Author Topic: Where to buy R1 DVDs in Manila? (Read 28464 times)

Komikero · « **on:** Mar 27, 2001 at 08:20 PM »

I buy most of my Region 3 DVDs from Astrovision. Ok lang sa akin ang Region 3 specially if all the features are there anyway. My player can't play RCE discs so the Region 3 Patriot was good for me.

Where can you buy R1 discs in Manila?

Phobos · « **Reply #1 on:** Mar 27, 2001 at 09:41 PM »

I agree, Astrovision is a good source of R3 discs. If only there was as many R3 titles as R1, then maybe I'd consider buying more of them.

Some shops in Greenhills like Ambassador Appliances (there's also one at Shangri-La) sells some R1 discs. There's also this obscure video shop at the basement floor of Robinson's Galleria that sells R1 discs. I'm not sure of them name, I think it's something like Valerie & Co..

flyderman · « **Reply #2 on:** Mar 28, 2001 at 05:07 AM »

I go to Spectra or 5th Ave. Electric City in Park Square for Region 1 discs. I also consult some contacts I met through eauctions.ph because they sell DVDs a lot less than in the shops. Just check out the usual people who sell DVDs there and contact them to ask for other titles they have.

benny · « **Reply #3 on:** Apr 02, 2001 at 11:25 AM »

I saw some new arrivals at5th Ave Elec City in Megamall last Saturday. They had a bunch of multiple copies of Gladiator (1600 - what?) and Charlie's Angels and some others; not much variety though.

benny · « **Reply #4 on:** Apr 02, 2001 at 10:20 PM »

I just saw the Oliver Stone Collection box set at Astrovision SM Southmall for 2200 pesos. Now before you get excited, it only contains 4 dvds: JFK, Heaven and Earth, Oliver Stone's America and Natural Born Killers (I'm not sure about the fourth one.) But still a good buy right?

There was only one copy and there was no plastic wrap around the box, the dvds were still sealed though.

The dvds are R3.

diveabout · « **Reply #5 on:** Apr 04, 2001 at 02:08 AM »

A friend buys his DVD's from Electronics Boutique down in the Libis Area. R1s go from 1000 to 1500, but R3s are about 600-850 raw. He was able to get the double disc SE of Fight Club for 1500.

Phobos · « **Reply #6 on:** Apr 04, 2001 at 02:12 AM »

Leftman can you give us the exact location of Electronics Boutique? If what you say is true, then I'm going to have to familiarize myself with the place since I'll be there often.

diveabout · « **Reply #7 on:** Apr 04, 2001 at 11:17 AM »

Scratch that. The name of the place is Electronics Depot. It's located right beside Gerry's Grill in Libis, right across the entrance to the Eastwood City Cyberpark.

Phobos · « **Reply #8 on:** Apr 04, 2001 at 06:28 PM »

Good Job! It's almost on the way for me going home from the office. Thanks! I'll check it out soon.

Phobos · « **Reply #9 on:** Apr 05, 2001 at 06:33 AM »

I passed by Electronics Depot as I was going home. Leftman was right, it carries a lot of cheap R3 discs (P650-P900).

Sometimes the owner has a few extra R1 discs that he wants to get rid off and he sells them for an average of P1,600. Not very cheap, but still reasonable.

This place is worth checking out.

katips · « **Reply #10 on:** Apr 10, 2001 at 09:20 PM »

You might also want to check out Cardinal Audio in Virra Mall.

gonz · « **Reply #11 on:** Apr 11, 2001 at 09:10 AM »

As katips said, in Virra Mall Cardinal Audio on the 2nd floor is a source for R1 discs. Pricey though -- their discs go for P1300-P1500 for older movies and P1600-P1900 for newer releases. One advantage of Cardinal Audio is that they get new releases an average of 2-3 weeks before the official release date. Selection os fairly wide and up-to-date.

