Shopping DVDs, etc Prices?

[mushumadness]

Hiya

Well its getting nearer my trip and to take my mind of whats happening at home, I have decided to ask what prices are dvds over in the states, are they much cheeper? (dbf is buying me a multi region dvd player) also where best to buy them from?

I am really interested in buying the charmed series, the lost series and all the btvs series, anybody know how to find how many charmed series have been released in the states and how many lost

I am totally clueless as to where to buy dvds from.

thanx for any help

anna

 

[cazzie]

I wouldn't mind buying the 'Everybody Loves Raymond' series too.

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

I'd love to know where to get them from as well. When I was over in 2003 everywhere I went they were $29.99+ tax which at the time worked out to be about £21 (exchange rate 1.45).

Just got back from Canada and they were C$19.99+tax (approx £10) ....so I bought a few.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

Its as cheap now to buy them from an internet site like Play 247 or CD wow and have them delivered to your door

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

Its as cheap now to buy them from an internet site like Play 247 or CD wow and have them delivered to your door

Its where I get the majority of mine from (unless Tesco are doing a special)

 

[cazzie]

I have ordered from Play.com USA for dvd's not out here in the past until I had customs charges which weren't so bad until the post office put their charges on top and decided it wasn't worth it.

 

[Oddjob]

These guys beat me to it unless its a reg 1 only release you wont find them cheaper than play.com

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=navmain&page=front&r=home

Thers a place in Belz had some Walmart too have a big range we got Finding Nemo in there for $14 and that was before it was released in The UK

Virgin on Downtown Disney have a big range but they are not cheap..

 

[Amyrlin]

I will be getting Lost, and some others, I may take some padded envoloped with me to send some 'gifts' home before I return, just in case as £145 is not a lot!

I think Wal-Mart will be one place I look.

 

[juliebro]

We found some DVD bargains at Circuit City and Best Buy - branches all over the place. One of each are on Orange Blossom Trail opposite the Florida Mall.

Julie

 

[GarryK]

You'll find DVD shops with reasonable selections in Florida Mall (just at the food court) and in the Premium Outlets (at the end where the Reebok store is).

I can't comment on how cheap these shops are other than to say both were selling the latest Star Trek SE (Insurrection I think) for $19.99 (not much more than a tenner) and it's currently £24.99 here !

Garry

 

[Cyrano]

Previous internet R1 retailers I've used are
www.dvdsoon.com Canadian
www.amazon.com

Reid

 

[rosiejo]

Anybody know how to find how many charmed series have been released in the states and how many lost

anna

Hi Anna - I'm after the charmed box sets too - I just looked on amazon.com and season 1 and 2 are on sale now - season 3 goes on sale on November 15 (we'll be there then...that's my wedding day!!)

It might be worth looking there to get an idea of price - and then looking at play.com etc to see if it's cheaper. I did also see that on November 15 they are releasing a box set of season 1- 3 for $117 (that's about £70) and that might work out cheaper than buying htem seperately...

I think I'll look up the price on amazon for stuff I'm interested in then when I see it in store I'll know whether it's cheap or not...

RJ

 

[mushumadness]

hiya

looks like the main thing i need to do is get my new tv that will let me play ntsc through it as the one i have now wont, but my dvd player will.

i have had a look at play etc and find them very good, but i want to look in florida first

cant wait to have all the seasons of all the programes i want

 

[wicket2005]

We didn't find prices cheaper than we can find over here on the net, so didn't bother. Plus the majority of dvds are in full screen not in the true format (widescreen) so you end up losing some of the picture which is definitely not a good thing in my opinion.

 

[disneyholic family]

hiya

looks like the main thing i need to do is get my new tv that will let me play ntsc through it as the one i have now wont, but my dvd player will.

i have had a look at play etc and find them very good, but i want to look in florida first

cant wait to have all the seasons of all the programes i want

As far as I know, NTSC is only an issue if you're playing videotapes.
For DVDs the issue is what zone they are, not NTSC vs PAL. The US DVDs are zone 1. I think that the UK is zone 2. However, you can buy a DVD player that plays both (make sure it does before you buy it). I may be wrong, but for DVDs, the TV is irrelevant. Only the DVD player matters.

 

[Tron[ADS]]

NTSC can still be an issue if your using an older TV set, and sometimes can be an issue if your connection method between dvd player and tv isnt correct.
If your DVD player can output the DVD in "Quazi Pal", then you wont have an issue whatsoever as it outputs the movie at 50Hz, and every TV will be happy with it. However, if your DVD player can only output raw NTSC, which is the prefered viewing option, then your TV has to support it.
With regards to connection method, some TV's can only handle NTSC on RGB (via scart), so if your using Svideo or Composite Video methods, your TV might not support it.
Its not a feature I would personaly look for, but I understand Quazi PAL is pretty much standard these days, so its extremely unlikely anyone will have a problem.


With regards to purchasing dvd's, I have found on recent visits, that there arent really any cheap dvd's in the shops over in Florida. The best retailers are probably BestBuy and Circuit City (as others have suggested), but the likes of Virgin MegaStore, and some of the mall dvd stores should be avoided as they are very expensive.
Best bet is to stick to the likes of dvdboxoffice.com and dvdsoon.com
Play247 have become pretty expensive these days (now that they have the established customer base)......they seem to make sure their titles are priced up to the import duty figure (£17.99)....they are no where near as cheap as they used to be.

 

[Richard Bruvofetc]

I can't comment on how cheap these shops are other than to say both were selling the latest Star Trek SE (Insurrection I think) for $19.99 (not much more than a tenner) and it's currently £24.99 here !

Garry

Star Trek Insurrection £5.99 (inc postage) on Play.com

 

[wicket2005]

As far as I know, NTSC is only an issue if you're playing videotapes.
For DVDs the issue is what zone they are, not NTSC vs PAL. The US DVDs are zone 1. I think that the UK is zone 2. However, you can buy a DVD player that plays both (make sure it does before you buy it). I may be wrong, but for DVDs, the TV is irrelevant. Only the DVD player matters.

You do need a tv that is capable of displaying NTSC signals which is the case with Region 1 dvd discs. Most tvs can cope with the American format but you need to look at your manual. If you have a Sony/Panasonic one they will definitely be able to read the format.

Multiregion DVD players can obviously play different regions but the signal leaving the dvd player will still be in a NTSC format if it is a region 1 disc.

 

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

As far as I know, NTSC is only an issue if you're playing videotapes.
For DVDs the issue is what zone they are, not NTSC vs PAL. The US DVDs are zone 1. I think that the UK is zone 2. However, you can buy a DVD player that plays both (make sure it does before you buy it). I may be wrong, but for DVDs, the TV is irrelevant. Only the DVD player matters.

Sorry, unfortunatly not. USA/Canada Region 1 DVD's are in NTSC, Region 2 European are in PAL/SECAM.

The same problems as Video tapes still occur. However, all TV's produced in the past (at least) 5 years can decode NTSC as well as PAL and SECAM. All DVD's will decode PAL?SECAM?NTSC but have top be hacked in tyhe most cases to play region 1 encoded discs, but there are plenty of sites available with information how to do this, its not as hard as has been made out.

 

[disneyholic family]

i do know you have to be very careful with what DVD player you buy.
Our first DVD player, which was supposedly able to play zone 1, was not able to play all of them.
So we tossed that one out and bought a more expensive one (i think it's a pioneer, but i'm not at home so i can't check it). It does indeed play all of the zone 1 DVDs.