Ruscico discs .. which is the best/cheapest place to get em?

[malbulger]

plse!

[Dagada]

Both AI releases of the Tarkovsky films seem to be identical to the excellent Ruscico disks if that's any help..... Otherwise, I think a certain MB will have to help you here.

[kdart]

There are two US suppliers both of which I have not used
rbcmp3 (http://www.rbcmp3.com/store/) andSt. Petersburg Publishing House (http://www.st-p.com/)

[Daliah Lavi]

I've bought Tale of the Tsar Sultan, Aladdin, Viy & Ruslan & Ludmilla from a seller on eBay USA, she ships from HK, they work out to be about £19 each.

I'm counting the days until Sadko hits dvd, which should be 2ndQtr 2002.

Ciao Daliah

[adamvbarker]

St. Petersburg Publishing House charges (or did last time I looked) $50 to ship outside the USA! (So I'm guessing they are actually located in the USA)

rbcmp3 email you with shipping charges once they've worked them out. I paid $10. The titles of the movies are in Russian which can be difficult if you don't read cyrillic too well. A while back someone posted a link to a page that gave you the english titles with links to the russian pages, which was rather helpful.

I've used the ebay seller too. Search for Solaris and you'll probably find it.

Also Amazon.com have a few. Look under 'International & Arthouse/ Russia'.

[malbulger]

thanks v much , i am interested in some of the tarkovsky films which have not made it to the likes of criterion or other region 1 manufacturers..

cheers

[Michael Brooke]

The Ruscico Tarkovskys are all being duplicated by Artificial Eye - <I>Solaris</I> and <I>Andrei Rublev</I> are out now, and <I>Stalker</I> is on its way. By all accounts these are exactly the same discs right down to the catalogue number.

You might also find French websites such as <A HREF="http://www.musicbox.fr">Musicbox</A> and <A HREF="http://www.fnac.com">FNAC</A> useful – the artwork will be in French, but the discs will be identical (i.e. with trilingual menus in English, French and Russian).

<A HREF="http://www.ruscico.com">Ruscico</A> themselves keep promising to have an online shop open imminently, so it’s worth checking with them too.

As for Tarkovsky discs, current recommendations are as follows:

<UL><I>Ivan’s Childhood</I> - out later this year on both Ruscico and Criterion
<I>Andrei Rublev</I> - out on Ruscico/Artificial Eye and Criterion: the former has a much better transfer but the latter has a longer cut and better extras.
<I>Solaris</I> - out on Ruscico/Artificial Eye, with a Criterion version out later this year, but it has a tough act to follow given the excellence of the Ruscico transfer.
<I>Mirror</I> - out on Kino in an excellent transfer but with no extras. Ruscico version to follow later this year, which will probably be a more comprehensive package, so I’d advise waiting.
<I>Stalker</I> - out on Ruscico (and, soon, Artificial Eye). Beware the initial release version, which has a remixed 5.1 soundtrack that differs quite sharply from the Tarkovsky original – after protests, this is being replaced.
<I>Nostalghia</I> - out on Fox Lorber in a poor transfer (far too much edge enhancement).
<I>The Sacrifice</I> - out on Kino in a package that includes the 101-minute documentary<I>Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky</I>. Sadly, the side-effects of cramming over four hours onto a single disc are all too apparent - there’s a lot of artefacting.</UL>

Ruscico will not be handling the last two titles as they’re not Russian films. Artificial Eye used to hold the UK video rights, so it might be worth waiting to see if they do anything with them – certainly, their transfers are usually a fair bit better than the Fox Lorber and Kino efforts.

[John Mardaljevic]

RUSCICO's (http://www.ruscico.com/) e-shop seems to be open. Hard to believe after all the delays, but have a look yourselves.
Base price of ~$25 for singles and ~$35 for doubles includes postage: "Avia mail (1-3 weeks) at RUSCICO expense".

