Dodgy DVDs

[Barney_Tabasco]

A friend of mine has just comeback from Kuala Lumpur where he purchased A.I., American Pie 2 and Final Fantasy amongst others for £2 each.

He has insisted that they are DVD (not VCD), they have extras and he claims they are from the pressing plant.

Could this all be correct? A.I. seems particularly suspect.

[jroadley]

Well, put them in your DVD player - this should tell you wether or not their a DVD or crappy VCD - also what are the aspect ratios and sound formats?

[Barney_Tabasco]

But even if they were DVD, it seems odd that they would have all the extras (especially in the case of AI which i didn't think even had a release date yet)!

[Mr Twister]

These films are called silver DVDs usually ripped from VCD.

[Doorman80]

I know someone who has one of these silver dvd's & on the cover it has Dolby Digital 5.1 it even plays the DD trailer before the film, but when the film starts you can tell its just ripped off a VCD with crap sound.
Just makes me laugh that they advertise it as DD & people fall for it.

[Michael Brooke]

As a general rule of thumb, if it's a recent big-budget Hollywood film and it hasn't come out on DVD in the States yet, it's guaranteed to be a pirate and virtually guaranteed to be of lousy quality.

[Jorin]

Yeah...Kuala Lumpur.

Who makes up this stuff?

[Tob]

Final Fantasy could be from the pressing plant but the others are pirates. Its funny what hookey (but perfect) copies you can get in the far east, even Criterions aren't sacred!

[Bapapapa]

Has Barney_Tabasco been banned or summink?

:confused:

[Abhisara]

In India, a lot of video rental stores have imported VCDs from Malaysia and many of them have the DVD logo on them claiming to be of DVD quality. They have to be VCDs since we played them with a VCD player. They had fairly dodgy picture quality (but better than dodgy VHS!) and Malaysian subs.

But I did get to see films like A Knight's Tale, Shrek, Operation Swordfish and Final Fantasy during the summer before they were out here.

[Roberto]

:D Imported VCD are so damn funny, I have the VCD of the bollywood movie 'Hum dil de chuke sanam' and this is what it claims on the back:

DVD version
Ultra Version (WTF does that mean?:D)
DD5.1
DTS
Ultra Dynamic 8 way sound ??!?!!! (:D )

And even has the nerve to stick a copyright thing at the bottom LOL

EDITED - but to be fair, it's 2.35:1 widescreen and dolby surround and a better the VHS.

[jroadley]

Originally posted by Bapapapa
Has Barney_Tabasco been banned or summink?

:confused:

Mods, you wanna answer this? :rolleyes:

[TimJBart]

yeh he's disappeared!

[danielod]

Originally posted by Bapapapa
Has Barney_Tabasco been banned or summink?

:confused:

I dont understand either :confused: :confused:

Dan

[Drel]

He's still here I saw him post in the classifieds.

[Paul490]

So did I. He has something around nine or ten posts to his name. I think he has reregistered.

[Barney_Tabasco]

Hi folks,

I'm here, thanks for the interest.

I did indeed get the old 'your names not on the list yer not coming in' treatment. To be fair, i did have two accounts on the go, but one was Barney_Tabasco1 (long story) so wasn't in any way meant to deceive - i made it blatantly clear it was still me at all times. I did think it would have been nicer to have just closed that particular account down and let me keep my main one but hey-ho, we've all got our jobs to do!


I'm back though now, albeit going from about 1400 posts to about 10 :confused:

[JayX]

pir8 dvds aren't usually VCD copies, as they are in MPEG2 rather than MPEG1. just watch the picture, and u'll see there is far less distortion and its a higher res, but they do come from the same source as VCD.

unlike vcd, dvd silvers actually do have dd and dts soundtracks, its just they're not very good, so they're not worth bothering with. Also details on the back are usually ripped from another cover rather than being accurate (such as a film being an NTSC print when its actually PAL)

so basically, DVD silvers = VCDs with a bit more class (and convenience)

oh, and MB - "lousy quality" ? too many people presume VCDs=always cams. some of the discs (VCD/SVCD which is far superior to VHS) i've seen lately have been superb quality, with correct framing, clear sound, no subs and sharp undistorted visuals. A lot of people who I know who have seen these discs had no idea they were pirates of films.

JayX