Wow, I had no idea it was that easy. Hmm, the only thing I don't understand now, is the prices. Is it as much as it says, just with that little squagle? I'm kind of thinking not, since its seems too cheap.
The Jungle Book: Platinum Edition
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Yep, ordering from international Amazon sites is easy-peasy.
With the prices, remember that the pound outweighs the dollar over 2-to-1 at the moment, which is why I'm buying so much stuff right now.
Essentially, if a disc costs $24 on Amazon plus $6 shipping, that $30 only works out to around £15 over here - not bad when the "official" versions cost as much as £20-25 in the first place in our old funny money!
However, it's not so great for you guys in the US...though that price for the JB box set looks good down from £29.99 to £17.98, you'll need to add your shipping cost (no idea what that would be from the UK to US but £5-10 or a little more?) and then pretty much double the numbers to get the US dollar cost.
Although it's pretty simple math, this page comes in handy sometimes:
http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html
Use the conversion calculator to make the switches or click on the flags on the right to make it quicker and easier to see. You'll need to go from the US flag (American dollar) to the Union Jack (British pound) to get your accurately estimated costs.
Looking at even the £17.98 cost right now - without shipping - means you're spending nearly $37.50, so you'd better make sure you want it!
Just goes to show how ripped off we are over here. The basic reasoning is "if it's 20 bucks, make it 20 quid" (slang for pounds) instead of taking into account the proper conversion and actually making it around half the cost. It's why so many people import from the US.
Hope all that helps, and makes sense!
With the prices, remember that the pound outweighs the dollar over 2-to-1 at the moment, which is why I'm buying so much stuff right now.
Essentially, if a disc costs $24 on Amazon plus $6 shipping, that $30 only works out to around £15 over here - not bad when the "official" versions cost as much as £20-25 in the first place in our old funny money!
However, it's not so great for you guys in the US...though that price for the JB box set looks good down from £29.99 to £17.98, you'll need to add your shipping cost (no idea what that would be from the UK to US but £5-10 or a little more?) and then pretty much double the numbers to get the US dollar cost.
Although it's pretty simple math, this page comes in handy sometimes:
http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html
Use the conversion calculator to make the switches or click on the flags on the right to make it quicker and easier to see. You'll need to go from the US flag (American dollar) to the Union Jack (British pound) to get your accurately estimated costs.
Looking at even the £17.98 cost right now - without shipping - means you're spending nearly $37.50, so you'd better make sure you want it!
Just goes to show how ripped off we are over here. The basic reasoning is "if it's 20 bucks, make it 20 quid" (slang for pounds) instead of taking into account the proper conversion and actually making it around half the cost. It's why so many people import from the US.
Hope all that helps, and makes sense!
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It does, I knew it was to good to be true!
Yeah, that's a lot of money. With your estimate and the price I would eventually have to pay for R1 discs, that's like $60+
To make it worse, I don't even love JB that much! Thanks anywho, who knows, I might get it. Not right now probably, but maybe after Christmas.
Is that why you import, Ben? I don't blame you! I've always been curious why, since its like, you have your own region/DVD's. Always just asumed it was for the audio, heh. Way to go on saving, man!
Yeah, that's a lot of money. With your estimate and the price I would eventually have to pay for R1 discs, that's like $60+
To make it worse, I don't even love JB that much! Thanks anywho, who knows, I might get it. Not right now probably, but maybe after Christmas.Is that why you import, Ben? I don't blame you! I've always been curious why, since its like, you have your own region/DVD's. Always just asumed it was for the audio, heh. Way to go on saving, man!
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Well, really it is to be technical, for the audio pitch and video quality, but there are many reasons...
Essentially, film runs at 24fps. Transferred progressively to NTSC video, the players generate the hidden information between frames to run the movie at 30fps, but it's done with a sleight of hand that retains the audio pitch and the correct speed of the film.