[jonathan.e]

Originally posted by Daliah Lavi
I've bought Tale of the Tsar Sultan, Aladdin, Viy & Ruslan & Ludmilla from a seller on eBay USA, she ships from HK, they work out to be about £19 each.

I too got a couple of Ruscico discs along with the Twin Peaks pilot ($12 - not too shabby) from this seller for very fair prices. Unfortunately he/she is no longer a registered user. Must have had some complaints.

[John Mardaljevic]

Couldn't resist. Just ordered Viy from RUSCICOs e-store - total cost $24 =~ 16.75p.

"The payment is effected! The order will be sent you in 24 hours." I'll let you all know how long delivery takes.

[Hendrik]

John Mardaljevic: ...well... you were luckier than I was... after ordering four titles (total amount of $114,00) and typing in the data for my Diners Club card, I received the following message: "We're sorry, but your payment has been refused by the financial institution. Please select another payment method and retry your payment."...

RATS!!!

...not one to give up easily, I tried again, this time giving the data for my Visa card ... same message appeared again!...

...ok, one last try... typed in data for my Master Card ... still the same message!...

...oh well... Australia's EzyDVD - where they're having a "two-for-$40" sale - just accepted my order for two DVDs (Diners)...

...France's cinéstore also accepted my order for the Crying Freeman Anime CE (Master)...

...and Hong Kong's HiViZone accepted my order for five DVDs (Visa)...

...altogether then, I'm ok, you're ok...

...still... I'm thimply furiouth, yeth!!!

. . . :mad: . . .

[John Mardaljevic]

Hendrik, when did you try? Mine was placed this morning (13 Feb). Their site does look a little clunky, and I was suprised that my order seemed to work first time.

[Hendrik]

...I tried less than an hour ago...

. . . :o . . .

[jonathan.e]

Hendrik - I think there’s a major land mass that you didn’t order from today............my mistake - looks like you covered them all ;)

[John Mardaljevic]

This is the first time i've encountered 'real-time' checking of credit details - or at least where it is declared. It seems that the system only tries once, or maybe a couple of times in quick succession. Either way, it may be more prone to failing than other systems which check in their own time - and maybe re-check if the query is 'bounced'.

[Michael Brooke]

Word of advice when dealing with Ruscico: you need almost infinite reserves of Zen-like patience, plus automatic mental addition of at least four months to any date they give you. Hopefully this doesn’t apply to online orders, but we’ll see!

The end result is usually worth it, though – I’ve now sampled 19 discs and explored 12 in detail, and the quality in general is astonishingly good. God knows how this is being funded: there’s obviously serious money behind the project, but given how hard it is to get hold of the discs, I don’t know how they’re recouping it!

(In fact, I'm very tempted to ask them for a possible <I>DVD Times</I> background feature).

[Hendrik]

...How right you are, Mr Brooke! Remembering that old saw "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" I did just that - being careful to order just one title (Stalker) for now, and ... this time it worked!!! I had barely told them every little dirty detail about me, when this message appeared:

The payment is effected! The order will be sent you in 24 hours.
Îïëàòà óñïåøíî çàâåðøåíà! Çàêàç áóäåò âûñëàí Âàì â òå÷åíèè 24 ÷àñîâ.

...keeping my fingers crossed...

. . . :D . . .

[Paul2]

Is anyone else still having problems ordering from the RUSCICO website? I've tried numerous times, but each time I enter my name and address and click 'submit', I go to a blank page, and nothing happens.

Any suggestions?

[Ando]

For those of you that have dealt with Ruscico, how long does delivery normally take? I ordered a few discs a week ago so when should I expect them in the post?

[Henry]

Has anyone received their discs from Ruscico's online shop yet?

[adamvbarker]

Yep, a couple of days ago

[Henry]

Thanks.

And how long did it take from ordering to shipping to arriving?

[adamvbarker]

I can't remember exactly. About four weeks I think.