Beverly Hills Chihuahua DVD: Imported Asia Disney DVD

I ordered Beverly Hill Chihuahua last week from Trident DVD and it arrived this morning, it’s a really high quality Asian import that is distributed by Pacific Marketing who are a bona fide licensed distributor for fully genuine Asian Disney DVDs.

What’s interesting is that I also ordered the Region 1 USA version from Amazon and I must say that the Asian version is far higher quality, both the packaging and the picture quality of the Asian version are far higher than the USA edition that I bought on Amazon.  Also, It’s always nice to have a Disney Hologram and the USA version has no hologram (this is normal on many USA Disney DVDs now) but this Asian one does have the Genuine Disney Hologram on the front.

Not all Asian Disney have holograms and to further confuse things many fakes DO have holograms whilst many genuine ones do not.  This always comes as a surprise to European Disney DVD buyers because UK and European edition always seem to have holograms on the cover and newer titles even have a hologram embeded in the center of the physical DVD.

This edition includes some nice extras including an animated short entitles ‘The Legend of The Chihuahua” and a nice commentary by the director Raja Gosnell.

Genuine Chinese Disney DVD: The Jungle Book

I went to China last week for the opening day of the 2008 Olympic Games, interestingly most of the sellers of counterfeit goods seem to have vanished, at least in Beijing.

Chinese Disney's Jungle Book DVD

I took the opportunity to buy a couple of genuine Disney DVDs, it’s not the first time that I have bought genuine Disney DVDs from China but on the whole I do find that Thailand and Korea are cheaper.

The DVD pictured above is Disney’s The Jungle Book: 40th Anniversary Edition, it’s manufactured by Intercontinental Video Limited.

Like most Asian Disney DVD s it bears a Disney Hologram, this one is on the spine of the outer sleeve which is unusual for Asian titles which usually have the hologram on the front cover.

Quality overall is excellent, better than many of the US Disney DVDs that I have see.

This title was released all over Asia at the same time as it was released in the USA, however it’s become rare recently in most Asian countries.

Here are some more images.

Disney’s Sword In The Stone 45th Anniversary Edition DVD

Disney's Sword In The Stone DVD

Disney appear to have decided that the 45th Anniversary of Sword in the Stone was June the 17th 2008 in most of the world, but 18th of August 2008 for the UK.  It’s bad enough that the UK price is higher than any other country without adding insult to injury and making UK buyers wait an extra 2 months.

It’s hardly surprising therefore that many buyers are importing from overseas, like this very high quality edition from Pacific Marketing (Thailand) Ltd.

Compared to other Disney releases in Asia this one is expensive, the 332 Baht price tag translates to $10 or in the UK £5, add a bit of postage and you have a real bargain.

The quality of the packaging on this release is very high quality, Pacific Marketing are the sole licensee in Thailand so we cannot compare it other Thailand distributions, but it’s far higher quality than your average Asia release, higher quality than the USA release.

This is PAL format (Thailand is PAL) and it’s Region 3 which should be no problem as most of today’s players are multi-region or easy to change.

It’s interesting to note that most newer Thailand produced Disney titles do not have the region nor the format written on the disc itself, and this title follows that trend.

Bonus features on this edition include:

• Merlin’s Magical Academy Game
• Bonus Movie Shorts
• Disney Song Selection
• Music Magic: The Sherman Brothers
• And Much More!

Below are some more images, click to zoom.

Disney’s The Little Mermaid Special Edition from Pacific Marketing

Disney the Little Mermaid DVD

Pacific Marketing is currently my favorite Asian distributor of genuine Disney DVDs, and this is a very good example of a high quality genuine release which can be bought in Asia for as little as £3.

It’s incredible to UK and European buyers that real Disney DVDs can be that cheap, but it’s true.  Pacific Marketing is only one of a handful of licenced distributors of Disney DVDs, but  for me they represent the best quality at a good price.

This edition features all the extras, including Music Video, Games & Backstage Features.  It has only English writing on the front cover, and a mixture of English and Thai on the back cover, it has English and other languages such as Korean, Manadrin etc and as with all DVDs any subtitles can be switched off easily with the subtitle button on the DVD remote.

Like so many new releases of Disney DVDs this is copy protected, so results on PC’s and some DVD recorders may vary, though it plays on my Mac it does not play on my Panasonic DVR recorder (but these days very few new titles do!).