Over here, where we use 25fps PAL, the process is to speed things up one frame a second - hey no-one'll notice, right? - well, I notice, as do a fair few others. So I prefer to retain the speed and pitch of the originally created work, which takes me to NTSC formatted titles.
Secondly, NTSC/R1 discs tend to have less video gamma processing. In NTSC transfers, the thinking seems to be to preserve a film image, but over here the thinking seems to be to make it <I>look</I> like video, by way of gamma crushing and color boosting. Again, this is stuff that's only picked up by a trained eye, but seeing as I started in editing, I have that eye and it bugs me like mad.
Thirdly, in general, R1 gets the better packaging and content. True, there are a handful of titles that have split rights owners and sometimes the better edition comes out here. But not often, and I'd still take a correct speed/pitch movie presentation over extras. The covers in R1 also generally don't come emblazoned with ratings stickers, oversized quotes, etc. For all the griping with R1 sleeves, they usually get the better looking art.
So, there's a great deal that adds up to my choosing US discs. The price only allows me to import <I>more</I> of what I want, not the actual reason as to why I have always done in the first place!
It hurts going back the other way though...as you can see with shipping, you'd be looking at over $50 to bring that JB set into your home. Perhaps looking on eBay for a mint one might be the safe option, or indeed if there are any importers in the US that might stock this...?
Essentially, film runs at 24fps. Transferred progressively to NTSC video, the players generate the hidden information between frames to run the movie at 30fps, but it's done with a sleight of hand that retains the audio pitch and the correct speed of the film.
Over here, where we use 25fps PAL, the process is to speed things up one frame a second - hey no-one'll notice, right? - well, I notice, as do a fair few others. So I prefer to retain the speed and pitch of the originally created work, which takes me to NTSC formatted titles.
Secondly, NTSC/R1 discs tend to have less video gamma processing. In NTSC transfers, the thinking seems to be to preserve a film image, but over here the thinking seems to be to make it <I>look</I> like video, by way of gamma crushing and color boosting. Again, this is stuff that's only picked up by a trained eye, but seeing as I started in editing, I have that eye and it bugs me like mad.
Thirdly, in general, R1 gets the better packaging and content. True, there are a handful of titles that have split rights owners and sometimes the better edition comes out here. But not often, and I'd still take a correct speed/pitch movie presentation over extras. The covers in R1 also generally don't come emblazoned with ratings stickers, oversized quotes, etc. For all the griping with R1 sleeves, they usually get the better looking art.
So, there's a great deal that adds up to my choosing US discs. The price only allows me to import <I>more</I> of what I want, not the actual reason as to why I have always done in the first place!
It hurts going back the other way though...as you can see with shipping, you'd be looking at over $50 to bring that JB set into your home. Perhaps looking on eBay for a mint one might be the safe option, or indeed if there are any importers in the US that might stock this...?
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Not that I'm aware of. Its a little to soon though, since both Play and Amazon advertise it as being released on 11/2. I did however, see that regular Amazon has the steelbook for JB. (from Future Shop) It looks cool, but the downfall is its $70! So yeah, not much help.
As to your reason for importing, egads!
Not that its surprising, but still, that really stinks. Well, glad you and other people are able to import, at least.
As to your reason for importing, egads!
Not that its surprising, but still, that really stinks. Well, glad you and other people are able to import, at least.-
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Even the "standard" editions have not been standardized. Snow White was in a double-thick keepcase, then we got a few regular-sized keepcases, but some had slip sleeves only while others had more deluxe slipcases that opened up. Plus all the various labels of "special eiditons", "anniversary ediitons" etc. in addition to the Platinum label. And Sleeping Beauty and ALice were not even labeled Platinums, even though they were better sets than some of the "true" Platinums.
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Word of warning...
Just got the Jungle Book deluxe edition from Amazon.co.uk, the one with the gift set packaging and book.
DON'T BOTHER!!
The 2-disc set is the exact same one as in stores (in the US and UK), which we knew anyway.
