Chinese-language DVDs--are any legit? (1 Viewer)

[Eric Stewart]

Friends showed me two DVDs their college-age daughter had bought on eBay. One, "The Bourne Identity," looked on screen like a legit copy: good video, the regular soundtrack, the usual menus and chapter stops, etc.

But it had Chinese subtitles that were on by default, though they could be turned off or replaced with English or Spanish subtitles in the usual way.

It also came with no case, just flat packaging with what seemed to be the standard American cover-art insert for a case that you might furnish yourself. The cover-art insert specified Region 1 and seemed to be of high reproduction quality. I do not know if the disk itself was Region 1, but it played in a Region 1 player.

I can say that the DVD I saw is obviously not just a pirated "bit copy" of an American "Bourne Identity" DVD -- or it wouldn't have Chinese subtitles.

The other DVD I did not inspect as carefully (and I did not note its title) but it seemed to have a similar flat packaging style, contained in a clear plastic envelope. In this case, my impression was that it was not the usual U.S. cover art for the DVD. The cover wrapper had what seemed to be Chinese characters written on it. (Is that what you call the printed insert in a DVD case: a wrapper?)

I haven't gotten in touch with the young lady who bought these DVDs yet to ask her more questions, though I am trying to. But her parents told me these DVDs were quite cheap to buy. As the DVD I viewed did not seem to be of shoddy quality in any way, I wondered if it and others like it might possibly be legal DVDs -- maybe not here, but in (say) Hong Kong. (But why would it play in a Region 1 player, then?)

So I'd like to know more. Can anyone say: Where do these DVDs come from? For what legal market (if any) are they made? Given that the product is not at all low in quality (at least, not the particular one I saw, examined cursorially), how can it be sold here so much cheaper than American DVDs?

Is this kind of product the same thing as a "bootleg DVD"? (I think of the latter as involving a hasty and substandard video transfer, which was apparently not the case here.)

Also, if this is a legitimate foreign product, are legitimate American DVD producers ripping us off with unnecessarily high DVD prices? If so, is there any defensible ethical reason for us not to buy these cheaper but essentially equivalent DVDs from abroad?

I went out on eBay to find the same or similar DVDs and found some that may or may not be the same -- it was very hard to tell exactly what was being offered. If the ones I want are not true bootlegs, some of the ones I found seemed to be.

I searched the Web, too, but couldn't figure out what keywords to search for. "Bootleg DVD" seemed wrong, but the likes of "Chinese DVD" and "Hong Kong DVD" turned up a subculture of films from those lands, not manistream films I'm interested in.

I'd very much appreciate hearing what information and opinions people have about this topic. I already know that most HTF posters are against bootlegs, so the question of whether these are bootlegs is a key one. Thanks in advance.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I searched the Web, too, but couldn't figure out what keywords to search for. "Bootleg DVD" seemed wrong, but the likes of "Chinese DVD" and "Hong Kong DVD" turned up a subculture of films from those lands, not manistream films I'm interested in.

OK, I'll give you some quick rules of thumb.

1- If it's a Hollywood film, and it's Region 0, it's a bootleg

2- If it comes in a digipack and it's from Asia, it's a bootleg 99.9% of the time. The humid weather destroys the cardboard and many things are in keepcases there that aren't here. With Anime, if it's NOT from a US company, and it's in a digipack it's a bootleg.

3- Use common sense. If it's more than 50% off on a used disc, or more than 30-40% off on a new, warning bells should be going off.

4- If "item ships from China" that's a boot.

5- If you can't find it (at a similar price) on http://www.dddhouse.com http://www.yesasia.com http://www.hkflix.com or http://www.pokerindustries.com or http://www.dvdkorea.com it's going to be a boot. Those are reliable retailers of Asian product that don't carry boots. For Japanese discs, which are more expensive because of a massive shift in exchange rate http://www.cdjapan.co.jp or http://www.amazon.co.jp (you need Japanese for amazon)

6- If it's "The Archives of Studio Ghibli" it's a boot. Studio Ghibli discs are only legit from Buena Vista/Disney and IVL.

Any more Qs. Feel free

 

[Aaron Cohen]

Yep, those are most definitely bootlegs. When I went to Vietnam I purchased about 20 dvd's exactly like what you described (in flat slips with just the cover art). They were 6000 Dong each (roughly 30 cents). They all had Chinese subtitles on the screen, some of them removable, others not. They all also had menus. The quality on some was okay while on others it was horrid. I ended up throwing them all away though as the official releases of each was much more satisfying in terms of audio/video quality and extras. But they can certainly be made with exact audio/video quality and extras. Just because it has an excellent picture doesn't mean it's not a bootleg.

