DVDs in China

[The Burgomaster]

So, I've been here for a week now and have been shopping several times.  In addition to cheap imitation "designer" merchandise (fake Rolex watches for about $5 to $50; fake Prada, Coach, and Gucci bags and shoes, etc.) they have plenty of DVDs for about $2 each.  The risk you take is in the quality.  Apparently, there are 3 levels of quality:

* Copied from another DVD
* Copied directly from television
* Copied from a movie theater screen

People here tell me they don't think many (or any) DVDs are factory originals.

I was in a DVD store the other day and they had THE BEE MOVIE, which I'm sure is a movie theater pirate job.  They also had a bunch of movies from the past year or two.  And TV series are pretty popular here . . . especially for U.S. and other western people who are here on work assignments.  The girl I'm working with was considering buying the complete ALLY MCBEAL boxed set, which was about $70 for all the episodes.  But someone told us the quality of each disc within the set can vary.  Sometimes, they record one or more of the seasons off TV and edit out the commercials (in a very non-professional and obvious way) and then copy the other seasons from legitimate DVDs.  So within a boxed set you could get varying levels of quality.

I'm not interested in any of the above . . . I'd rather pay more and get good quality stuff back home.  But I might be interested in some stuff that you can't easily get in the U.S.  I saw some Asian action flicks (some martial arts and some that looked like military or assault team-type adventures).  The box covers were all in Chinese and the people in the store didn't speak English so I could determine whether they had English soundtracks or subtitles.  But some of the cover art and photography was really cool.  I might pick up one or two and see what happens.  For $2 apiece, the worst that can happen is they suck and I throw them away.

[CheezeFlixz]

For $2 apiece, the worst that can happen is they suck and I throw them away.

Or you get busted at customs for bring bootlegs into the country. So the best thing to do if you buy very many is to mail them back. Last time I was there is was prior to 9/11 so it was easy getting stuff back, if you knew the customs rope. One of which is never claim $0.00 they aren't going to believe you and check your crap. Sometimes custom doesn't care, sometimes they can be a PITA.

I have been overseas after 9/11 and it was a pain coming back, but that was shortly after that big British bomb scare, I was shook down but I was gone awhile and all over the place. So I mail or ship most stuff back, it's just easier. But I have no idea the quality of the Chinese mail service, I'd ask your host.

[The Burgomaster]

CheeseFlixz:

I know people that come back from here on a regular basis with DVDs, fake Rolex watches, just about anything and everything and they never have a problem.  Customs generally won't bother people unless they are bringing back tons of stuff for resale in the U.S. (like 20 copies of the same DVD or a dozen watches or something).  I have traveled plenty since 9/11 and I've never been stopped at customs or anywhere else.  I just fill out my customs card with the honest value of what I purchased (which usually isn't much) and I go straight through the "nothing to declare" line.  Customs might nab someone for bringing back a current theatrical release on DVD, but I doubt they would have any way of knowing whether a Chinese movie on DVD was "real" or not.  And even if they did, it wouldn't have a U.S. copyright, so there isn't much they could do to you for having it.  They have better things to do than harass people for petty stuff like that.

[Neville]

You can find this kind of traffic in Europe too, at least in Spain, but never in stores. You may be sitting in a cafeteria and an obvious foreigner (usually an African inmigrant) will approach you with a plastic bag packed with DVDS. They look poorly made, with covers that are obviously printed with color home printers and contained in plastic envelopes.

I've never bought any of them, they're basically selling what everybody can find on P2P networks for zero cost, and there's also the persistent rumour that there are larger mafias behind this kind of trade.

[The Burgomaster]

You can find this kind of traffic in Europe too, at least in Spain, but never in stores. You may be sitting in a cafeteria and an obvious foreigner (usually an African inmigrant) will approach you with a plastic bag packed with DVDS. They look poorly made, with covers that are obviously printed with color home printers and contained in plastic envelopes.

In China, they sell the DVDs in stores in major shopping areas.  The box covers look legitimate and professional and they even have the copyright warnings on them even though they are not in compliance with them!  The only unusual thing is that they don't have plastic cases for the DVDs.  The packages are boxes sort of like the ones they use for PC games.  To save space, the boxes in the stores are generally collapsed so they are flat with the DVDs inside and the whole package is in a plastic bag either in a bin or hanging on a wall rack.  You need to unfold the boxes when you get home.