Info on import Blu-ray titles

[kannisto]

I've been buying my UK discs from Amazon UK, Sendit.com and Blahdvd.com. All of them are very reliable. Amazon is the only one out of those that removes VAT (17.5% of the disc price) when shipping outside of EU, but their shipping cost is slightly more expensive than the other two's. I'd check the prices on all those and Amazon marketplace sellers should be fine too (no VAT reduction with marketplace sellers though).

From France I've only ordered form Amazon France and their marketplace. Their shipping starts from around 14 EUR + though and when ordering from their marketplace it's 8.99 EUR for one item. The VAT removal in Amazon France is 19.6% of the disc price but in marketplace there's no VAT removal. It makes sense to order more than one disc at a time when ordering from Amazon France (main site) to make the shipping more affordable per disc.

[kannisto]

The French release "36 quai des orfevres" (Department 36) seems to be getting postponed by 2-3 months at least. It was supposed to be released on 24th of November but I just received this e-mail update on my order that says it's now expected to arrive in February instead... (This is one of the orders I placed when I had to spend my 5 EUR coupons in Amazon France before end of September.)

La date de sortie des articles cités ci-dessous a changé et une nouvelle date de livraison a été estimée en fonction de la nouvelle date de sortie :

Daniel Auteuil (Acteur), et al "36 quai des orfevres [Blu-ray]"
[Blu-ray]
Date d'arriv e pr vue : 17.02.2009 - 20.02.2009

[Leynos]

Just to say, the German Blu-Ray of Constant Gardener is definitely region locked.

Regards,

Leynos

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Leynos

Just to say, the German Blu-Ray of Constant Gardener is definitely region locked.

Regards,

Leynos

Thanks for the info! How's the PQ/AQ on that one? I have it on order with some other discs and I could still drop it from the order if it's not a good quality disc.

[Leynos]

It looks great. I can't comment on the audio yet, as my HTPC still doesn't have working multi-channel audio. Grrr... *swear words* *profanities*

The disc has 7.1 ch English tho.

[ahsoka]

Originally Posted by kannisto

I spotted the recently released "Lust, Caution" Japanese Blu-ray release (first BD by JVC Ent. I think) in a shop today. It was earlier reported to have English subs, only DD audio, BD-25, but based on the back of the case, it seemed to have no English subs at all (just regular Japanese and 吹替用字幕 which I think means it has 2 types of Japanese subs, normal and literal translation (Yahoo translates the 2nd option as "Blowing substitution letter curtain"), LPCM 5.1 audio in both Mandarin and Japanese, DD 5.1 audio in both Mandarin and Japanese and apparently it's a BD-50 disc after all.

Luckily I didn't order that one but got the Korean release instead as I wouldn't have liked the lack of English subs...

There was no region marking on it so I think it was probably region free. It also had a note in the back in Japanese regarding the original movie being rated R-18 in Japan and this version being either an unrated uncut version or a slightly censored version, I couldn't understand the kanji exactly... At least the runtime was marked as 158 minutes, but I still wonder if it has some digital blurring applied. Didn't buy it just to check though as it was about 4400 yen and I figured I could save the money to buy something I don't already have instead

Yes unfortunatly there are no English subtitles on the Japanese release of Lust, Caution, also there are no extras. PQ/AQ is excellent, I assume it's the same transfer as the Korean/HK versions.
As for being censored, I noticed one single scene that had digital blurring...
It's Region Free.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Leynos

It looks great. I can't comment on the audio yet, as my HTPC still doesn't have working multi-channel audio. Grrr... *swear words* *profanities*

The disc has 7.1 ch English tho.

Thanks, that sounds like a keeper then.

(I'm also struggling with an audio problem when trying to remux with external subs. Whenever the original audio is a TrueHD track my remuxed content with external subs has broken audio when played on my PS3 through optical out The subs work fine and with DTS tracks I have no problems. With TrueHD tracks the audio works on my PC though when played out as 2.0 ch sound.)

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by ahsoka

Yes unfortunatly there are no English subtitles on the Japanese release of Lust, Caution, also there are no extras. PQ/AQ is excellent, I assume it's the same transfer as the Korean/HK versions.
As for being censored, I noticed one single scene that had digital blurring...
It's Region Free.

Thanks for the confirmation and additional info on this one!

[kannisto]

I added 29 titles to the German list and I now consider it completed (for now).
It has 124 titles listed in total. I might have missed something though, so if you notice some import exclusive German releases to be missing from the list, please let me know.

Again I didn't include all the European-wide releases as I plan to mainly list them in the upcoming UK title list. Before starting with the UK list I'll do some maintenance updates to the other lists though.

Direct link to German title list:
Info on import Blu-ray titles

Does anybody know good release info sites in UK listing the UK Blu-ray discs and some spec info? It was very helpful to be able to refer to dvdfr in France and cinefacts in Germany and Watch Impress + kakaku.com in Japan to get more info than the online stores provide... I don't know any such sites in UK currently so I may just have to use the shops as information source.

[Leynos]

Hi,

My copy of Keinohrhasen lists English subtitles on the back, but I've yet to watch it to make sure. Is this a mistake in the packaging?

Thanks,

Leynos

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Leynos

Hi,

My copy of Keinohrhasen lists English subtitles on the back, but I've yet to watch it to make sure. Is this a mistake in the packaging?

Thanks,

Leynos

I took the subtitle spec info from Cinefacts but sometimes they have missing info there. I think the packaging is more likely to be correct. Please confirm if it has those subs and I'll update the listings. Sounds nice as I'm interested in that release too.

[kannisto]

I got an e-mail from Megastore with a new estimated arrival date for Trikoloren (Three Colours trilogy).

Estimated Arrival Date: 12/31/49

I guess that means 2049 then, not too soon

I need to ask them what the date means and probably I'll cancel the order as it looks like it's not coming anytime soon even if it's end of this year and it could easily be postponed further and further...

I suppose I shouldn't have hoped for a Noble Entertainment BD release to actually come through on time.

EDIT: Megastore replied to me:

no there is no estimate date on this, that's why it says 2049.
As soon as we know, there will be a real date on our website.

Would be easier to figure that out if they wrote it differently in the e-mail, but that clears the point.

[Jester217300]

Originally Posted by kannisto

I added 29 titles to the German list and I now consider it completed (for now).
It has 124 titles listed in total. I might have missed something though, so if you notice some import exclusive German releases to be missing from the list, please let me know.

Thanks, it looks good

The only one I didn't see that I know of is Snatch.

http://www.amazon.de/Snatch-Diamante...3994850&sr=1-1

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Jester217300

Thanks, it looks good

The only one I didn't see that I know of is Snatch.

http://www.amazon.de/Snatch-Diamante...3994850&sr=1-1

Thanks, I'll add it there soon I know I didn't scan Sony and Disney titles very carefully. At least according to Amazon this is a Sony release.

[Jester217300]

Originally Posted by kannisto

Thanks, I'll add it there soon I know I didn't scan Sony and Disney titles very carefully. At least according to Amazon this is a Sony release.

Cool. Amazon is right on that one, it's actually a Sony release.