Importing Dvd's into the United States

[whontime]

I have recently purchased a all regions dvd player with a built in converter and I am wondering which dvd stores are the best to purchase from. The main reason I bought the player is to get the Buffy Season 2 and 3 dvds and the Angel seasons and a few others I can't get in the US. Any online stores that you can recommend would be appreicated. Also does anyone know how strict US customs is? Does the US charge a import tax on dvd's? I really have no idea about the particular extra charges I might incur by importing dvd's. Is it better to import from the UK or Austraila? Thanks in advance, you guys have a great forum here.

[samuelowens]

I don't know about US customs, but as a general rule, Australia will be a considerably cheaper source of DVDs than the UK. Most DVDs can be had from Australia for about $32-$35 ($US17-18). I live in Australia and tend to use B&Ms for my DVDs, so I will not comment on the quality of online stores either. www.ezydvd.com.au and www.devoted.com.au (mods, forumify if necessary) are two Australian stores that many here recommend. I've ordered UK discs from www.amazon.co.uk, www.bensonsworld.co.uk and www.choicesdirect.co.uk all without incident.

[cervaro]

Would probably be best to visit or call your local USPS office. Imagine they could advise what the lowdown on possible customs charges is. I've been given the impression in the past from people I've sent packages to in the US that customs over there are much less likely to charge duty on items compared with the UK. Maybe they don't like earning money for nothing like our Customs people. :mad:

Have a look here.
U.S. Customs - Importing & Exporting (http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/impoexpo/impoexpo.htm)

USPS will make a charge for collecting customs duties payable according to their website.

[whontime]

Thanks a lot guys. I placed an order with dvdcrave.com for the Buffy season 2 dvd set. The price was very good after converting to US funds. Now I just have to hope that it makes it through customs without getting some type of tax placed on it. I used the DHL International shipping option so maybe that will help somewhat.

[va_scapergal]

I have made several purchases from amazon.uk and while the DVD prices were higher than US the shipping was minimal and there were no 'duties' or customs taxes that I am aware of. I believe I'll check out one of those Ausie sites for future buys. I try not to get too hung up on the cash particulars - I've been burned and also been lucky.

Hope you have gGood luck as well;)

[whontime]

I received my Buffy season 2 set from dvdcrave.com today. I have to say dvdcrave did a great job. I placed my order Tuesday afternoon and the dvd's arrived today, I did use DHL, but 3 days seems pretty fast for Austraila to the USA. I have a quick question for you guys though. I have a Sampo multi region player and my tv is a Pioneer rear projection set. When I played one of the buffy dvd's I see a lot of artifacts when the people are moving fast. Its not terrible, but its not great either, it bothers me. Any idea what is causing this? Is it just a low quality Pal/Ntsc converter in the Sampo machine? Or is there some way I can make the picture stop doing this? The picture is great until there is a lot of motion or fighting then I see a lot of artifacts. Its as if the tv can't keep up with the on screen action or something. Any input would be helpful. Thanks.

[Bex]

Don't think I can help too much, except to say that I also have a Sampo multi-region player and haven't noticed any real problems with the PAL/NTSC conversions on any of the R2 discs I own (and, as I recently emigrated from the UK, I have quite a few). We can usually tell it's a R2 disc rather than a R1 one, but it hasn't actually affected our viewing at all.

I have Buffy S2 from the UK not Australia though so I can't help on your specific case. Do you have any other non-R1 discs?

[whontime]

The Buffy dvd's are the only non region 1 disks that I have. Luckily for me though my problem with the picture cleared up after the 1st episode. The 1st episode of disk 1 is the only one that had the transfer problem. I watched the first four episodes last night and that was the only one with the problem. I think I will pick up Buffy Season 3 from Austraila now for sure and probably Season 1 of Angel.