 

[Chris_Morris]

In fact buying the HK issues of movies butchered by New Line and MiramAxe is a statement against the inferior butchered, dubbed and cut domestic product.

Amen!


Chris

 

[Eric Stewart]

A reply to Jeff Kleist in particular:

Thanks. Your post was an eye-opener.

If it comes in a digipack and it's from Asia, it's a bootleg 99.9% of the time.

Not quite sure what a digipack is. I did a quick Google lookup and found a site called www.digipak.com that offers packaging for commercial DVDs, basically a space-saving folding container. That what you mean?

Also, it's not immediately clear to me how to tell whether an eBay offering is from Asia or not.

More generally, one of my reactions to your post was to continue to question why these bootlegs are so much cheaper, even when (however rarely) they are of like quality with legal versions. You mentioned "low overhead, " implying that the legitimate American producers pass along their higher overhead costs to their customers in the form of higher selling prices for DVDs.

I asked myself if this is really a good ethical reason to avoid bootlegs. To the extent the overhead is justified, I answered, yes. It's clearly justified if it represents the cost of authoring/mastering the DVD, for instance. But is it justified if it just pays for fancy expense account lunches in posh Hollywood eateries? I'm not really convinced you are right to say flatly, "Given that they're boots, the ethical question should be answered." Is it really that simple?

 

[Aaron Cohen]

A digipak is that fold out cardboard packaging. Think Saturday Night Fever.

Am I right or way off here?

 

[Woo Jae]

But is it justified if it just pays for fancy expense account lunches in posh Hollywood eateries? I'm not really convinced you are right to say flatly, "Given that they're boots, the ethical question should be answered."

That's just simple envy/jealousy right there...

Hmm... You know, I think the internet has DEFINITELY lowered the intelligence of people in general. Everyone thinks that everything is free, or should be. (Anyone who hosts a website that gets any traffic KNOWS bandwith is expensive).

If you look at this from an INTELLECTUAL/PROPERTY RIGHTS perspective, the answer is clear as crystal: bootlegs and supporting bootlegs clearly violates the creator's desires for his/her art/product. Not only that, it stifles the desire to be creative as well - why bother when another person can copy and sell your work? No accountability is had in that situation.

Now shift the question to a slightly different area: Is it socially acceptable to bootleg/download etc software, mp3s, etc. and you get a whole slew of answers that are conflicting. Most people don't care about the LONG TERM effects of their actions on the markets of the products they love. They obsess over the "savings" that they achieve doing so, or subscribe to the idea that the industry is out to "take it all" for themselves. And in doing so, completely lose sight of the legal property rights involved, creating a no man's land for the creations of the artist.

Anyone thinking that bootlegs/filesharing, etc cannot hurt the industry should look at Mexico's withering recording industry, where bootlegs are "hot" items.

 

[Yee-Ming]

You mentioned "low overhead, " implying that the legitimate American producers pass along their higher overhead costs to their customers in the form of higher selling prices for DVDs.

Others have discussed this, let me add "overhead" in this instance includes the cost of making the movie in the first place. Even if you argue that this cost was earned back during the theatrical release, there is additional cost involved in transfering the film to digital format suitable for use in a DVD, the mastering and authoring cost of the DVD itself, as well as any new extras commissioned specially for the DVD.

The pirates, on the other hand, simply rip the digital information off a legit disc and then press their own copies. Practically free then.

Woo Jae has cited the Mexican recording industry. As another example, the Hong Kong film industry. The triads have such an industry in pirating movies that the legit movie industry is dying since the studios hardly make money any more. Why do you think so many Hong Kong talents are making their way to Hollywood, despite all the obstacles involved? Of course, even in its heyday Hong Kong wouldn't/couldn't pay the kind of salaries that Hollywood does, but it's also because the work has in any case dried up and they have no choice.

BTW, I thought the term "bootleg" was not quite the same as outright "counterfeit" or "pirate"; my understanding is that a "bootleg" is most commonly a somewhat sneaky recording of a concert, which otherwise is not available commercially, and is "legit" only because that particular country's IP laws are somewhat different; e.g. a lot of "bootleg" CDs of concerts come from Italy, and I understand it's because the laws there allow one to tape a concert and sell the copy, provided a royalty (fixed by law presumably) is deposited into a designated account for the owner of the music/song copyrights to claim. Whereas an outright rip-off, e.g. replica of an actual CD released to market, is not a bootleg but a coutnerfeit or a pirate copy.

