I’m seeking the final answer to the age-old question. I bought two defective box sets at Carrefour many years ago, The New Doctor Who Series, season one and The Classic Night Rider -Season one.
I found them in the Bargain bins. I did not return during the guarantee period because I was under the impression that we never “own the content” of the DVD and it was the obligation of the creator to provide us with a free or low-cost copy of the defective media. (As compensation for us giving up the right to make back up copies due to encryption).
Well back then, I tried contacting the distributor by calling the “customer service number” on the box. My Chinese was horrible then and it required many callbacks.
When I got through to someone I could finally communicate with, I was given the third degree as if I were a criminal. What’s wrong with the DVD? Where did you buy it? What was the logo on the box? Did it have certain markings? Then he put me on hold for a few minutes
He came back and then told me that I had reached the DVD anti-piracy office. The DVD’s is legal and the people who distributed it left the DVD business, goodbye.
So here I am. Two almost completely new DVD box sets mastered so poorly the none of the best DVD copying or backup utilities I know of can read it. Yes, I’ve seen every episode on the DVD’s but I do love the extras.
But it’s a matter of principle. If I can get a replacement DVD from the people who own this content now, I want it. It’s mine! The Box was never abused and I want my replacement if I can have it. Anyone know how I should proceed if possible. I wonder if I sent the box to the Doctor (herself). she may take pity on me and give me a new box.
Yeah, I should let it go, but… I once used a full vacation day to go to court for a $30 dollar parking ticket, just because it wasn’t my fault! I won the case Principals are expensive.
If I’m not eligible for replacement and the law is shown to me, I’ll give it up.
(Excuse my hostility. I was a victim of the Year Multi-Region DVD players were banned and no one would give me the secret DVD commands. Really, I was cut off for one year from all of my Region 1 content!)
That’s the unfortunately part of some of the cheaper box sets… there are distribution outfits in Taiwan that come and go. Usually when they go, their releases end up in the bargain bin.
The biggest distributor is Deltamac (which seems to be a Hong Kong company but they have a branch here). They release most of Disney’s releases along with a lot of other studios. Other than them, there is Catchplay and Waylan (?). Who are also ‘okay’. But other than that, you just don’t know what you’re going to get.
Though you won’t necessarily get great service from them either. Beauty and the Beast was originally released on blu-ray with a small error in the video. Overseas, they’d replace the disc for you. Deltamac would not. I had issues with my Sleeping Beauty blu-ray and they took the video and sent it back saying they thought it was fine. I did eventually get it working on my XBOX. Wouldn’t play on either my PS3 or PS4.
I think I have that same Dr. Who box set. If I remember right, it was interlaced and looked like crap.
Is there a way to get around regions? This annoys me a lot. Dvd player wont play my dvds from abroad. So use computer but the computer says i can only change my region 5 times…wtf? Anyway around this?
I used to buy region-unlocked DVD players - eight or nine years ago they were mildly but not excessively difficult to find; I don’t know what the situation is these days. Handbrake is I believe still a thing to rip DVDs on to your computer. If you’ve got a lot to work with, I’d consider strategic region-switching and Handbrake to get all your DVDs into Plex or something like that instead.
Slightly different question: What happens with DVDs when you use a Blu-Ray player, since they’ve got different regions set up? Will my Canada-DVDs and my Taiwan-DVDs both play on a Taiwan-Blu-Ray player? How do the different format regions map on to one another?
For regular DVDs, North America and Taiwan are incompatible. However, for Blu-Ray, they match up fine and my ‘regular’ DVDs from the US play in my Blu-Ray DVD player just fine.
For some types of DVD drives there are modified firmwares available that allow changing of Region Code Unlimited Times.
My low tech solution, though, was to simply install in my PC another DVD drive that I had laying around. One drive for European DVDs, one for Taiwanese.
And yes, all that DRM shit is only annoying legit users. Everyone else who pirates etc. is not affected.