lansbury

Had some Barnes and Nobles gift cards for Christmas and my last birthday, so thought I might treat myself to the complete set of Only Fools and Horses. Price $248.99

Decided to look on Amazon UK price £32 plus shipping. But as it is delivery to a US address Amazon deducted the VAT. Total cost with shipping £29.75. So just saved myself about $200, and still have the gift cards to spend.

Nutek

Pretty much all my UK tv DVD sets come from Amazon UK. Vastly cheaper. The shipping times really arent bad either.

Excellent choice btw.

Mallory

Last Xmas they had the boxed set of Vicar of Dibley at Best Buy for $99. Looked on Amazon US, and it was $50, no tax, free delivery.

Nutek

10 pounds on amazon uk right now.

(another good choice of show).

cluedweasel

A lot of Blu-Ray movie box sets are cheaper on Amazon UK than Amazon US too. Got the Bourne movies and a Superman box set for about half the price of the US site.

Mr Weeze

Rip off Britain blah blah blah oh wait...

Duncan Roberts

The issue with that is the region coding for blu-rays can be annoying. I know some, maybe a lot, are region free but there are still some that are coded for region B and getting a region free blu-ray player isn't as easy or as cheap as getting a region free DVD player.

Nutek

Definitely Not as cheap, but completely easy. Amazon have a bunch of them.

Dvd, region-free, PAL/NTSC with upscaling (not that that matters much as most TVs will handle that part anyhow) runs around 40 bucks I think. Whilst the same thing in Blu-ray is around a couple of hundred.

A lot of DVD players will allow you to set the region code (including region-free (0) yourself. I just did one last week, in fact.

Having said that, the majority of the stuff I buy is old(er) British TV shows, especially sitcoms (cos I'm a sad, old person ) so Blu-ray doesnt come into it for me.

Now I write that, it occurs to me that the majority of NEW shows / movies that I get are digital download. Does that mean I have successfully avoided blu altogether? That would suit me just fine.

Sheepdip

Great spot! Just ordered this and it was actually £8.84 (no VAT) plus £3.08 shipping. That's a birthday present sorted!

Sherlock Holmes

How lucky are we to have what we have where we are and also be able to get the rest by post.

Duncan Roberts

There are two issues with multi region blu-ray players compared to DVD players. Really one but the second is kind of related. You will see a lot of "multi region DVD and blu-ray player" for sale. Since blu-ray players are basically 2 players in one box, almost all are multi-region DVD players with a region locked blu-ray player. That's more of a buyer beware issue though. The key problem is how blu-ray players work. Once a DVD player is set with the software to run it, its basically done. If it allows region hacking you can do that and be set. You can also modify it but basically its a one time thing. Blu-ray players are not like that and have almost constant firmware updates, especially ones that use apps. If you get a region free one its basically got custom firmware on it and any update will wipe it and lock the region back down. The way round it is never update the firmware but the.downside to that is you will eventuality end up with disks that won't play and apps that won't work any more. An example is a month or so ago my player had an optional firmware update but without it amazon and netflix streaming wouldn't work any more.

Nutek

That's really interesting. I didn't know that about Blu-ray (as I say, it's something I have managed to avoid so far). Thanks for the info.

I guess I would end up just outlaying for 2 players.. One for US stuff and one for UK if I was going to use Blu-ray now.
I am pretty sure I have reached the point where it wont impact me. All the shows I like to purchase on disk are old and wouldn't benefit from Blu-ray even if they were available, and anthing new that comes along gets streamed (Prime / Netflix etc). Roku is just the best thing ever.

Mr Weeze

My dual voltage multi output multi format (to avoid the above) was about $400, so not cheap, but will work anywhere in the world. Certain family of mine don't understand the whole region thing, and will send the most random DVDs as presents.

Nutek

Most of mine come from the UK, with a a few from Canada and some from Germany.
I don't think I actually buy DVD's from the US much now at all. The Roku has changed my purchasing habits quite a bit.

Duncan Roberts

Yeah, the price is the kicker. A DVD player with all that can cost under $40, I got a portable player with 9" screen and great battery life for less than $60. When you get into blu-ray players you pay for them, especially if you get one that is "future proof" where the company will fix any firmware updates so you won't lose the original hack. It is nice though that a significant number of blu-ray disks are coded for all regions unlike the few and far between DVDs.