Where else can you get 32 DVDs for $93?
That’s less than $3 a disc! Sounds like a fantastic deal, right? Actually, it’s even better than it sounds.
You see, the 32 DVDs I got are these:
Yes, that’s all 5 seasons of Babylon 5. On DVD. All 110 episodes.
I think it’s safe to say that my updates here may get a bit sporadic… ^.^
Of course, with a deal like this there are always a few catches. They aren’t the standard, Region 1 (North American) editions. Those would’ve cost me $400 from Amazon.com. Uh, no thanks. So what version are these?
They’re the Chinese “release.”
How official or unofficial they are is tough to say, but I’m leaning with “bootleg” for these one. The packaging is very nicely done. The printing is good and the boxes don’t feel all crappy. It’s when you open them that things look different. Instead of being a big flip-case with a spot for each disc to click into, the discs are in little “disc condoms” (for lack of a better description), and all of those are slipped into one larger sleeve. The discs themselves are flawless. Each one printed with the cover art of that seasons box and the relevant info: Warner Brothers, Dolby Digital, NTSC, Region 6.
Region 6?!?
Yes, that’s the DVD Region for China, but not to worry. The discs themselves are region-free. My DVD player is already set to Region 0 (so it can play anything), so it wouldn’t matter if they were really Region 6 or not. But I did test one in my Xbox, and it played just fine, despite the Xbox being hardwired for Region 3. No region code is a sure sign of bootleg material, no matter how nice the packaging and presentation.
Then there are the typos.
And not just little ones. Look closely at the photo and check out the boxes for seasons four and five. I missed it the first time I looked at five, but I noticed four right away. “THE COMPLETE FOURTHT SEASON” Huh? “THE COMPLETE FIETH SEASON” Pardon? The odd(er) thing is, “fourth” and “fifth” are spelled correctly on the discs.No big deal though. A typo on the box doesn’t affect the playability at all. They’re perfect discs and I can’t wait to sit down and finally see the whole series from start to finish. Of course, with 80 hours of shows to watch that may take a while.
Guess I’d better get started… ^.^