 

[HienD]

Yes. They do have legit, original english movies with chinese subtitles. That's how they are shown in Hong kong. However, those chinese subtitled movies are always region 3 and priced in the $15-$20usd range. The bootleg one is usually copied from a legit version, so the video/audio quality should be the same. I sometime buy legit copies of english movies in vcd format.

 

[JeremyFr]

You know I do not condone Bootleging/Pirateing whatever you want to call it but I have to laugh at all the people that throw up there arms saying that people downloading MP3's is killing the music industry. In a recent article I believe it was in Sound & Vision they had a very interesting article with a man who had done quite extensive research on the whole MP3 is killing the Music Industry claim.

The man in question has his own band they make there own cd's they are not with any label. His band tried to sell there cd's on sites like ebay & Yahoo among others who promptly told him they were forbidden due to the fact that they were on CD-R disc's which are often used for "piracy".

After running into this problem and essentially have no means of distributing his bands music online he decided to do extensive research and find the true numbers behind the music industrys claims. In a nutshell this is what he found. Since 1998 the average price of a retail cd has risen from around $13 to $17 if I remember correctly my numbers may be off but you'll get the point. The average amount of new releases has fallen 25%, also since 1998 DVD and other entertainment i.e. X-Box,Gamecube,PS2 etc have become very large contendors. In short the music industry has raised the average price of a CD nearly 33% has released 25% percent less CD's and in reality most people like myself would rather spend our money on a DVD than spend almost the same amout on a CD that unfortunately I'll probably like one song on and has sub par recording quality. The article is in this months S&V and I'd recommend that anyone who can pick it up and read it do so its an eye opener.

And one more thing if MP3 is so Bad why are more and more artist's supporting and sueing the record companys because they get paid penny's on the dollar for what the record company charges for there cd's.

 

[Woo Jae]

Jeremy Fr:

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...acy/index.html

Just click on the link, then choose to see the advertisement for a free day pass to read the full article.



THAT is the scary part. That most - even my sister or mom or dad - don't see the impact that this will have on legitimate artists or creativity in general...

True, the correct term for these are different. But the act of theft is essentially the same. Anyone curious about piracy should try this fine faq...

Link Removed

And a good article on software piracy :

http://www.gamespy.com/legacy/articles/piracy.shtm

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm wondering if they sometimes rip a legal Asian version of the DVD directly. Since the Web sites you mentioned sell legal versions of Western DVDs, these versions obviously exist. Or maybe that kind of ripping would not give the bootleg the right region code ... ? I'm confused about the region code issue, anyway. I gather some of the bootlegs sold here are region 1, but wouldn't it make more sense for all bootlegs to be region 0, playable anywhere?

Yes, while they may say R1 on the package, it's just probably because they were too lazy to change it

By overhead, the bootleggers have to pay for(and they don't pay much):

1- Translation to Chinese(a day at most with their quality)
2- Re-Authoring(an hour or 2)
3- Pressing

The legit studio has to pay for:

1-The original movie
2-Any and all music/other rights clearances
3-Translation and dubbing to other languages
4-Telecine
5-Compression
6-Menu design
7-Extras creation
8-Sound work (nearfield remix and compression)
9-Advertising
10-Distribution
11-Pressing
12- Royalties

 

[Eric Stewart]

Some quick responses:

To Woo Jae: “Envy/jealousy” may be a part of it, I admit, as I’m human -- but my disdain of the “fancy expense account lunches in posh Hollywood eateries” that are built into the cost of legal DVDs is more political than personal. Intellectual property rights should protect creative artists, yes. In fact, they protect the “suits” disproportionately.

To Yee-Ming: I’ll have to check for the round “D9” logo -- never knew it existed as a badge of dual-layer. Where exactly is it? You are suggesting that illegal DVDs are limited to single-layer, right? What are “the triads,” BTW? I think your distinction between “bootlegs” on the one hand and “rip-offs” or “pirate copies” on the other is a good one. The migration of Hong Kong talent to Hollywood is not, I think, a good argument against buying black-market Asian DVDs, though. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, that situation is. See my later comments about artists, “suits,” hands, and throats.

To HienD: Thanks for confirming that the bootleg version of a Chinese-subtitled Western DVD is “usually copied from a legit version, so the video/audio quality should be the same.” In fact, I wonder why some of the illegal DVDs are not the same. What is the vcd format, BTW? I have noticed it at some of the Asian entertainment sites Jeff Kleist mentioned. Movies on vcd seem cheaper than on DVD. It vcd as high-quality as DVD?