But the book is a major let down. The packaging is fair - not a big box like the other big box Platinums or even like in the picture, but basically a Lord Of The Rings book sized box (like the one they put out here for Snow While), that's shaped and printed like a "book". It worked for Snow White, being a fairytale storybook style, and works here, being the Jungle BOOK, right?
Inside, there's the promise of a 40th Anniversary book. In Snow White it was a pretty neat "making of" thing, with text, concept and completed art.
This one is crud, a BIG disappointment. It's essentially a DVD case sized book, but very narrow, with literally the film told on each right hand page using production stills and frame cel set ups. On the left hand pages, there is room for text (indeed there's a background pattern ready for printing over) but there <I>is</I> no text!
It's clean...nothing. There is no inside text at all, not even the title or any copyright info (except for a 2007 date on the back cover). All the book is is a series of stills from the finished movie...the movie I have on the DVD in the box too.
Don't waste your money on this. At least I can swap my R1 edition for the R2 here and give that away as a Christmas pressie. It'll look nice on the shelf, like Snow White, but there's nothing worth having inside.
What a wasted opportunity!
Just got the Jungle Book deluxe edition from Amazon.co.uk, the one with the gift set packaging and book.
DON'T BOTHER!!
The 2-disc set is the exact same one as in stores (in the US and UK), which we knew anyway.
But the book is a major let down. The packaging is fair - not a big box like the other big box Platinums or even like in the picture, but basically a Lord Of The Rings book sized box (like the one they put out here for Snow While), that's shaped and printed like a "book". It worked for Snow White, being a fairytale storybook style, and works here, being the Jungle BOOK, right?
Inside, there's the promise of a 40th Anniversary book. In Snow White it was a pretty neat "making of" thing, with text, concept and completed art.
This one is crud, a BIG disappointment. It's essentially a DVD case sized book, but very narrow, with literally the film told on each right hand page using production stills and frame cel set ups. On the left hand pages, there is room for text (indeed there's a background pattern ready for printing over) but there <I>is</I> no text!
It's clean...nothing. There is no inside text at all, not even the title or any copyright info (except for a 2007 date on the back cover). All the book is is a series of stills from the finished movie...the movie I have on the DVD in the box too.
Don't waste your money on this. At least I can swap my R1 edition for the R2 here and give that away as a Christmas pressie. It'll look nice on the shelf, like Snow White, but there's nothing worth having inside.
What a wasted opportunity!
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Message heard loud and clear, I will not waste money on this! Kinda happy, since it would've been to much of hassle anyway. I'll just wait for the day after Thanksgiving, where its bound to be cheap!
At least it does look nice on the shelf Ben, so its not a total waste, but that really does stink there's no text in the book. Thanks for telling me!
Kinda happy, since it would've been to much of hassle anyway. I'll just wait for the day after Thanksgiving, where its bound to be cheap!At least it does look nice on the shelf Ben, so its not a total waste, but that really does stink there's no text in the book. Thanks for telling me!
The box does look great, though.-
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Yep, bad isn't it?
At least the book type package makes something a bit more special about it, and I saved myself a Crimbo pressie by being able to give away the PAL set to someone (plus of course I didn't pay for the Disney screener we reviewed here), so not a total waste, but <B>not</B> worth the quids to someone buying it at full price (£29.99 = $62.99!!!)
At least the book type package makes something a bit more special about it, and I saved myself a Crimbo pressie by being able to give away the PAL set to someone (plus of course I didn't pay for the Disney screener we reviewed here), so not a total waste, but <B>not</B> worth the quids to someone buying it at full price (£29.99 = $62.99!!!)
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...That's one of those funny English words isn't it?Ben wrote:Yep, bad isn't it?
At least the book type package makes something a bit more special about it, and I saved myself a Crimbo pressie by being able to give away the PAL set to someone
(And yes, I know, I was able to identify it from an old Blackadder episode.)
