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Re: Chanthology box

Dear Arie,

First, welcome to our Message Board.

Now, as for the extent of the release of "The Charlie Chan Chanthology," I was not aware of there being any limitations as to region. However, if this is the case, it will hopefully be only a temporary situation.

"The Charlie Chan Chanthology" can certainly be ordered internationally through Amazon.com. I just checked, and the set is also available through Amazon.co.uk (Great Britain), which may save some postage cost. There are also sellers carrying the "Chanthology" on eBay. In fact, I just saw one listed on eBay Netherlands:

http://cgi.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=617&item=6308731081&rd=1&ssPageName=WD2V

So, if you wish to purchase "The Charlie Chan Chanthology," there are several ways to do so!

Good luck, Arie, and please let us know if your search reaches a successful conclusion.

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Re: Re: Chanthology box

Hi Rush,

Thanks for your reaction. I know I can buy the set via www.amazon.co.uk but it's region-1 and as my Sony home theatre set is hooked on region-2 (a all-region chip set would cost me US$ 150,00) it's no use for me buying it. I have several C.C. DVD's region-free but they are not the official releases.
But who knows, maybe MGM will release the set in region-2....I surely hope they will. I fondly remember watching Belgium and British TV on Saturday afternoons when they were showing C.C., the original The Saint and other b/w movies.

Re: Re: Re: Chanthology box

Dear Arie,

I am sorry for misunderstanding your orignial question about DVDs and regions! You may contact Andy at Old Time Radio, U.K. As he is a DVD seller from England, and is very familiar with this DVD set of Chan films, perhaps he can give you some helpful "region-2" information with regard to "The Charlie Chan Chanthology" and its possible release in a suitable format. Here is the address of his Website:

http://oldtimeradiouk.playntradeonline.com/

Again, I apologize about my ignorance regarding the differences in DVD types, chips, etc. I knew about the differences in video players, but, I was under the mistaken impression that the situation was simplified with the introduction of the DVD.

I would be very interested to hear more about this subject.

Sincerely,
Rush Glick

Re: Re: Re: Re: Chanthology box

Hi Rush,
No apologies necessary, luckily we can't know everything there is to know.
The situation is quite simple actually. In the old VHS days the porblem was the TV-signal types. In the USA they used and still do so the NTSC-format, in almost the rest of the world the standard was and is PAL (although in France they seem to have a different format also). So, if one bought a NTSC-video it could very well be that one could not play it on one's PAL video player. Only later players were introduced that could "eat" NTSC and PAL.
When the DVD was introduced the industry divided the world in several regions (1 is North America, 2 is Europe and Asia, etc.etc.). This was done so that when a movie was released in the USA its introduction could be held back in other regions of the world. So, let's say "The Last Samurai" was released on DVD on 1 June 2004 in North America the DVD would be encoded as region-1 and NTSC and could therefor not be played in the other regions. That is to say, the industry since has introduced DVD-players that are region-free and are suitable for NTSC and PAL. But some brands, such as Sony, still have region coding. Some region-coded players can be made region-free using software, others such as my Sony require a special chip set.
My solution probably will be buy a region free NTSC/PAL player for as low as abt. US$ 50,00 and hook that to my Sony and that way I can play all DVD's
Thanks for the link to Andy, I will contact him

Re: Chanthology box

Hi Arie,

This should be good news for you! There's a R2 version of the Chanthology coming out. Check you local e-tailer, but the site I linked to is showing it coming out November 1st for 23 pounds. Interesting enough, that version is 3 discs because they're using double feature discs.

By the way, are you familiar at all with a British company called Orbit Media? They have released Charlie Chan in London on DVD (the first of a proposed series). Unfortunately I've heard some less than flattering things about the general quality of their product from a couple of people.

Thanks!

Steve

Re: Re: Chanthology box

That's great news and I guess I can wait until then. I know of the "C.C. in London" release but I already have that one from a different source.