To JeremyFr: I agree: CDs cost too much. The record industry is shooting itself in the foot and driving people to MP3s. The artists (most recently, Pearl Jam) are trying to find a way to circumvent the record companies. More power to them.

Back to Woo Jae:

… while they may say R1 on the package, it's just probably because they were too lazy to change it …

Good point. Exactly how is the region code included on a DVD, and why don’t illegal DVDs all say R0? I don’t question your list of what the legit studio must pay for – they’re all obviously necessary and justified costs which the buyers of the DVD should share. But I’m suggesting that there are built into legal DVDs’ prices other costs (those West L.A. lunches, those Hollywood agents’ fees) -- not to mention a sheer excess profit margin which buyers wouldn’t have to bear if there were a more open and competitive market in DVD supply.

To all: I must admit I’m rather surprised to find that most of the posters herein defend the idea that what is legal defines what is ethical. As one who grew up in the America of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, I guess I look at things quite differently.

 

[Chris_Morris]

I have noticed it at some of the Asian entertainment sites Jeff Kleist mentioned. Movies on vcd seem cheaper than on DVD. It vcd as high-quality as DVD?

http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/infoID.15/qx/info.htm



Chris

 

[Woo Jae]

Eric:

Maybe I was too harsh there...

But take a look at how much DVDs are versus, say, VHS cassettes. I cannot think of a consumer format that is cheap as DVD anywhere. Before DVDs, I was collecting used VHS at a store for 10~15 was thinking that THAT was cheap and affordable. Now NEW DVDs can be had for 10 or less. And they have MORE value than a VHS does through menus, chapter stops, and many special features NOT available on VHS.

On artists' rights: True, the internet can offer endless distribution possibilities - but can it make money for the artist? Can it insure the right of the artist to produce and be confident that their works are protected via law? You may speak of artist's rights, and argue here that the "suits" are driving artists into penury. I am not so sure about that.

Copyright and intellectual property law are vital to creativity.

If it protects the legal flows of income to artists, why should artists oppose it? Is it so that they can get a bigger piece of the "pie"? If I am not mistaken, some of the mega artists artists have started their own labels and companies to protect their own interests - as is their right. Your argument is over the allocation of the profits to the artists versus the "suits". That is something the two parties - recording artist and producers - create a contract on.

If you'd like, you can explain your point a bit better to get through to a brickhead like me...

 

[John_Berger]

What is the vcd format, BTW? I have noticed it at some of the Asian entertainment sites Jeff Kleist mentioned. Movies on vcd seem cheaper than on DVD. It vcd as high-quality as DVD?

The VCD or Video CD is the predecessor to the DVD. It never took off in the U.S. or Europe, but it still is popular in Asia.

The main differences are in capacity and quality. A VCD is nothing more than a standard 650 or 700 MB CD-ROM, whereas a DVD can hold 4.3GB or upwards of 9GB if dual-layered. Additiotnally, VCDs are restricted to MPEG-1 (320x252 resolution, roughly) at a bit rate of 1,123 K/sec whereas DVDs use MPEG-2 (720x480 resolution, roughly) at upwards of 10,000 K/sec. Finally, a VCD can hold 74 minutes of material whereas DVD can hold as much as you're willing to reduce the bit rate of the data.

In short, VCDs have the video quality of VHS although in truth the quality can actually be much worse than VHS, particularly during high-action scenes. They have the benefit, however, of being playable in ANY CD-ROM drive and on a majority of DVD players.

So if you see that a recent movie that is not yet or was recently released on DVD is availble on VCD, you can just about bet the house that it's counterfeit. Now, that's not to say that all Asian VCDs are counterfeit. In fact, I believe that Star Wars: Episode I was officially released on VCD in Asia.

Personally, I'd stay away from any VCDs - particularly those on eBay. I'd bet that less than 1% are legitimate.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Episode 1 and the SW trilogy ARE on VCD in Asia, however they are all P&S and from PAL masters

 

[Yee-Ming]

I’ll have to check for the round “D9” logo -- never knew it existed as a badge of dual-layer. Where exactly is it? You are suggesting that illegal DVDs are limited to single-layer, right? What are “the triads,” BTW?

D5 and D9 are actual terms used in the DVD manufacturing industry to describe single-side single layer, and single-side dual-layer DVDs respectively. Typically for decent picture quality a 2-hour movie will require a dual-layer disc, so that compression is not too extreme. By the same token, a long movie, e.g. LOTR or Pearl Harbor, is on two discs since squeezing the whole movie onto even a dual-layer disc requires more compression, at the risk of compromising picture quality.

