's simply untrue. It may once have been the case, but in my experience of over 500 titles many (perhaps even most) R1 and R2 releases these days have identical contents.

But rather than using sweeping generalisations, it's more sensible to compare individual titles before you buy. There are a few sites to help you do this, including DVD Compare. They also happen to have running totals on their site of which version is best:

R0: 140
R1: 652
R2: 484
R4: 044
Draw: 1234

So more titles have identical versions than non-identical versions.

Yes when you look at that there are more identical discs HOWEVER go look at the discs that do draw. Your find that most of them are actually the bear bone realeases of OLD movies. Most new releases by the main studies however arent.the same with the r2 missing features that the r1 had.

Oh and just to make it clear I said NORMALLY I didnt say always. There are some discs which are better featured on r2 and yes you should always check this out but on the whole r1 are superior due to more features, lower prices and earlier release dates

[idiot9]

For cheap dvds try www.dvdcrave.com they are an australian site and the dvds are very cheap