Another shop for R1 discs on the 2nd floor of Virra Mall is OMI Video. Slightly cheaper than Cardinal, although their selection is far less wide than Cardinal's

Another often good source of R1 disc vendors is Buy and Sell magazine. Look for direct importers who will sell R1 discs to you for P1200-P1400.

benny · « **Reply #12 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 10:35 AM »

I checked out the dvds at 5th Ave. SM Southmall today. They have a few new arrivals - Timeless (Streisand concert), Meet the Parents, 102 Dalmatians. I looked at their list though, some titles mostly in the 1500 to 1600 pesos range -- available for order daw (Didn't ask what he meant.) What caught my eye was the X-Files Season 1 and 2 selling for 6500 each.

gonz · « **Reply #13 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 10:47 AM »

benny88 -- P6500 for the X-Files Sets? Mahal, pare -- that's the equivalent of $130 each. I hear JHiPSTeR over at eAuctions.ph was/is auctioning them off at a floor price of P4500, or $90 each.

BTW, another shop that sells R1 DVDs in Megamall is The Listening Room on the 3rd flr. of building B. P1300-P1800. But they may not show you their list unless the owner knows you, or knows somebody who will vouch for you, or you know somebody who knows somebody else who is sleeping with this other person who once had coffee with some guy who is this other dude's half-brother twice removed who once bought a disc there.

Something like that. Don't you just love the politics of patronage?

benny · « **Reply #14 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 11:38 AM »

gonz --- yeah mahal talaga!.. Hey didn't you just order xfiles season 3 from Amazon? I sent you an instant message regarding that, did you receive it?

Komikero · « **Reply #15 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 08:13 PM »

Hey Gonz....reading your post about the Listening Room, I'm curious. Just how illegal is it to sell R1 discs in the Philippines? I mean, Amazon knowingly sells R1 discs to Philippine buyers. R1s exchange hands reguarly on local auction sites. Can they actually raid shops that sell those?

Phobos · « **Reply #16 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 08:58 PM »

Komikero, I don't think it's illegal for Amazon to sell R1 discs to Philippine buyers, nor is it illegal for people to sell their R1 discs to friends or through auction sites. It only becomes illegal when R1 discs are sold on retail.

gonz · « **Reply #17 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 09:03 PM »

komikero - I'm no copyright lawyer, so don't take my word as chapter and verse on the subject, but I have always operated under the assumption that selling R1 discs here is not illegal, but merely frowned upon. You have places like Astrovision that have exclusive deals with the studios and distributors to sell R3 discs locally, and obviously Astrovision doesn't like the idea of R1 discs being sold here since it cuts into their margins.

I'd say selling R1 discs here is a grey market thing. Obviously it's not illegal for Pinoys to purchase R1 discs from e-stores like Amazon, and frankly, how could anyone stop us from doing so? By the same token, it's not illegal for direct importers to purchase R1 discs abroad and bring them into the Phils. This practice does not deprive the studios and distributors of any profits because the importers already paid the full price for the R1 discs.

IMHO, this strange situation brings to light the basic stupidity and futility of the studios' practice of regionalizing DVDs. Personally, I don't like the studios dictating to me how I may or may not enjoy the DVDs for which I paid the full amount. Region codes also add an unneccesary layer of complexity (and no doubt, cost) to discs. The studios should just lighten up, remove region codes, and let everyone buy whatever DVDs they want. The studios will earn profits either way. Region coding is just a result of their greed. Is it any wonder that DVD piracy will flourish? Region codes add to the problem of piracy.

Sorry, didn't mean for this to turn into a rant.

Phobos · « **Reply #18 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 09:08 PM »

gonz Haha, don't worry about it. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Komikero · « **Reply #19 on:** Apr 12, 2001 at 10:26 PM »

Don't worry, gonz, I've done that rant myself a couple of times in other places. Just look at Gabriel's rants on DVDTalk!

MultipleAngles · « **Reply #20 on:** May 04, 2001 at 04:52 AM »

I think region codes are a necessary evil. Consider the alternative:

DVD companies worldwide decide to make all DVDs regionless. You know how they can milk more money out of us? They put all language tracks in the film disc, that means less features, which have to be put on a second disc. A second disc means increasing the price. People will be complaining that they don't want to pay so much money for language tracks they won't even listen to.

But that's only if the companies are really really evil.

benny · « **Reply #21 on:** May 04, 2001 at 06:00 PM »

I found two shelves of dvds (R3) in O cd/video shop at Rockwell (at the Cinema level). Strangely, some dvds were already opened. They didn't seem to stock the latest titles though.

dvdfan · « **Reply #22 on:** May 08, 2001 at 01:51 AM »

Checked out electronics depot and they have a lot of collectibled DVD. They said you can order DVDs that they don't have and will be available in 2 weeks. The latest they have is what women want and space cowboys.

