Purchasing Chinese/American DVD in the US

[Cerberus]

To all members,

 

Perhaps my question will help other members out here in regard to DVD. The question as to DVD players has come up, which are generally regionally set. (China is six, and US is 1) Alice, my wife decided against sending a DVD player from China, and opted on the side of Chinese frugality.

 

Since this time, we decided to upgrade my present system. It will be a VCR Player/DVD Player/DVD recorder. I decided to upgrade my system as Christmas Present for my wife.

 

I did a bit of inquisitive questioning as to types of movies she liked, plot lines, actors, etc. Got an extensive list that I definitely would pay one of the executives at Amazon.com BMW payments for at least one month!

 

The question: Alice related that she wanted to have American movies in Chinese language or at least subtitles. Apparently, she is afraid of losing her native language (reading/speaking/listening) since she is in Oklahoma and speaks English all the time. She hates the majority of Chinese movies stating that they are not unlike soap dramas in the US. Is there any sites members could recommend to me, for movies of the description I have provided?

 

I tried Amazon.com without too much success with movies, such as Gladiator, Phantom of the Opera, etc, etc. I have tried searching via Google/Dogpile/Megacrawler without too much luck. Got a lot of crap Kung-fu movies, soaps, drama series, etc, etc. I had little luck in finding major American/Western movie titles.

 

Before anyone even attempts to suggest Brokeback Mountain: If I can, I will personally send a computer virus into your main frame of your home PC, directing it to reformat! I already saw it! Seems that Alice is missing her ¡°motherland¡± scans the paper for any movie, which has a Chinese director, Chinese actor male/female, Chinese makeup artist and/or handgrip mentioned in the credits! You got it! I get to see the movie, get a blow-by-blow commentary, and the resulting questioning not unlike Siskel and Ebert! Lost $40.00 bucks on seeing Miami Vice, just so I could see Gong Li! This is probably the IMHO, the lamest plot line I have watched! The lowest blow came¡­¡­when I had to explain the tent scene in Brokeback Mountain for her!

 

BTW¡­..Darling Alice, I am heterosexual!

How the F _ _k do I know if it is fun? I haven¡¯t ever done this darling!

No Darling! I don¡¯t know if it hurts!

WHY?

Because darling I have never done this before! That is why!

No Darling! I love you very much! I seriously doubt if I will ever try this!

 

 

Anyway, the question still stands. Any good sites to be recommended?

 

 

 

Dave¡¯s personal prayer before this submission prayer:

 

God! Please don¡¯t let Roger or Trigg answer my question first!

They will recommend something other than Brokeback Mountain, that I haven¡¯t heard of yet!

 

Amen!

[Randy W]

Mulan, The Lost Horizon, and the Lady in Red (Orson Welles - takes place in Shanghai)

 

all are in English with Chinese subtitles.

 

Also check YesAsia.com for American movies dubbed in Chinese.

Edited November 26, 2006 by Randy W (see edit history)

[sleepless in Houston&CQ]

To all members,

\

 

 

 

BTW¡­..Darling Alice, I am heterosexual!

How the F _ _k do I know if it is fun? I haven¡¯t ever done this darling!

No Darling! I don¡¯t know if it hurts!

WHY?

Because darling I have never done this before! That is why!

No Darling! I love you very much! I seriously doubt if I will ever try this!

 

 

Anyway, the question still stands. Any good sites to be recommended?

 

 

 

Dave¡¯s personal prayer before this submission prayer:

 

God! Please don¡¯t let Roger or Trigg answer my question first!

They will recommend something other than Brokeback Mountain, that I haven¡¯t heard of yet!

 

Amen!

 

 

Dave seems your "Prayer" was answered

I guess Roggie is sleeping and Trigg is still working on the Triggster farm

 

Bobby....

Edited November 26, 2006 by sleepless in Houston&CQ (see edit history)

[tonado]

http://candleforlove.com/forums/index.php?...amp;hl=subtitle

[dnoblett]

http://us.yesasia.com/en/index.aspx

 

You can buy Chinese movies, and TV DVDs and region-free DVD players, that will play all region DVDs.

[LeeFisher3]

Mulan, The Lost Horizon, and the Lady in Red (Orson Welles - takes place in Shanghai)

 

all are in English with Chinese subtitles.

 

Also check YesAsia.com for American movies dubbed in Chinese.

We tried a few from YesAsia.com and while they were listed as English/Chinese, none of the movies they shipped us contained Chinese. The box listed them as having Chinese and YesAsia.com was not nice about returning these.

 

We have decided not to try them again as their return policy stinks and it only took a number of argumentative emails with the threat of notifying VISA were we able to get our money back. They accept no responsibility for mis-labeling of the products they sell.

