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13/11
DVD UK IS DEAD!
I'm planning to shut this page down soon
LONG LIVE DVD UK!
But I'm doing a complete overhaul and an new design so not to worry (my mother sighs with relief).
Why? Well my thoughful design (simplistic so those with slow modems wouldn't have to wait all day for the page to load) hasn't worked as well as I would have hoped. I believe I have one of the lowest readerships of any of the uk sites (Lee has 77,000 and andy and mark are cruising it). Why I ask my self does a site with so much original content get so little attention? Partly because I haven't updated it constantly for months. The only other explination is that people really do prefer style over form (not to say the others produce good looking rubish, after all I read them every day). Also Yahoo seem to have decided that they won't link to me despite repeated request over the last 6 months.I'll keep you posted and the site will launch before christmas.

I got my PII 350 etc. yesterday and I should be back on-line before monday to wreak havoc on the monster mailing-list I created. It really surprises me how it's gone from strength to strength without any advertising for months. We have over 300 subscribers and the list is very active. It's almost a full time job reading it.

4/11
I did an update yesterday but forgot to ftp it so it's a bumper issue today.

I went to the blockbusters in wembley to check out there dvd selection. I went the day before but couldn't find it. It's the nearest one for miles and conveniently located for travellers so if you want to E-MAIL me for directions. If your already a member of another branch the process is quite easy. The selection is quite impressive. They don't have all the latest titles but they did have "The shawshank redemption" in Widescreen. Discs can be rented for 2 nights for £3 and all are available to purchase. You can also rent a Toshiba player and 2 films for 2 nights for just £9.99 (although a deposit is required). As my PC is down I enquired about this but was told they had suspended this as the players from other branches all came back with faults. This should be fixed in a week, though. Still they had a widescreen tv playing a demo disc in a corner (although it was by a window) and that looked all right. The best thing though is that as it's a new branch they're giving new members a voucher book allowing free rentals of games and films as well as money off.

While I was away an "R2 Project" started up. This also contains a list of release dates although I have been doing the same thing for ages (although obviously it's out of date until next week). They also give an insight into "What dvd?".
 

Other pages:
links   release dates (slightly out of date) region 0 dvd's

3/11
Wow, we've been going for ages now. It November already! The good news for me at least is my pc is receiving a repair/upgrade this weekend. I'll be getting a new case,motherboard,RAM (64mb) and a PII 350mhtz CPU! Power dvd in software here I come :) I'll also be getting either a ranbow runner or an all in wonder later as well as some new dvd's.

I should be review some more dvd's next week.After mark revealed the rental locations for blockbuster dvd's (I was told "probably the superstores), I tried to find the wembley blockbusters but couldn't spot it in the high street. I'll rent some when I do and add them to the site.

Remember andy's "diary of a dvd mod"? Well I'm doing my own diary but it should be a bit more interesting (although I'm bound to say that). It doesn't really have anything to do with dvd's themselves but it does relate to films and technology.

5th November will be full of fireworks for two reasons. Apart from Bonfire/Guy Fawkes night there's this:
I haven't read the list for ages but I did a quick search to see if anyone had mentioned this (certainly no other web-sites have) but Future Publishing (yes of amstrad action/ T3 and total film fame) will be launching another new mag on thursday 5th November called What DVD? and the film-y bits will be done by the Total Film guys and the techy bit's by the T3 lads. Of course we'll carry on and be bang up to date but they'll do things in-depth (they're getting paid to after all).
Stop Press: I was wrong about that, Andy has further info today (I don't check his site that often) and expands on what I said.
 
 
 

29/10
Isn't widescreen getting out of hand? It used to be a sign of the highest quality but now it seems that it's been hijacked and labelled to everything even things that aren't in the best interests of viewers.Click here to read my rant.
Have you seen the dvd ad's? They were meant to be all over the place and I've only seen one on CNN by Philips. Come on DVD industry, get those ad out there.
27/10
I haven't updated this page for a long time, I know and alot has been happening but most people who know me know that my Pc is tempremental at the best of times. It has been out of action since August and it should be fixed before november. When it is I'll be updating ASAP.
18/8
If you love Kevin Smith (Clerks,Mallrats and Chasing Amy) you'll have been following news of a DVD release like a hawk. For everyone else it is one of the most hoped for releases made worse because they are available on Laserdisc. Today though I read this on Alt.Fan.Kevin-Smith:
Kevin was at the Comic Con in San Diego this week....
Among the latest news he gave out:
Chasing Amy IS coming out on DVD in November,
Mallrats in January(perhaps Laser disc as well),
and Clerks should be soon.... note:
Chasing Amy and Clerks will have same content as Laser Disc versions... (thanks Scott Mosier) (and thanks Kevin to finally giving in to DVD!!!)
12/8
 Please click the banner if you have time. I also have updated the Reviews section. It's now one of the most comprehensive review sections on the DVD UK group of web sites. Feel free to send me your reviews and I'll put them up as long as you stick to the format I use.
7/8
Look I'm still alive ! My Pc has been down for almost two weeks apparently my DVD-ROM drive is corrupted or something (ooh the irony) and the update I did last time didn't appear for some reason. People have been asking me why I don't do updates more often. Don't worry I just flame 'em back. The reason I don't update as often as other UK sites is that I don't want to just repeat the same infomation that can be found on sites I link to. So todays news is that all this week Channel fours games pages on teletext did a small feature on DVD and the Zapruder dvd that has come out in the US. You can find it on page 173.
4/7 I've done alot of updating on the release section and now have 166 titles listed out of the 200 that are supposed to come out this year and I will be updating it as soon as I get new info
29/6 Warner and Columbia(thanks to Guy for that) have announced more release. See the releases section for the low down
16/6 I got my player last wednesday after what felt like an epic trek to South London. I've updated the reviews.
4/6  I also found out why the jumanji disc I spoke about in the special report was different.It looks exactly like a R1 copy,so that's what it must have been
29/5 Added my dvd wish list.Should get my player next week.
20/5 Cheaper DVD players?
13/5  Region2 dvd's spotted read my special Report
 Region 2 releases
 DVD's that can be played in any country
Click here for a Widescreen vs Pan&Scan comparison
 
 

Other DVD sites

Best exporter of of region 1 discs

The general consensus of opinion is that the best exporter on the web is dvdexpress. This probably is very true in the U.S but DVD express have a policy that says they will only send a maximum of 6 disc in each order and only one order per week is permitted. So although their shipping costs are lower the limit means that if you want more discs the price of postage gets very high. Naturally the cost of each dvd has to be taken into account but when I compared them they were exactly the same.
Taking the cheapest postage option into account ($15.50 dvdempire/ $17 for 6 dvd's @ dvdexpress) the price for lots of discs is alot higher at dvdexpress than empire (for this to really work it's best to order alot of discs at once). Effectively this means that dvdexpress is $3 higher for every disc ($30 for 10 discs (the price of one disc)
It's worse news for those who choose the fed-ex option. Although it's a flat charge of $35 at express and $46 at empire the 6 disc policy means that 7 discs will be $70($39 more than empire), 13 will be $105 ($65 more than empire) 19 will be $140 ($95 more than empire).
73 $209 ($120 more than empire)My advice is to order as many discs as possible at once (especially if you're fed-ex ing them!) from dvdempire  unless you only intend ordering only 4/5 every (which I doubt) then dvdexpress is better. The only down side is they won't guarantee delivery on anything that isn't fed-exed as the us postal service doesn't either but they say lost packages are only at 0.1% which is reasonable.