Original DVD-Set?!?

This forum is for questions/discussions about the now sold out first DVD box set by BMG / AnotherUniverse.
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nina
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Original DVD-Set?!?

Post by nina » Jan 2nd 2006, 11:31 am

Hi there,
before Christimas I bought a DVD-Box-Set on ebay.de from an Austrian.
Now the package is here, I'm not sure, wheather it's an original.
I have doubts because of these points:

- :?: the back of the dvd is purple and not silver as usual
- :?: it's not a paperboard box with 6 single dvd covers but one dvd cover with 6 dvds in it
- :?: there's no booklet
- :?: the print on the dvds looks a bit blurred
- :?: on the dvds is no dvd-sign, there is only the compact-disc-label

you can have a look at the auction here: ebay

I would be very glad, if someone of you could answer quickly, because maybe I have to object to the seller.

thank you very much and happy new year!
Nina

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starbug
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Post by starbug » Jan 2nd 2006, 12:43 pm

Hi

To me, it looks like an illegal copy of the box set. The box set produced by Another Universe (which was not of spectacular quality itself) comes with 5 plastic single-DVD cases, all then further encased by a cardboard 'box' holder (green). You should have 5 separate DVDs, but also 5 separate corresponding cases, each of a different colour. The bonus disk would be in addition to this, in its own separate plastic DVD cover but that would not fit into the green 'box' set holder, and would stand alone from it.

The colours of the top side of the DVD should match the colour of the plastic case corresponding to that DVD:

So:
Vol 1. Case and DVD - Orange
Vol 2. - Purple
Vol 3. - my case is pink, but the DVD itself has no labelling whatsoever. Like I say, AU quality wasn't the best.
Vol 4. - Blue
Vol 5. - Red

All of the 'backs' (I mean the non-labelled side. Sorry, I'm not very technical) of the DVDs are the normal silver colour, not purple.

I don't have a 'booklet' of any kind, and I don't think there was one, ever. Someone else here can correct me if they got one, as it is entirely possible AU just never included one in the set I received.

The actual print on my DVDs (with exception of Vol 3 - see above) is clear and not blurred at all.

The actual DVD doesn't say 'DVD' on it; it does have the Compact Disc logo though.

Although it is difficult to tell from the auction page itself, I'd say it looks like the seller has copied the green 'box' cover onto a plastic DVD case. On the photo at the auction page you can see a pretty clear black outline on the DVD case itself, whereas there is no black outline on the original artwork for the cover 'box'. It also doesn't look anywhere near as deep a box as it should be: my box is around 6cm deep, to hold all 5 cases - Do you have one green cover and then all 6 DVDs inside one case? If so, I think it's an illegal copy.

I hope you get this sorted out.

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Sascha
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Post by Sascha » Jan 2nd 2006, 8:08 pm

I agree with Starbug -- this looks like an illegal copy. But due to the cheap quality of the original BMG/AU set, it's very hard to tell if it's a bootleg or not. Maybe the seller just moved the individual discs into one case to reduce shipping costs. But the purple color of the back side of the DVDs sounds very suspicious. They should be silver or golden, but not purple. Home-burnt DVD-Rs are purple. You can check the manufacturer printing on the inner "ring" of the backside of the DVD. It should say somewhere "SONOPRESS USA" if it's an original edition.

I noticed an increase of highly dubious sets available at ebay.com in the past months, mostly some alleged "Import DVDs", with all 6 DVDs (including the bonus disc) in one single Amaray DVD case. Note that MSCL was never officially released on DVD outside the US and Canada.

These auctions are often listed with $0.99 as "buy now" price, but the small print mentions US $39.00 for shipping and packaging. The sellers often don't have more than 10 feedbacks. At least the times where they got US $200 and more for the sets seem to be over.

justhere
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Post by justhere » Sep 17th 2006, 2:33 am

I've just purchased a copy of the set on ebay for $20 plus $10 shipping. I don't know whether it's a bootleg or not, but the price makes me think it's highly likely. The seller has advertised the set as Region 1 while the bootleg copies I've seen are encoded as Region 0. They have advertised the set like this:
You will receive all 19 episodes of this sadly short-lived TV series on 5 MINT condition DVD's. Excellent picture and 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. Discs are labeled with artwork and ship as a boxed set.
They have made their feedback private, but they've received 289 ratings that are 98.7% positive, so they seem trustworthy. I don't know whether or not to send them a check now, because I'm not interested in buying a bootleg copy that was falsely advertised with the wrong region encoding.

Can anyone tell me if the original DVDs are "labeled with artwork" as claimed, or if this sounds legitimate, so I can decide what to do?

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Sascha
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Post by Sascha » Sep 17th 2006, 2:06 pm

$30 for an original boxset would be highly unusal. The original box set has been sold out for over two years now and I haven't seen it anywhere for less than $100 recently. Ask the seller for details about the boxset (Is it an imported edition? Is it the original BMG boxset?) or at least for a picture of the set if you don't want to risk getting a bootleg copy.

This weird mention of discs being "labeled with artwork" doesn't mean anything. Everyone can print some "artwork" on DVDs if the discs have a special printable surface. The fact that the seller emphasizes this makes it even more dubios.

The original boxset was/is region 0 ("Region Free").

The feedback rating is also mostly worthless. There are thousands of $0.01 auctions on ebay just for one reason: Getting a positive feedback rating quickly. And there are many buyers out there who intentionally buy these bootleg copies -- because there's no other way to get the show on DVD these days.

To make it short: Judging from the price alone I would think it's an illegal copy, but I can't say for sure without having seen the discs. Try contacting the seller.

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