[LeeFisher3]

You can purchase a region free DVD player for less than $100, some of them also include a PAL->NTSC converter for that price. Search the net for "Region Free DVD".

[C4Racer]

You can purchase a region free DVD player for less than $100, some of them also include a PAL->NTSC converter for that price. Search the net for "Region Free DVD".

I bought our "region free" DVD player at the local Fred Meyer store. Took one of our Chinese VCD's in and told the gentleman our troubles with getting them to play on ours, families and friends DVD players. He pointed out several models which handle basically all formats. All for less than $100 each. So you don't have to search too hard. I settled on a Panasonic model. Have been very happy as so far it has played all DVD's and VCD's we bought in China.

[david_dawei]

I'm sure you know the easy answer.. wait till your next trip back to china and you can buy to your hearts content at basement prices... I cannot tell you how many we buy on every trip...

 

I built my asian collection mostly from Ebay.. buying from a 'store' and often multiple items to reduce shipping. Often getting $7-10 per DVD in the end (includes shipping).

 

Yesasian also has a 'store' on Ebay, so you might find some cheaper deals there...

 

Otherwise, tell her to have family send them in the mail !

 

Better yet, Dave...

 

PM me with some actors/actress she likes.. I'll get my wife to bring back some an american movie set (ie: buy Julia Roberts set of 10 movies) to help the cause !!

[MarkD]

You can go here (www.videohelp.com) and search for the features and user reviews of DVD players. Often they will tell you if a DVD player can be made region free.

[tonado]

http://www.ehit.com/dvdplayersale

 

I purchased two DVD players (region free and multi-format) from them. Price is around $55 after shipping.

[Kaige]

I am told Circut City has a DVD player that plays both for under $35.00, I never heard of the brand though.

[tonado]

I am told Circut City has a DVD player that plays both for under $35.00, I never heard of the brand though.

 

I doubt that Circuit City will sell region free player.

 

http://www.dvdcity.com/resources/regionfreedvd.html

[Cerberus]

Tony and Kaige,

 

Yes to all of your above information. Already tried Circuit City in an attempt to save a few bucks. They will offer you players/recorders that do everything except, make the popcorn and hot dogs for you.

 

However, when fully questioned they will finally admit that they are not region free.

 

I would like to thank all for their replies. I will enclose a short message of what I found for forum members for their use. It will be truncated quite a bit eliminating personal side notes.

 

"¡­..XXXX,

 

I must have entered the wrong search parameters for the CFL search engine, not to have found this old link.

 

Tried the Yesasia link. Seems that most of the movies are the same genre I spoke of in my post (e.g. soaps, crap movies, etc.) They really didn't have some of the Big name Western movies Alice wanted. I was surprised not to have seen "Raise the Red Lantern" on their rental list! I know that it originated from Taiwan. Perhaps, it is too old of a movie. I am more than a bit leery about their returns and packaging. Been there and done this before! I also checked the links for the old link you gave me at www.shooter.com.cn. It is a good site, which is still active. Unfortunately, it is in almost 90% Chinese language. I know enough Chinese to get into trouble and navigate through the site and read the titles. However, nothing that fitted my shopping list. However, might be good for others in this forum¡­..

 

"¡­..However, I followed your advice in regard to new search parameters. Find one good site with a player at http://www.world-import.com/dvnc80.htm. The only problem that sucked, was it seemed not to have DVD recording capabilities. Had VCR recorders, but from what I read no DVD recording capabilities¡­..

 

I will clarify a bit. In regard to my wife's niece that we attempting to adopt, we wanted to give her a head start on English. Basically, record Sesame Street or any other program that we could find that was fairly simple by DVD and then mail it to her. Problem was to find a DVD Player/VCR that could record into PAL & NTSC format. Anything we looked into the US, was NTSC in, NTSC recording out, which the niece XXXXXX she would be unable to use in China. Sort of goes back to the adage of "Garbage in! Garbage out!"

 

We really wanted to save money by sending DVD¡¯s that would be NTSC in and PAL compatible out. This would save on weight, hence postal costs. Players in China would have no problems reading the format. Seems that the only way to do something like this, is to purchase a separate recorder for DVDs. I checked the site and they did have them. However, I didn't find a package that had DVD Player & Recorder, VCR Player & Recorder all in one unit. ¡­¡­

 

Again, my sincere thanks David.

 

Dave¡±

[tonado]

http://www.barrel-of-monkeys.com/graphics/...recorders.shtml

 

http://www.barrel-of-monkeys.com/graphics/...isys-vcra.shtml

 

Dave, you need to buy a separate DVD recorder and Video player (VHS). Good luck.

Edited November 26, 2006 by tonado (see edit history)