Info and forum posts by 'malcy'

This user hasn't used our main site yet, so has no main account at present.

Joined on: Friday, 17th August 2001, 12:20, Last used: Friday, 17th August 2001, 12:20

Access Level: Competent

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This user has posted a total of 124 messages. On average, since joining, this user has posted 0.01 messages a day, or 0.1 messages a week. In the last 30 days, this user has posted 0 messages, which is on average 0 messages a day.

Recent Messages Posted:

RE: Help: EGG:Terminator and Terminator 2 (R2) easter eggs?

To clarify

R2 of T2 the egg only lets you watch the deleted scenes as extra scenes they are not included back in the film (which R1 offers) as no seamless branching.

The original Terminator has no eggs in UK R2 although the R1 does have eggs which give you interview clips

RE: Back To The Future Trilogy Question

All the extra features on the R1 version are available as standard menu items and are not easter eggs. Therefore they are easily accessable to the masses.

RE: Best sites to avoid customs

It is a common misconception that Play are safe from customs charges for R1 as they reship from Belgium. This is not the case as they are not officially in the EU at that stage as held in an "Offshore" environment, only when they forward to you in the UK do they enter the EU for tax purposes so customs can catch you if over £18. In the run up to Christmas there were reports on the DVD Forums of quite a few people being caught as customs are extra vigilent then.

R2 DVDs and Games (including accessories) are fine with no customs risk in the UK as they ship from Jersey and if over £17.99 they pay the tax on your behalf, which is why the postage label says UK tax paid. This is a legal requirement for Channel Island companies and any who do not can get fined.

RE: The Life of Brian - Criterion Version (Region 1)

May want to wait to see what Columbia do in the UK R2 due later this year. Luckily they have now got the rights from Paramount (who did the dire p/s effort a year back). Given their excellent Holy Grail will hopefully do something similar with Life of Brian. Also would expect to be cheaper.

RE: 12 DVD`s for £12 in The Works

I got the American Heroes set from them about a month ago, also 12 films for £12. These seem to be made for TV action films all okay around 90 minutes long. Four of these are the made for TV Delta Force series C5 had on TV late last year.
Disks come in 3 cases. Each holds 2 disk (one on each side of the inside of the case), with each being a DVD10 (so a film on each side of the disk).

At the price okay, and quality was fine so keep me busy over the next month or so.

RE: Bourne Identity R1 for less than £12!

Agree my already posted from DVDSoon as well.
Expect by next Saturday as average 3 - 5 days longest has been 2 weeks (but only once)

RE: My Little Eye DVD

The UK release is from Momentum who may well impose a rental window on it as they seem to be introducing these for their new titles (not back catalogue releases). Therefore expect something around April 2003 6 months after cinema releases but if this is rental only then you will need to wait another 4 to 6 months for a retail version.

I think this had a UK cinema release before the US ? so nothing on R1 yet may get it later this year depends if goes straight to retail there and misses cinemas.

RE: Sleeping Beauty .....Region 1 Release?

There is a trailer for the SE on the R1 Beauty & Beast SE saying coming 2003. I read somewhere its due around May ?

RE: Is there going to be a Goodfellas special edition?

Definitely coming later this year.
Was just delayed from 2002 because of all the re-edits for Gangs of New York

RE: Hong Kong Legends Scorpion King not ROCK for £8.00 @ DVD Street

The £2 was sent to everyone on their mailing list. It is a user specific one use only I`m afraid.

Back to HKL titles MVC (who are part of the same company as Streets) have these instore at £7.99 so you can save the postage
I got Scorpion King, My Lucky Stars, Prodigal Son & Avenging Fist

RE: Spider-Man Region 1 RCE

As its released by Columbia who are the users of RCE its not a surprise.
Over the last couple of months most of the R1 new releases have had RCE, but only those they have the worldwide rights to.

RCE is a revenue protection scheme as DVDs are more expensive in Europe and they want to discourage low priced imports from North America. They other supposed reason when a film has not had a European cinema release yet applied to Mr Deeds but not the likes of Spider-Man or Panic Room.