Actually, illegal pirate discs now come in both types, D5 and D9. Obviously it's cheaper to make D5s, so pirates started out that way, nowadays presumably with cost having come down, pirates make D9 discs as well, and the D9 "product" is sometimes marked that way on the labels as a "badge of quality", signifying to the consumer that because the disc is dual layer, the picture quality should be better. Strange but true.

The "D9" logo I'm referring to appears on South-East Asian pirate DVDs, I don't know if those from China or Hong Kong are similar. It doesn't appear on original product, although sometimes the nature of the disc is described on the back packaging.

"Triads" are basically the HK version of organised crime, a "family" if you will, or a "gang". Also known as a "secret society".

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Another big giveaway is typos and crappy fonts on the packaging. I have a bootleg Braveheart where the maker apparently scanned it, btu the text came out illegible, so they used a blur tool to get rid of it an retyped everything without using spell check or a decent font.

 

[Eric Stewart]

To Woo Jae:

You’re surely no “brickhead” to believe so strongly that “Copyright and intellectual property law are vital to creativity.” Many people agree with you. I’d just make the point that the law can also be abused – and I think the bottom-liners and the “suits” in the movie and record industries abuse them. Here’s my argument.

For all the talk of DVDs under $10, most of them cost about the same ($15 to $25) as they did when the format was still new. And CDs have gone markedly up in price during that time.

Why are DVDs not much cheaper? An economics lesson:

Jeff Kleist posted earlier in this thread a list of legitimate cost items DVD bootleggers bypass, among them compression, menu design, extras creation, etc. These are, economists would say, “fixed costs” of producing the first DVD of a particular title run.

From that point on, the costs of producing each unit of product – each DVD that is pressed – are “variable costs.” Each unit made costs a certain amount of money to make, package, transport, etc. While variable costs per unit manufactured will tend to remain fairly constant at the usual DVD production volumes, the fixed costs will be spread over a larger volume of DVDs as the size of the production runs increases. So the more DVDs of a given title that are made and sold, the lower the total cost of making the DVDs (fixed costs plus variable costs per unit) should be.

With the rapid expansion of the DVD market since 1997, there should be huge per-unit cost savings, taking both fixed and variable costs into account. But prices are about the same. Economists allocate sellers’ revenues to production costs, fixed and variable; overhead (those West L.A. power lunches are included here); taxes; reasonable profit or return on investment; and excess profit that would disappear if the market were more competitive.

The movie and record industries use copyright law to secure monopolies on their products. That’s both good and bad. It’s good to the extent that the companies really need monopoly rights to induce them to make and release movies, records, etc. – which I very much doubt, in the world of popular mass culture. It’s bad to the extent that it underwrites excess profits and inefficiencies of overhead that a more competitive market would squeeze out.

I feel that the “suits” who drive Mercedes automobiles to Capitol Hill to whine about copyright infringement are just being greedy. Under their play-it-safe, boffo-box-office hegemony, fewer and fewer break-the-mold artists and less and less novelty and creativity are the norm. If anything, hiding behind copyright and intellectual property law is the enemy of creativity today.

This (in addition to wanting to be able to buy good DVDs cheap) is why I recommend HTF denizens think again about any knee-jerk resistance to so-called rip-off DVDs from other lands – as long as they are of high quality, that is. I would like to see a forum opened up to discuss how to locate the acceptable-quality “bootleg” products and avoid the stinkers.

P.S. After I posted this, it occurred to me that in the 1950s there was a lot of what we might today call piracy in the record industry. When it came to the then-new rock and roll genre, 45 rpm singles were generally sold by local and regional independent record producers, sometimes out of trunks of automobiles. The producer would find an act that had a good sound and hire a recording studio to cut a record. He would have the performers sign a contract giving him rights to the recording and to the song, as if he had written it. He would then promote the record.

If it hit big in, say, Philadelphia, a producer in Chicago would find a local performer or band that could "cover" the original, making a record that for all intents and purposes sounded the same. (Often the original artist was black and the cover artist was white.) There was very little national distribution of rock and roll hits at the time, so it's not clear that Producer #1 lost any money because of Producer #2's "piracy" -- but it was that much harder to go national with a hit because of rampant multi-regional copying of the original record's sound.

Still, it was a period of great artistic originality, the Golden Age of rock and roll. It ended at about the time Elvis moved from local independent label Sun Records to national RCA Victor. I don't think Sun founder Sam Phillips was all that concerned with the homogenized Elvis soundalikes that soon popped up all over. Elvis (and Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison) had given him his day in the sun. But he never got hugely rich, either. Would he have preferred today's bottom-line mentality, though? I think not.