US release DVD VS Canadian release DVD (1 Viewer)

[Rolando]

Here is their e-mail:

[email protected]

I will get their mailing address tonight when I get home, it's on a sticker on a few of their DVDs.

Let's start writing!

 

[Nils Luehrmann]

Apparently for the Canadian market Warner is using the original snapper case of North by North West in their recently released Alfred Hitchcock Signature Collection box set where as at least the US market gets the new keepcase for North by North West.

The discs are absolutely identical, so this should only be an issue for those that must have it in a keepcase rather than a snapper. (keep in mind the keepcase has no insert so if chapter listings are important than you may actually prefer the snapper or at least print out your own chapter insert to put in the keepcase - personally I never use chapter listings so it makes no difference to me)

 

[Patrick Soucy]

Caution: I received my Canadian Version Of "Ginger Snaps III: The Beginning" and the video isn't Anamorphic. The package list the video as a (16/9) transfert, but it's not... Seville made a mistake

The Canadian releases of "Ginger Snaps: Collector's Edition" and "Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed" was anamorphic, not this one.

I want to know if the USA release of Ginger Snaps 3 come with an anamorphic video. Thanks a lot.

 

[Laurence Price]

I am not surprised and quite dismayed by this unfortunate event. Do not make the mistake in thinking that Seville is any better than Alliance Atlantis. Seville's standards are just as poor and that company is essentially as unqualified to be distributing DVDs in Canada as Alliance Atlantis is. This is really a shame about "Ginger Snaps III: The Beginning". Next time proceed with caution when dealing with Seville. TVA is also one of "the usual suspects" as well that I have had difficulties with when purchasing some of their DVDs previously.

 

[Rolando]

Oh my God, tell you mada an error. This is bad in this day and age of DVD. Actually it is unacceptable.

They better start recalling!

 

[CraigF]

Well, here's something "different" about the AA release of a Canadian movie that nobody seems to care about: Foolproof. I finally bought this as the price has been drastically reduced, around half the price of when the WS disc first came out not so long ago; the disc originally came out in Canada as P&S only, but WS in the U.S. The Canadian WS release includes a soundtrack CD, not at all mentioned on the cover nor is there a sticker. Some people on it you've probably heard of are Dr. John, Dandy Warhols, Sam Roberts, Danko Jones, Three Dog Night, Crystal Method...the tracks from the first three you've almost certainly heard before.

 

[WarrenM]

Okay, while we are on the subject of Alliance Atlantis... this particular title I am going to mention is not available anywhere else as far as I know, which makes it even more sad. Their recent dvd release of "Le Confessionnal" is just disgraceful. Even more so considering it is a very well-liked Canadian film that won numerous awards back in its original release. AA should have been concerned with putting out the BEST release of the film. The DVD is in "full frame", which seems to be the OAR (part of the film is based on the making of "I Confess" by Hitchcock, so the OAR might be a sort of reference to it)... but the picture quality is just bad! Right when the opening titles come up, you see tons of edge enhancement and then pixellation... and none of the colors seem to stay still, especially during darker, indoor scenes.. the colors seem to move around if you look closely. The transfer doesn't seem to have much definition... I suspect it was taken from a lesser source. Not quite bad enough to be a VHS-to-DVD transfer, but I suspect it may have been transfered from a laserdisc. Also, most stores want around $40 for it... absolutely outrageous for a title with poor PQ and no extras.

On a side note, Alliance released a bunch of other films by the same director (Robert Lepage) on the same day, and they all got anamorphic transfers, which I presume are better than this one. Wonder why they went the cheap route with this one. Then again, this is Alliance Atlantis, nothing they do makes sense....

 

[WarrenM]

Thanks for the heads up, Craig! AA can do it right sometimes... it is rare, but it does happen. Although I thought Foolproof was always WS in Canada, I remember seeing it in stores before and it was WS. I was waiting for the price to go down, so now it looks like I will finally pick it up.

 

[CraigF]

Warren: Way back in this thread, I mentioned I got Foolproof when it first came out, and (foolishly) assumed it would be OAR like in the U.S. amazon.ca had thought so too, and graciously refunded all my costs...nowhere had anybody mentioned it was P&S only in Canada, except (later I found out) the imdb, which is notorious for errors in their OAR's, but they were right for this one.

Anyway, I got it at Wal-Mart. I suggest anybody looking for anything DVD released maybe 2-3 months or more ago check out the WM: you may be very happy, or VERY pissed off. A huge number of reg. $25.83 discs have been reduced to $17.66, etc. I also noticed that a few had gone up a little bit, but most down. The TV sets of Looney Tunes (Golden) and Jetsons and Johnny Q are $39 now...I just noticed those, possibly more reduced. Another disc that just came to mind is Mystic River, decent flick, ~$15 from $26 in just a couple months.

 

[Tom Tsai]

^ Craig, the 2-disc Widescreen version of Foolproof came out at the same time as the single disc P&S version. I got it on the same street date as the US one.