RE: Jerry MaguiCollector`s Edition

I think Columbia made an error in their published rrp in the first press release for this title. R2 Project quoted £12.99 at the time as well.
Thought it was very cheap for a 2 disk SE especially as I had recently paid £15.99 for the R1.

Now seems Columbia have corrected the rrp in their latest new release listings so most retailers have now raised price (Splash, Play, ...)
Amazon were earlier this week still doing for £10.39 + P&P but may have realised as well by now and raised the price.

RE: Play.com and new region 1 customs clause

They claim since 11/9 customs now scan packages coming into the UK more carefully. Therefore their from Belgium more likely to be stopped and hence charged if over £17.99
I suppose they just want to save money and stop you complaining to them if your order is caught.

RE: Play.com and new region 1 customs clause

Customs charges in the UK only depend upon the price and not the weight. You have to pay VAT (at 17.5%) + Import Duty (3.5% ?) + Handling Fee for the Royal Mail which is I now I believe at some ridiculous level of £4 or so. This is on the full amount if over £17.99

Items from Play are normally safe as they actually ship R1 from offshore bonding in Belgium. Therefore unlike items direct from US, Canada or Aus customs are not looking for them, although items from Amazon.com shipped via Germany usually get caught if over limit.

I have seen postings to say items occasionally get caught from Play but it is rare.

RE: Should I check with my "local customs" agency to see if they have my missing disk?!

They now seem to make you wait around 8 weeks, although I have seen threads here and on other forums saying you now need to threaten you will go to your CC company for a refund before they will do anything.

RE: Six Feet Under/Frasier

Fraser was delayed because they wanted to get cast involvement, so commentaries ? had originally been planned as plain with just the episodes, no extras.

RE: Hong Kong Legends DVDs for £8.99

BTW
Drunken Master & Snake in Eagle`s Shadow are the wrong aspect ratio, HKL even admit this on their website. They are working on Platinum releases of these which will correct this expect them very late this year or 2003.
Drive has had major problems with faults and incompatibility recently. There is a thread here, and I have posted on a number of forums about this along with others. Supposedly the fault is fixed (however do Splash have the corrected disks ?) even so this corrected one does not work on all players. For me works on a Sony 725D but not Sony F21 or PS2 !

RE: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves?

It is coming out in the US soon, probably by the end of the year.
Morgan Creek the production company have just finished True Romance SE due out next month in R1 and have now moved onto Robin Hood.
Expect 2 disk SE with DTS (Morgan Creek now add this to their titles even though distributed by Warner who don`t support it) and uncut unlike UK.

RE: Possible incompatibility - `Drive`

I have been looking at this with a number of affected users.
It seems there are two problems with this disk, both at the same point of the film, just after the layer change (so moving from end of ch28 to start of ch29)

1. Manufacturing fault - this seems to affect the majority of disks pressed in the last few months, older copies seem okay. HKL now seem to have rectified this (definitely have for their own stock sold direct), but retailers may still have faulty stock on their shelves.

2. Incompatibility fault - certain players do not like the layer change with newly pressed disks (even with corrected copies). Seems to be linked to the really long layer change. If it is works this is around 2 - 3 seconds.
It seems some players try for upto 10 seconds to play ch29 the one after the layer change can`t so give up and skip the ch so move to ch30 the end titles which play okay.
Various workarounds which have worked with problematic disks before, eg stopping disk and restarting at that point, pressing play when paused, scene forward don`t work.
Also it is strange that in my case my old Sony 725D plays it with the pause by I get the incompatibility with my newer Sony F21 & PS2. Other users have had problems with different makes of players.

HKL have not yet responded to this reported incompatibility only the manufacturing fault.

RE: DVD Soon:- GETTING REALLY P****D OFF WITH THEM

DVD Soon have a reputation for taking ages or never responding to e-mails.

Another company who charge immediately for pre-orders is Futureent.

