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Alliance screwing over Canadian Customers (Please Help!) (1 Viewer)

Gordon St Pierre

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One suggestion we could make would be to tell them to plaster the cover with English & french & AA logo's all they want ...but have a NICE CLEAN ENGLISH ONLY COVER on the reverse ..that way we could buy our DVDs & just flip the cover when we open it up ..Seems silly for them to do that with the French cover as it would clearly be the least used
 

ChristianB

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Jan 13, 2000
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@Eric_B_C

Nice reply from Alliance Atlantis, but it seems to me to be their usual blah blah blah, thanks for writing, blah blah blah. In other words, NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

I'm more upset about the street date delay. Distributors and order books all stated a street date of September 7. If they cannot meet this date, fine, but then notify everyone beforehand. Don't wait until the release date has come and gone and then change the date.

Has anyone thought about emailing New Line and Miramax, explaining how AA handles their product in Canada?

@Gordon

Good idea! Bilingual one side. English on the reverse. Therefore the law that requires bilingual packaging for display purposes remains intact. We can then flip it over after buying a copy :)

I really wish AA would just offer a compromise then everyone would be happy.

Christian
 

Laurence Price

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Oct 5, 2003
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101

Basically what's observed here is Alliance Atlantis' STANDARD pre-prepared excuse that customer service responds to everyone with. This is what I think everyone will get which is a slightly altered message with subtle changes to suit the question that is being uttered or the suggestion that is being offered. This is the trick that Alliance Atlantis is pulling on the Canadian consumer.

Alliance Atlantis has not yet responded to another Email I have sent to them. This may be because the Email was pointed and harsh in tone but, not overly so or at all abusive.

So it is evident that Alliance Atlantis does not care enough to put any effort not only into their DVD releases but, also the responses that come from their customer service department.
 

Eric_B_C

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Apr 30, 2004
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Well I'm definitely going to write again over the weekend. Their canned response only works once. They'll have to actually answer a second one.

I say we should keep at this, and explain what's going on to less knowledgeable friends. There is no excuse to drop features from a disk just for a stupid French track. Especially reading the US vs Canada DVD thread where on one disk they dropped the 5.1?! (Not sure if it was Alliance that did that.) That's madness. 5.1 can easily be downsampled to stereo. Not the other way around.

They obviously don't care, so our only course of action is to vote with our wallets. I'm fine with that.

When you buy a used DVD in a video store, do all the proceeds go to the store? And if so, who owns Rogers Video? Since I have a fair few disks I've bought lately that are AA disks, but I got them from Rogers. Of course knowing my luck, Alliance own them which means they're still getting money.

Like the idea of contacting New Line etc... I wonder what benefits contracting out the distribution has?
 

Eric_B_C

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You know, having thought about it, the rights issues over the comic is no excuse. Since it was advertised as being with the disk, I think it's only fair that the onus was on Alliance to get clearance.

Also, in regards to people saying we shouldn't complain, I have a personal tale to tell. Speed Channel have the rights to F1 from ten years ago. Last year, for the 93 season, they neglected to obtain the rights to air them in Canada. So many Canadians wrote and complained (myself included) that Speed ponied up the extra cash for the Canadian rights.

So don't tell me nothing will change if I complain.
 

Laurence Price

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Oct 5, 2003
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I hope you are successful because I was not. This dilemma has become beyond annoying and frustrating. It is almost impossible to get anywhere with Alliance Atlantis because the company is unreasonable and irrational regarding the company's psychology in relation to the way they deal with their customers. Alliance Atlantis is also exteremly rigid and unyielding in their way of doing business and this does not help much if an average person is looking to cause or effect any real change.

I wish you luck but, Alliance Atlantis gets on my nerves real fast and judging from the outrage and distress I am witnessing on this forum. That being said I don't think I am alone in assuming that there are quite a few Canadians that are fed up with their incompetance and being constantly ripped off and shortchanged. If consumers are not pleased then to me this is definitely inexcusable and should be remedied.
 

Stephen_J_H

All Things Film Junkie
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As far as Clerks X goes, expect only the cover and packaging to change. AA is actually pretty good about not messing with Miramax discs. What worries me is that Resident Evil: Apocalypse will be an AA release in Canada, and you just KNOW that they will create their own version rather than simply repackaging the Sony disc.
 

Eric_B_C

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Curious to see what the changes are. Still glad I've ordered the US version.

A trip to West Edmonton Mall is in the offing, so I'll try and time it around when the Canadian version ships so I can see the differences:)
 

Francois Caron

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It's not only the customers who are being misled and cheated by Alliance Atlantis. A reliable source has told me that even the Canadian film studios have a lot of trouble dealing with Alliance Atlantis. In fact, AA even went as far as to buy out Salter Street Films based out of the Maritimes just so that they can shut it down completely a year later.

Simply put, if your eally want to resolve your current issues, do not purchase any products from a company as hostile and mean-spirited as Alliance Atlantis! Ever! Alliance Atlantis is probably the only major independent DVD distributing company that is based in Canada, and until there's more and better competition in the Canadian DVD distribution industry, AA has no reason to change their way of doing business.

