07-07-2004, 12:35 PM
Quote:Originally posted by Vicious
You Europe guys . . . I don't know what to say. You guys get the short end of the stick I guess. But you guys aren't really in Region 1 anyways. Don't they have R2 or R3 releases or whatever it is whereever you are that can be had for cheap?
R1s are no problem as codefree players are easyly available (codefree costed about $20 extra on my Sony player and a lot of the cheap models can be turned codefree by "cheats" like pressing certain numbers on the remote).
Of course there are local R2 releases, but the problem is, that they are licensed and produced indepent for each country. So you have a UK version with English sub/(dub), a German version with German sub/(dub), a French version etc...
All these versions are normally produced by independent companies for their independent small markets, so the numbers of the releases are small and the prices are higher as you have to get in your fix costs.
It really would be clever to produce a "pan-European" DVD with a lot of different language subs, but that doesn't happen as there is no "big" company that would buy licenses for complete Europe and distribute it.
And there's a kind of distribution cartel for anime and almost every shop will charge you the recommended retail price, so there are no discounts as in the US.