Info on import HD DVD titles

[kannisto]

I have now finished my first complete updating round of "Titles Available for Order" section.

About the format:
- Each title's name works as a link to IMDB
- By default all titles are assumed to be available now, if they are not available yet, a release date is given in Day-Month format, e.g. 3-Sep.
- Warning notes are given whenever a title does not have English audio nor subtitles, when subtitles are forced, and when there is any other concern.

A lot of titles were added and a couple (non-movie titles) were removed.

I recreated every item that was already in the list with current pricing information and current links to the following online stores as applicable depending on title availability:

Amazon Japan (Japan)
Amazon UK (UK)
Amazon France (France)
Amazon Germany (Germany)
CD Japan (Japan)
Yes Asia (Hong Kong, USA)
Play Asia (Japan)
Xploited Cinema (USA)
HD Addicts (Canada)
DVD Therapy (UK)
dvdgo (Spain)
edvd (Poland)
Merlin.pl (Poland)
HD Movie Source (USA) (no longer carrying HD DVDs)
ezydvd (Australia)
Sendit.com (UK)
HMV Japan (Japan)
dvd.it (Italy)
mondohe.com (Italy)
bol.com (Holland)
Free Record Shop (Holland)

Titles that are not yet available for ordering or pre-ordering in these stores are not listed (yet). The focus is on movie titles, in general other than movie titles are not included unless they are especially interesting to many people.

VAT reduction was applied for the following stores: Amazon Japan, CD Japan, HMV Japan, Amazon UK, Amazon France, Amazon Germany and ezydvd. Regarding the other stores in the list, either they don't do VAT reduction or I'm not aware of it.

These are the methods of VAT reduction calculation:

- Amazon UK: tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.175
- Amazon France: tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.196
- Amazon Germany: tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.19
- Amazon Japan: tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.05
- CD Japan: tax reduced prices shown on page (tax-inclusive divided by 1.05)
- HMV Japan: tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.05
- ezydvd: tax reduced prices shown on page when logged in as international customer (tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.1)
- dvdgo.com Spain: tax-inclusive price is divided by 1.16

For other sites and dvdgo.com, I did not calculate any VAT reductions, at least most of them don't do any. dvdgo (Spain) does do the VAT reduction (found out later from the user sschen).

I hope this looks good and up-to-date now! Please let me know if you find any mistakes in the information, or if you know of any titles that should be added to the list etc.

Enjoy importing

[ni9ht_5ta1k3r]

Amazon US is taking a while for my HD DVDs to arrive.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by ni9ht_5ta1k3r

Amazon US is taking a while for my HD DVDs to arrive.

In my case Amazon.com deliveries were pretty stable in terms of delivery time until July or so. Now I'm getting a lot of fluctuation. One package arrived in 1 week recently and another took 2.5 weeks. It seems the shipping methods are varying a bit for standard international and that effects the duration a lot.

[ni9ht_5ta1k3r]

It's taking longer than I thought it would.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by ni9ht_5ta1k3r

It's taking longer than I thought it would.

In my case they've still never exceeded the arrival timing estimate window that they provide so I didn't get to do any complaining to them...

[ni9ht_5ta1k3r]

Originally Posted by kannisto

In my case they've still never exceeded the arrival timing estimate window that they provide so I didn't get to do any complaining to them...

Well, I have packages that should arrive in the following windows (all dates are US dates):

ORDER 1: Shooter & Hot Fuzz
Shipped: July 30
Expected window: August 13 - August 21

ORDER 2 & 3: Sahara & The Italian Job
Shipped: August 5
Expected window: August 18 - August 27

ORDER 4 & 5: Lord of War, Stranger than Fiction, Feast, & TMNT
Shipped: August 12
Expected window: August 24 - September 5 (Lord of War & Stranger Than Fiction) | August 25 - September 4 (Feast & TMNT)

Do you think those dates sound right for shipping to Australia?

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by ni9ht_5ta1k3r

Well, I have packages that should arrive in the following windows (all dates are US dates):

ORDER 1: Shooter & Hot Fuzz
Shipped: July 30
Expected window: August 13 - August 21

ORDER 2 & 3: Sahara & The Italian Job
Shipped: August 5
Expected window: August 18 - August 27

ORDER 4 & 5: Lord of War, Stranger than Fiction, Feast, & TMNT
Shipped: August 12
Expected window: August 24 - September 5 (Lord of War & Stranger Than Fiction) | August 25 - September 4 (Feast & TMNT)

Do you think those dates sound right for shipping to Australia?

It seems that estimated arrival windows compared to shipping dates are quite similar for Australia as they are for Japan. My packages used to arrive comfortably before the estimated arrival date windows even started until this summer but recently there has been some kind of a slowdown in delivery times and now I'm getting most of my packages from Amazon.com during the early days inside the estimated arrival window, i.e. between 2 and 3 weeks of overall delivery time. There are some exceptions too like my latest order that arrived in 7 days, well before my 2nd latest order that had been shipped one week earlier but arrived 3 days later (i.e. 10 days difference in delivery time). I noticed the slower package had been shipped using Deutsche post while the faster one seemed to be U.S. air mail, and some have been U.S. Surface Air Lift... I don't know why they use so many different couriers/shipping methods while all my orders specify shipping as "standard international".

Anyway, none of my packages from Amazon.com have been lost in about 10 years of ordering stuff from there so I'm pretty happy with that. I would just like to have stable delivery times.

[ni9ht_5ta1k3r]

Why do they give tracking numbers for standard international and expedited international if I don't know what service they use?

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by ni9ht_5ta1k3r

Why do they give tracking numbers for standard international and expedited international if I don't know what service they use?

Do those tracking numbers actually work for tracking? I've always figured they are not really usable for any "standard international" shipments. At least the "track your order" options in Amazon's site are not really providing any actual tracking when using "standard international" shipping.

[kannisto]

Minor updates at "Titles Available for Order" section.

- Added Xploited Cinema as a new source for "Fantastic Four" release.
- Fixed some issues in pricing information for Terminator 2.

[kannisto]

Updates to "Titles Available for Order" section:
Added "Resident Evil", "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" and Ocean's 13 as they are now available for pre-order in Amazon Germany.

Also added several review links and included DVDTherapy as source for a few HD DVD titles where it wasn't included before.

[ni9ht_5ta1k3r]

What I like about the amazon sites is that they all have the same layout. Same layout = less confusion.

[Sporadic]

I'm guessing this is the link to the upcoming Motorhead HD-DVD from Germany.

http://www.amazon.de/Motörhead-Stage...7137030&sr=8-2

They have the normal 2-DVD verison for 11.99 euro.

[kannisto]

Originally Posted by Sporadic

I'm guessing this is the link to the upcoming Motorhead HD-DVD from Germany.

http://www.amazon.de/Motörhead-Stage...7137030&sr=8-2

They have the normal 2-DVD verison for 11.99 euro.

Thanks! I think that's probably it, but I'll wait until they classify it properly as HD DVD before adding it to the import list.

[kannisto]

Small update: Added review links for The Island (review by DVDTherapy) and The Prestige (review by High-Def Digest).

Expecting to add these at Amazon Germany to the import list as soon as they get properly classified as HD DVDs there:
- Hero (likely no English audio/subs)
- Motörhead - Stage Fright