i also passed up a lot of good and cheap R1 & R3 titles when i was in Bangkok earlier this year because i was wary about bootleg stuff pero a friend confirmed na origs nga pala. Grrr! imagine R3 LOTR EEs in digipac for only 459 baht!!! to add insult to injury, i instead got the crappy Secrets of Da Vinci Code and Secrets of Angels & Demons dvds na super poor transfer.
I wouldn't be too remorseful about the Bangkok R3s you passed up on.
when i was there a couple of years ago, i bought an R3 copy of We Were Soldiers for about B350, if i remember right. I think it was locally produced, or at the least, it was made specifically for the Thai market, much like what distributors do over here. Anyway, less than two years hence, i tried to play it, pero ayaw na mabasa, whichever player i try it on. My bro was able to watch it once though, when i first got it.
plus, as i recall, the video quality was rather subpar.