The point Brian was making is that those R2 discs are not meant to be sold here. You are not suppose to own a region free player in this country. There's reasons for a regional code and there are reasons why they are used. If the right owners of MURDER agree for a Spanish company to release it in Spain, as a PAL R2 release, those rights are not for it to be released or seen in America.
Thankfully most right owners don't go after this type of thing but I believe Miramax went after a few stores in America that were selling R2 discs of movies they owned for R1 release. There have been a couple Jess Franco titles that were released in R2 and the R1 owners put a stop to their sale.
Hacking into a DVD player to make it region free is illegal. It's just as illegal as the dozen $1 DVDs of THE SKIN GAME out there. You can't be against one and for the other IMO.
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Lionsgate has enough StudioCanal films to make two more 5-disc sets like their first collection.
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But they also own countless L&H films, which haven't been released. They own all sorts of Arkoff titles, which have gone unreleased the last two years. In both cases they (Lionsgate) started a collection and apparently stopped because they weren't happy with sales. From what I've been told the Hitchcock set didn't sell very well or at least not up to what the studio wanted. Like you, I bought that R2 L&H set three years ago because I was tired of waiting.
I own hundreds of R2 titles and what have they done? They've taken money away from the studios in America. I own 15-20 Paramount titles that they haven't released here because I was tired of waiting. If Paramount gets around to releasing these then I still won't buy them since I already own them. That means Paramount loses money. I'm sure Miramax lost money on their KILL BILL release because people bought the uncut Japanese disc. I guess it's the same for Criterion who is losing money by someone buying the $1 version of THE LADY VANISHES.
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If price is the issue... would you still side with the crappy PD label versions if the official DVDs were out with a higher price?
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It would actually depend on the film. With these early Hitchcock titles I'd stick with the PD versions. They simply aren't that great of films so I wouldn't pay too much for them unless they were packaged together at a cheap price. I'm a die-hard Lugosi fan and own all his PD titles but even though I love them, I wouldn't pay $15-$20 for them.
I'm a movie fan first and anyone who digs into "non-mainstream" stuff are going no where if they wait for remastered versions of these films or if they wait for a DVD release. I sold off my VHS collection when I first bought a DVD player and it was a mistake because hundreds of titles I owned are still not on DVD. A studio can't release everything they own as it would be impossible so if you want to see a film you will have to do whatever it takes to see them.
I now own 22 of those "50 Movie Packs" from Mill Creek. It would be impossible for me to pay $10-$15 for a single movie on these. I wouldn't have bought them at $10 but I would watch them for $0.10, which is the price they come to. I'm not sure how many people would be willing to watch all 50 movies on each of these sets but if you are, then you can't pay top dollar for them nor would you be willing to.