 

[CraigF]

Hi Tom: Hmmm, I guess you didn't see my post here at the time, or you would have told me. I got FP shipped on release day, late Feb. IIRC...naturally it went back. I had no luck getting *any* info online at the time, so assumed nobody cared about the movie. Besides my firsthand experience, the imdb "info", and amazon.ca only carrying one version (P&S), and DVDSoon not knowing, I just assumed the WS version came out later because I saw it in stores a couple months later. FWIW, the P&S version, IIRC, did not give any info about AR on the package, which was the first "bad sign" I noticed.

Oh well, no big deal, just typical of how hard it generally is to get info on AA releases even after release (except here).

 

[Tom Tsai]

^ sorry, I would've told you if I had seen your post. :frowning: Oh well

 

[Rolando]

man I hope the WM prices go down in Montreal as well, have been hoping to get the Looney Tunes.

 

[CraigF]

Rolando: The prices probably will go down, since they're down not just at Wal-Mart but some Canadian online places too. It's not a "sale" or anything like that. I wonder if it has anything to do with the massive number of new and upcoming releases? Price decreases are just easier to note at WM because of the way they display their discs: you can see tons at once, and they stick fluorescent stickers on them so you can see what's changed. Check out the 2 disc packages, there are lots of them, most less than $20, some discs only out for a few months, not every WM (here) has them though.

 

[WarrenM]

Craig... the way I've been getting specs on AA dvd releases now is to visit videomatica.com when they post the front and back cover of the DVD you can see what's supposed to be on it (although even the cover can sometimes be wrong, it is usually a bit more reliable!)

 

[CraigF]

Hey, thanks Warren! I've bookmarked that one, never heard of them before.

I wish *everyone* would show front and back covers, just large enough so you can read. Really, the front cover is only marginally useful, and since nobody includes comprehensive and accurate text info, show us the back cover and let us figure it out.

I wonder if videomatica shows the covers *before* release, which is what I really need since I mostly pre-order. I guess they probably don't. As mentioned before, I think there's a very good reason why my (s)hitlist of AA/Seville/TVA/Lion's Gate don't make decent advance info available. The effort of trying to find out just what they're going to give us is getting tiresome for me, and it's so much easier to just get the U.S. version. There are so relatively few times when they release a Canadian version that's superior to the U.S. version, and mostly those were anamorphic versions, hopefully nobody's still going to release non-anamorphic versions of new films (yeah right: Ginger Snaps III, only in Canada you say).

Re that Foolproof again, videomatica even lists the CD, which nobody else I've seen does...and I notice the P&S disc is nowhere to be seen anymore, good riddance.

Edit: Re my Ginger Snaps III comment, videomatica shows that the DVD cover says 16x9 (but doesn't give the OAR). This doesn't match up with a few comments here and elsewhere about it not being anamorphic. What's the truth?

 

[Scott Temple]

I want to know as well. I ordered the Canadian disc thinking it was definitely going to be the better of the two. We've since found out that the US disc also has the commentary track (originally it was supposed to be exclusive to the Canadian disc) and that the Canadian disc has a non-anamorphic transfer. What a joke. So, for those of you who have the US disc from Lions Gate, does it have an anamorphic transfer? If it does, I think I'm going to be sick. To be fair, it's a very nice looking non-anamorphic transfer, but non-anamorphic is still non-anamorphic. It's so 1997 and there is no excuse for studios to be cranking them out in 2004.

 

[Laurence Price]

Even if there are no excuses for these Canadian studio's to be conducting business in such an inept manner an excuse will be invented regardless to justify their generally incompetent actions so it can be delivered to an inquiring Canadian Public. :rolleyes

 

[CraigF]

Has anyone seen in a store or received from a "Canadian" retailer NxNW in a keepcase in this set? So far, all I've read is that people in Canada are getting them in snappers. I called a few local stores, and they either don't have the set or are apparently sold out, so I couldn't ask them to check. Why I ask is: I'm dying to open my set, and amazon.ca is willing to replace it (if unopened I assume), but I don't want to just get the same thing again. If the stores use a different supplier than amazon.ca then they might get different sets. And I have no contact info for WB to see if getting the "proper" case is doable.

I realise this isn't a big deal and it's the movies that are important, but I'm pissed off at WB for this seemingly shabby tactic to get rid of old stock in a new set (it *could* be a mistake, I suppose) that apparently only affects sets to be sold in Canada. I think WB is the last studio I would have expected this from. How much would sticking the discs in a matching keepcase have cost? Not much I wager, that's why I don't have much faith they'll be replacing snappers. Thanks for any info.

FWIW, Future Shop sells the set at a decent price (when they have it), at least compared to what people in the U.S. seem to be paying, it's the same as the amazon.ca pre-order price IIRC.

 

[Laurence Price]

I bought the Alfred Hitchcock box Set in Canada and North by North West was indeed in the dreaded snapper even though the other movies were in keepcases.:frowning: