Re: OT: Season 3 DVDs

["mudrat_26" <mudrat_26@xxxxxxxxx>]

Well, that fully sucks. The main issue over here (as pointed out by 
DAz in post 18546) in deciding whether or not to ban them is the 
whole "control of sales" issue versus quality of product for the 
consumer. Our consumer advocate (aka the ACCC) argues that there's 
no legal way to enforce region coding, and they believe it's highly 
unethical to do so as consumers should have the freedom to purchase 
the product from wherever they choose. On the other hand, there are 
*some* companies in Asia mass-producing low-quality DVDs for O/S 
markets (a friend of mine bought Harry Potter just after it was 
released in the cinemas for the equivalent of $AUS8.00 - that's about 
$US4.50 - in China. The DVD worked the first time they played it, 
but now it's cactus.) These two issues have been batted back and 
forth in parliament here since the first DVD players were released - 
and so the saga continues... 

Meantime, though, it gives us quite a bit of freedom - I've found a 
heap of stuff at Blackstar and also at dvdboxoffice.com (Canadian 
site) which hasn't been released on DVD in Aus (Stargate - the film, 
that is, Tron, Tank Girl, Dr Who, Queen Margot...the list goes on and 
on...

Oh, and DAz - nice to hear from another southern hemisphere nutcase 
(like myself). Totally agree that we should follow the example set by 
NZ.

cheers,
mudrat

--- In buffywantswillow@y..., buffnwill@j... wrote:
> Multi-region players are not available in the US (at least not 
legally).
> There are, of course, black market sources for chips or something 
that
> you can supposedly change and for some DVD computer drives 
(depending on
> brand and model) there are some software patches (unfortunately not 
for
> the one I have). It's all really quite oppressive. The first 
generation
> of DVD players released in the US were multi-region so those do
> occasionally pop up on E-Bay.
> 
> P.S. The only stupid questions are the ones not asked!
> 
> On Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:47:28 -0000 "mudrat_26" <mudrat_26@y...>
> writes:
> Apologies if this is a stupid question, but do you guys in the US 
> have multi-zone DVD players? I ask aforementioned stupid question 
> because there has been talk of the government introducing 
legislation 
> here in Aus to have them banned, limiting us to region 4 DVDs only -

> was wondering what the sitch is in other contries.
> 
> If you do have them, it's always possible to order the DVDs from 
> O/S. www.blackstar.co.uk is a good site - they've got BtVS S4 and 
> AtS S2 on DVD (region 2), and on 17 June released the first half of 
> BtVS S6 and AtS S3 on VHS. Their prices are reasonable (after the 
> exchange rates, 'cos ours sucks anyway) - and I'm going through 
them 
> to source all my Farscape DVDs, since they're not being released in 
> Aus.
> 
> cheers,
> mudrat