Did I buy a bootleg? (1 Viewer)

[Ricardo C]

Yesterday, while I was at the theater, I noticed they were selling DVDs it the concessions area ("they" meaning the theater itself). They had X-Men and X2 (one-disc versions) on sale for the equivalent of $7.50 apiece. Since a friend of mine has been "borrowing" my copies of both films for months now, I figured I'd pick up replacements. $15 for both movies sounded like a pretty good deal. The packaging looked legit, except for two things: Local DVD releases usually have the film's title in Spanish, and the original title on a small font beneath it. So X2, in Spanish, should be "X-Men 2", with "X2" in a tiny font below it. This one says "X-Men 2" is the film's original title. Also, there's a logo for "RTC - Secretaría de Gobernación" on the spine of each box. RTC is the Mexican film directorate. The boxes carry an anti-piracy warning on the back ("Piracy - Grave Crime"), and even have a proof of purchase.

The discs look professionally made, (they're clear rather than blue-tinted, which is usually a tell-tale sign of a bootleg around here), but the disc art looks suspect.

X2 has its menus intact, but X-Men has a generic menu featuring the Fox logo, with the film's poster on one side.

Both films appear to feature the original NTSC transfers, and both have English 5.1, Spanish 2.0 and Portuguese 2.0 audio tracks.

Could Mexican-made DVDs somehow have ended up here? And if they are indeed Mexican, what's with the RTC logo? Are ALL films required to have it in Mexico? Is it a sign of legality? Does Fox hand off production duties to third parties for foreign releases?

Just tell me I didn't buy bootlegs, the theater is 30 minutes away

 

[Cees Alons]

If it's the theater who are selling, it's highly unlikely. Of course *anyone* could be selling bootlegs nowadays, but why assume that? The transaction and everything surrounding it seems normal.

The standard R1 NTSC transfer?


Cees

 

[mark alan]

Stick it in your computer and look at disc size. Aren't bootlegs almost always single layer dvd?

 

[Ricardo C]

Cees: Yeah, it's the R1 transfer. Latin American R4 releases generally use the same materials as the R1 release, save for localized menus and packaging, and the inclusion of a Portuguese audio track in place of the French one.

Mark: They're both DVD-9s. The PQ is excellent on both films, no signs of the usual extra compression used to cram commercial DVDs on single-layer discs.

Meh, I guess I'll relax.

 

[JohnRice]

Those movies have been hitting the bargains lately here in the US. I got X-Men 1.5 for $7.50. So I wouldn't be concerned.

 

[MandyHan]

It doesn't sound like you found a bootleg copy, but I guess the language stuff has me questioning it. But yeah, I've seen copies of Xmen going cheap lately, so they're probably legit.