I tend to stick to Play or Movietyme for pre-orders as they don`t charge until title is in stock. May be slightly more expensive but safer.

RE: Possible incompatibility - `Drive`

I have been liasing with HKL about the problems with Drive over the last month. There is a major manufacturing fault with this title, which means that 99% of copies on sale won`t play past the layer change the picture breaks up or refuses to play so ch29 the last before the end credits is unwatchable.

Please look at my threads here for more info
http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=101651
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=40559

I`m afraid you have little hope of getting a working version in the near future

Malcolm

RE: PLAY247 now selling ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA region 0 version

This is a Greek rehash of the Brazilian disk. It is p/s and only advantage is now dual layer rather than flipper.
Picture is supposed to be poor.

There is a rumoured w/s version coming out in 2003 in the US

RE: brotherhood of the wolf

May be worth checking all the versions.

The UK R2 is from Universal and looking at the BBFC they have listed enough for a 2 disk as they have deleted scenes, interviews and a 80 min documentary. All subtitled with film having choice of subtitled or dubbed.

In North America it is more confusing as Universal in US are releasing a one disk without the 80 min documentary whereas in Canada it is a different company who are releasing a version of the French 3 disk LE. This also has an additional 90 min making of, all is supposed to be subtitled but waiting final confirmation.

RE: Cosmos

This is being rereleased in the US in September for USD120.
Was previously only available from Carlsagan.com and Amazon.com for USD160

From reviews is remastered (although picture quality still poor)
Also has updates at end of each episode.

RE: Retailers w/free shipping

Not many R2 UK based retailers ship to the US.
I don`t think Play do. The ones I am aware of are Blackstar and Amazon.co.uk With these companies they use the VAT saving to lower the shipping cost.

One word of warning can your m8 play PAL disks in the US, which your R2 ones will be. Unlike the UK very few DVD players and TVs are PAL compatible in the US most only support NTSC

RE: The Rock - Deluxe Edition: Is it really 5.1/DTS

Play just read what is in the press release and on the back of the sleeve (which is wrong does not mention it, but this is their first UK DTS title).
If you check out R2 project www.r2-dvd.org they have the menu shots which prove it has DTS as stated in every review.

RE: SLEEPING BEAUTY - WIDESCREEN (DVD)

If you are prepared to wait this is eventually being released in the UK around October / November this year, just after the Beauty & the Beast Platinum release.
Will be cheaper as max rrp would be £24.99 so £17.99 at Play

Also from reviews of the French version in that although you get an English track for the film with no locked in French subs, the documentaries on disk 2 are over dubbed in French so you can`t hear the English and the text features are obviously all in French.

RE: Infinifilm - is it any good?

You can get Rush Hour 2 R2 for only £9.99 in most sales at present including HMV.
The infinifilm features are very good if you like branching out when watching the film to the extras.

However most if not all of these are available on the UK R2 disk from EiV from the special features menu. Also because of the space taken up to run the infinifilm feature some are not as good as other versions worldwide
eg 15 minutes has DTS in UK
and Thirteen Days has DTS in Aus as extras are on 2nd disk

Therefore its your choice a nice gimmick or saving money

RE: Play.com pre releases for £11.99

this is because these are Warner releases and they have reduced their rrp on new release single disk dvds to only £15.99 then with Play`s 25% discount comes down to only £11.99
if only others would follow.

think its part of their strategy to boost retail sales and kill rental especially with their new rental pricing (rental shops now have to pay a massive premium for the disks rather than just the retail price).

RE: R1 sites that ship from the UK

Play hold their R1 stock in Brussels (offshore so not deemed to have passed therough customs). However if you order an instock item always seems to arrive 2 working days later, which is normally as good as Futureent.

However only downside is customs risk if item over £17.99, it appears to be very rare to be hit for one of their orders, but can happen and now unfortunately the no longer refund customs charges.

If you are prepared to wait Movietyme repost in UK so no customs risk but as no stock here, comes direct from US expect around 5 days for delivery of an instock item (however can`t tell from their site)