All in all this is great value for money.  A few sellers on eBay and on the ‘net are selling this import version, if you are buying on eBay make sure that the seller mentions the distributor as “Pacific Marketing and Entertainment Group and the barcode number is 8856021 035307, if in doubt ask because we all know that eBay is a magnet for counterfeit sellers, better to stick to professional sellers on websites.

Genuine Disney Title with NO DISNEY HOLGRAM, ALL REGION (Yes Really)

I always thought that Genuine Disney DVDs always had a Disney Hologram, I was wrong.

The photo above shows a 100% Genuine Disney DVD, Bridge To Terabithia distributed by EVS Entertainment which DOES NOT have a Disney Hologram anywhere on the outside or inside of the box or on the DVD, the only Hologram is not a Disney hologram, yet this is a thoroughly genuine Disney DVD.

To as insult to injury to the so-called Disney DVD experts, note that it comes in a black case and has a red DVD 9 symbol on the DVD, and it’s ALL-REGION

Many so-called Disney DVD experts (I call them Know All’s who know F**K All) will tell you the following lies.

1:  Genuine Disney DVDs must have a hologram on the DVD.

This is TOTAL RUBBISH.

2:  Genuine Disney DVDs will have the hologram on the back or spine of the case, not the front.

Again, TOTAL RUBBISH

3:  Genuine Disney DVDs only come in Clear or Blue plastic boxes and never Black.

Rubbish, Completely Untrue.

4:  Genuine Disney DVDs say “Disney DVD in the plastic box”

Not true, again total lies.

5:  Genuine Disney DVDs never have a red DVD9 logo on the box or disc.

Rubbish, as shown in the photo they can have the DVD9 logo on the disc or box.

6: Genuine Disney DVDs are never all-region.

Not True, see photo above.

There are many more myths about what makes a Disney DVD genuine, here is the Bottom Line:

” Payment of  licence fee from the manufacturer/distributor to Disney (Buena Vista) is what makes a Disney DVD authentic, there is next to nothing about the packaging, origin, location of markings, hologram etc, or even regional coding that makes a Disney DVD either fake or real”.

But the know all’s will pay no attention to this and will continue to circulate lies, bullshit and half-truths.

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, Thailand Release.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End just landed on my desk, but this one is a thoroughly genuine release from Pacific Marketing (Thailand), it’s a high quality DVD but the buyer was concerned for three reasons:

1. The buyer complained that there was no hologram on the DVD itself, I’m not entirely sure why the buyer would feel that there should be as very few Disney DVD’s (or any for that matter) have been manufactured with a hologram on the DVD.

2. The buyer was concerned that the Hologram was on the front of the packaging and the text in the back of the hologram says BVHE. The buyer was not justified in this instance as the hologram is quite right to say BVHE as that means “Buena Vista Home Entertainment”, also this distribution does have the hologram on the front of the packaging and there is no problem with that, many other genuine imports also have the hologram on the front bottom left.

3. The buyer thought that the printing on the DVD printed side looked wrong. The printing on the printed side of the DVD is correct, though I appreciate that it can cause confusion where no region is marked on the DVD itself, in this instance the DVD is thoroughly genuine.

It’s also interesting to note that this DVD is copy protected and does not play on many PC’s with DVD software and I have heard that it will not play on some DVD recorder machines, these are getting quite common now in the home and are often used as a primary DVD player, so if you are thinking about buying a DVD recorder you may want to keep a plain old DVD player also.

This costs about 3 UK pounds, or 6 US dollars in Thailand, amazing value in my opinion and it’s a totally genuine and fully licensed Disney DVD.

Counterfeit Disney Box Set 110 DVDs

I just came back from a trip to China and I just could not resist this! It’s an absolute counterfeit though the quailty is amazing. This 110 DVD boxed set has every Disney movie ever made up to about 2006 and it comes in an impressive metal tin.

As is usual with Chinese counterfeit goods, the devil is in the detail. This set includes at least 3 movies which are not Disney at all.

Now some of you will say that I should not be buying stuff that I know is counterfeit, and normally I would not, but I just wanted to see how good this really was. The whole set cost me UK 20 Pounds (40 USD) and the ones that I have watched so far are perfect quality.

I would be interested to know if disney have ever made anything like this for real.

Note to Disney:  This is counterfeit and I’m happy to hand this over to Disney, I have sent a message to that effect to the disney head office and await collection by courier if Disney wish to have this.