Message from '101 Distribution' and info about In Bruge BR on/off Amazon

[SDCD]

Hello Everyone, Felt compelled to explain a litte about Amazon and the import BR's they are listing.

As many of you know they are listing the studio as 101 Distribution, which you all know is not true. I work for a distributor of theirs, Super D. We supply them with all the imported BR's, or at least 90% of them. I actually build the SKU's from scratch. Amazon is very archaic in that I cannot add the correct studio. I have about 700+ studios to choose from but always leave it at the default, 101 Dist.

You all are very savvy and probably do not purchase them from Amazon as in most cases it is cheaper to go the UK, France or any of the Scandanavian sites. That said, there are still heaps and heaps of US consumers who don't or won't bother to deal with an overseas shop. We do have a direct-to-consumer site, (importcds dot com) that lists all of our titles (incl. loads of imported music from around the world) at very good pricing.

I've used this forum for a good few months now and thank you all for contributing and tipping each other off about the unique imports out there. It helps me immensely as it can be a hugely time consuming task finding out what is/isn't available or different in some way.

As for the In Bruge BR, and this is going to happen more and more with Amazon, the copyright owner for the States saw it up there as an import and issued a cease and desist to Amazon. Meaning they will be releasing it in due time domestically and don't want to lose sales to the imported version. Amazon never gets into legal battles and they pulled it off their site. Our DTC site is generally safe so we should be able to offer it out up until the US is released.

The good news for those that were able to order it with AMZ is we shipped them 400+ units last week so you all will be getting your orders, presumably shortly.

Thanks again everyone and hopes this clears some issues/questions up ~ Daniel

[Arkadin]

good info!
thanks so much.
btw: what's up with the (REC) import they were offering?
all reports were that that title had 50hz issues that would prevent 99% of people who ordered it from playing it.
any idea?
also: could people on here request titles that they would like to see amazon US carry?

[SDCD]

Thanks Arkadin. I do hope this helps everyone understand

At the time I loaded the Nordic [Rec] pressing I wasn't aware there were no English subs. We contacted Amazon and asked them to either remove the listing all together or at least remove the buy button. Amazon being the Wal*Mart of dot com shopping, simply has it in their queue and they'll take action on it when they feel like it.

I'm not that much of techie and have not heard of the 50hz issue. The no English subs was the primary concern. I will certainly try and avoid listing anything that is not compatable or foreign language flicks w/o English subs. There currently isn't any BR of [Rec] out there with English subs.

By all means let me know of any import you'd like to see listed on Amazon. My company imports from all over the world and generally only has challenges getting Spanish pressings (no good wholesaler there.)

The one benefit I forgot to mention for all you import gurus is by having the listing on AMZ US, you now have an outlet to resell your used copies

Take care, Daniel

[Arkadin]

there are so many foreign offerings that it is very confusing.
apparently the Spanish release does have English subs, but has the 50hz issue which basically is a menu, trailers, or extras issue that causes problems in non compatible players. the 50hz issue is not related to the main feature as Blu-ray does not have PAL or NTSC designations.
all of the other versions of (REC) apparently do not offer English subs or are region B locked so it has become a nightmare bd for English speaking region A users.

[kannisto]

Thanks Daniel for the very informative post!

The 50hz issue is an issue with the main movie in some cases. For example the Nordic, Spanish and French releases of [REC] have the movie itself encoded in 1080i / 25 fps which means it will not work with many region A players and TVs including the U.S. and Japanese PS3s. It will just refuse to play with such hardware so there would likely be many returns from buyers in the U.S.

[Arkadin]

thanks for the clarification.
I didn't realize the main movie could be affected.

[Arkadin]

I see "Dead Man" on amazon now.
I think that one has forced French subs.
I'm sure people will be thrilled.

[utl768]

You should import the foreign blu ray steelbooks as they'd be huge sellers