Compaq · « **Reply #23 on:** May 15, 2001 at 07:50 PM »

I'm not sure if it's illegal but I found a way to buy my R1 DVDs through an importer. 'Got Saving Private Ryan (DTS) and Beegees (DTS) for 1,300 each last weekend. This importer sells from 1,250 to 1,500.

viper · « **Reply #24 on:** May 15, 2001 at 08:29 PM »

I think the best solution that i see is that the big studio moguls reclassify the philippines into a region 1 country because of the following:

1. filipinos can understand english without any problem
2. we can do away with the thai, chinese and korean subtitle features that we cannot use.
3. Among the current region 3 countries, the Philippines, Korea and Taiwan are in NTSC format. For a studio to release a title for region 3 - ntsc, it should appeal to all three countries' taste. I think we Pinoys have different movie preferences compared to koreans and to some extent the taiwanese. Our film preference is more american hence we should be region one.

Then again, this is just wishful thinking.

OR

We lobby with our government that we adopt a region-free standard for the philippines hence the sale of multi region disks here is not frowned upon. As long as these are not pirated of course.

gonz · « **Reply #25 on:** May 15, 2001 at 09:11 PM »

hi viper -- you're right, that is wishful thinking. Geography is the main reason the Phils. is region 3. Also, local movie distributors (theatrical as well as video) often delay the release of US movies here to suit their own timetables and maximize profits (i.e., they do not release a lot of potential blockbusters at the same time, even if the prints are already here, to avoid big movies from competing with each other for viewership).

Classifying Phils. as region 1 would mean we would have to synchronize movie releases with the US, which would take the control of movie releases out of the hands of local movie distributors, which they don't want.

As to your multi-region idea, it won't work bec. no major Hollywood releases are multi-region (or more properly, region 0). Hollywood is the originator and biggest advocate of regionalization, and the trend is for them to strengthen regionalization (e.g., Region Coding Enhancement or RCE) rather than relax it. In other words, region coding going is to get worse before it gets better.

(RCE doesn't bother me personally, because since my player is reion 1 only I've been forced to buy only R1 discs since I started collecting. And now that I'm moving to the US, there's no reason for me to buy discs from other regions)

The only solution, as I see it, is to revive the old idea of some presidential candidates (was it Cabangbang?) to make the Philippines the 51st US state. That way we all become Americans and get to buy and use R1 DVDs legally.

Of course the drawback is that "W." will be our president, and Gloria will be relegated to Gobernador-Heneral.

JepX · « **Reply #26 on:** Jun 25, 2001 at 08:58 AM »

I just saw a superman movie (Part 1) DVD sa
Image audio sa Harrison. They're selling it
for 1550pesos ata.

clockwork chico · « **Reply #27 on:** Jul 05, 2001 at 11:30 PM »

i usually get my region 1 dvd's from a guy whose ad is usually posted at buy and sell... btw..if your intereseted with criterion collection dvd's i have second hand titles that im selling...just email me

NY152 · « **Reply #28 on:** Mar 01, 2002 at 09:39 AM »

Quote

Can they actually raid shops that sell (R1 discs)?

This answer is 11 months too late, but I thought it would be interesting.

Yes, they can and they do.

In case some of you didn't know, Astrovision used to sell R1 discs under the table. Not all branches, but I can confirm Megamall did, and I bought many R1 titles from them.

All that changed after the infamous OMI Virra Mall R1 DVD raid two years ago. The VRB confiscated 1,500 titles, and OMI never got them back. I wonder whose machines those discs are playing on today?

A few weeks after that raid, I went to Astro looking for R1 discs. The response was, "Wala na, takot na kami sa nangyari sa OMI. Alam mo ba kung sino pa daw yung nagsumbong sa VRB? Yung Viva."

Ironic. The company that blew the whistle on R1s is the last company that got into releasing R3 DVD titles, and is doing a pretty shabby job at it. The "new" R3 Speed releases have jackets that look like they were stored under direct sunlight for three months.

jojo728 · « **Reply #29 on:** Nov 18, 2001 at 07:57 AM »

Hey guys, where can I buy cheap Region 1 DVDs?

Author Topic: Where to buy R1 DVDs in Manila? (Read 28464 times)

NY152