All your complaints will be answered with form letters, and nothing will be done to actually address them.
 

Marc Colella

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Alliance Atlantis isn't just screwing over Canadian DVD customers, but also Canadian television viewers.

They have controlling ownership of the Independant Film Channel Canada, which shows most of their films in P&S.

IFC Canada isn't a movie channel geared towards "soccer-mom's" and the general popcorn-movie loving audience (the type of films they broadcast proves that). It's geared towards people who view film as an artform and respect the vision of the director.

To present films in P&S to this demographic is just mind-blowing. And it becomes even more frustrating when the commercials previewing their upcoming movies is presented in it's OAR.
 

Laurence Price

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This was probably one of the reasons why The Sundance Channel was rejected legal carriage in Canada a few years back. I filed an intervention in support of this channel with the CRTC when it was first applied for but, it ended up being disapproved anyway. I am sure Alliance Atlantis had something to do with this decision.

This is also, why Canadians cannot see the real U.S version of the Independent Film Channel on Canadian television because it would "compete" with the Alliance Atlantis owned Canadian version of the channel and this is against the CRTCs established rules and regulations. Regrettably this type of thing is a reality in Canada.

I know this is unrelated to DVD but it is still of significance in connection to the way that Alliance Atlantis goes about doing business.
 

Eric_B_C

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Don't forget good old Canadian Content laws. So moronic to have BBC Canada, "The best of British TV", and have Canadian shows all over it.

As for IFC, I actually wrote and complained about the P&S issue and they claimed "We just show movies the way they're given to us." They were claiming that they were only being given P&S versions to screen, which I don't believe for a second.

Food Network is owned by them as well and the Canadian version is a joke compared to the US one.

They have their hand in an awful lot of pies and seem to have entirely too much power within the Canadian media.
 

Rosscoe M

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These clowns at IFC are bozo's....I can't get my Canadian feature Brewster McGee shown on there if my life depended on it (and it does!). These guys blow.
 

Laurence Price

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Those "clowns" you are referring to are the "bozo" executives who work for Alliance Atlantis. Basically their pretty much the same since the company has ownership of IFC Canada.
 

James_L

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Aug 27, 2003
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You can't fight a corporation when people don't know what they are being fed is Wrong or altered.

I live in Western Canada And people here for the lack of the terms "rednecks"

People here don't know or care about widescreen or what they don't or have on dvd's

Until these people are educated to what the differences are Alliance Atlantis will be free to do what they Wish.

At my local Futureshop They always sell out of Fullscreen, since no one here wants those horrible black bars.

Its hard to tell them to buy a decent TV and they will go away, They think its the Movie in which they are in, but its actually there 10 year old TV.

I hope someday the CRTC will get rid of the 80 year old people running it and put some fresh young people in there to put in Programing we WANT in Canada

I thought we had freedom in this land, instead of Cencorship?

I personally am proud to say I don't watch Canadian TV since its all what we are told to watch and restricted to what the CRTC allows and or wants us to view.

The states have it the best and I for one will view US, TV over Canadian anytime, Atleast there if the programming sucks, I know its not because of there governments Fault.
 

Rob T

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yeah that's weird that they got the distributing rights to RE: Apocalypse up here when Sony has released tons of stuff up here by themselves. Have they shut down their Canadian offices or something?
I'll probably be importing the disc. :)
 
Joined
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Unfortunately (and i don't know if it's the same in the US), the transfer on this film is a bad PAN to NTSC transfer!!! Come on people! They come up with this nice packaging and a 2-disc set for this Academy Award nominated film and the best they can come up with is a PAL transfer!!! :thumbsdown:


Alliance Atlantis used to be the best out there. Their name was once a sign of quality on the products they released (which were often better than their US conterparts).

In the early days of DVD, they had the perfect packaging system: One side in english, one in french (and a nice little sticker on the wrapper to let you know). None of the other studios had/has that! No need for two versions like WB does...

But then they had to switch to the sillyest thing i've ever seen and it's been going downhill ever since.

Skipping the release date by a week doesn't bother me that much as long as the product is okay. What bothers me is that I KNOW that the reason the DVD has been delayed is to bilingualise the packaging and add those silly AA logos all over the place... :angry:

What really gets me furious right now is their new idea to start dropping DTS tracks to make space for dubbed versions... DTS tracks are hard enough to come by as it is!


By the way, we've also been talking about the monopolistic aspect of AA in Canada but i have to let you know that the problem is even worst in Quebec where Quebecor owns half the province; TV networks, cable and internet companies, magazines, newspapers, record companies, record stores, video stores... all dumbed-down for the below-average consumer and cross-advertised from one media to the next to the point where there isn't any content being produced, only product placement...

Somehow, even in the states where big corporations gobble-up everything in their paths, there still seems to be diversity through all of it. In Canada, the market isn't large enough for that so all we are left with it is @%&*!.[/Rant]

The only thing left to do is complain...

p.s. Can anyone post that e-mail address where to e-mail AA?
 

Stephen_J_H

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No, AA got distribution because Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a Canada/UK co-production, and Davis Impact (the Canadian partner) has a distribution deal w/AA. Similar story to why Equinoxe got the distribution of the execrable Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.
 

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