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Let me see:

Original Xbox - 80 quid, no overheating problems, over 1,000 games available, game prices around 30 quid and many games in bargain bins at 10-15 quid, "modifiable", can run Linux after "modification", in stock everywhere.

Xbox 360 - 280 quid, some overheating issues, a few dozen games available, game prices around 45-50 quid and no discounted games yet, not modifiable, can't run Linux at all, not really in stock unless you queue for hours and pre-order months in advance.

Is it just me or are you better off buying an original Xbox now and getting an Xbox 360 in Xmas 2006? Or is that just common sense talking?

Nice of Amazon to do this

It'd be great if Amazon and other big vendors refused to carry discs with

import duty applies to items over a certain value. cheap items are not levied.

there are of course ways to get around such levys, like relocating your company to jersey...

Well, Play have UMD movies up already.

172 so far, prices between £9.99 and £15.99 on the first page.

Heh, you'll be happy to know that the Season 1 Boxed Set has been out in Region 2 since March 28th ;)

For hardware purchases I use the same as you.

For music and games (and sometimes books) I use play.com and CD-WOW, which both have free delivery.

For books I generally still use 1-2-3 PriceCheck, which does a handy comparison of a dozen or so book stores, including Amazon. It also includes P&P in the comparison, to avoid sneaky charges.

Don't know where you are, presumably US, so neener neener! ;)

I'm glad I didn't pay $800 for it!

Whoa. There's something odd. It took them well over a year from the US release before we got Animal Crossing on the GC in Europe... and yet the European release date is September 29, according to Play :)

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=srmr&page=title &r=ABCD&title=142571

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=srmr&page=title &r=ABCD&title=142570

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=srmr&page=title &r=ABCD&title=142571

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=srmr&page=title &r=ABCD&title=142570

Try Play.com.

Yank the episodes from your favorite p2p app, or just wait a month and get the box..
So near, but so far away.. *sigh*
http://play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title= 581474&p=57&g=72

Amazon.com, (are we still boycotting them?) are selling it for $78. It's so unfair that you americans get things cheaper.

Play.com in the Channel Islands have a 12 disc box set for 72/£45. And it's for sale on the same day. Choicesdirect (and Amazon.co.uk) have it for £44.

Hope this makes you as happy as it makes me!

Ronan

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&ti tle=490271&p=57&g=72

for cheap uk delivery see www.play.com. When I preordered it was £26.99 :-)

"relatively low price"? relative to what? Cheap compared to a bottle of beer at the wanky bars he hangs out in? How the hell do kids afford games that cost £40?

The ROTK Extended Edition is due out on 22 Nov, according to Play.

I find that I can get CDs almost as cheaply and easily at Play.com, and they don't charge for postage. Something to do with the VAT laws for Jersey.
HMV and Music Zone stores, at least here in the UK, are dropping their prices to be similarly competitive. For example, Nelly Furtado's new album is a hair under ten pounds in HMV, about a pound more expensive in Music Zone, and I bet it's a similar price in my three local (large-chain) supermarkets.

I must admit, even though it can be quite convenient to shop at Play.com, and CD-Wow is a bit cheaper still, there's nothing quite as nice as browsing the racks. It's good to see real competition in the music retail industry again.

(By and large, I don't buy singles, though I have been thinking about getting a small MP3 player to house my collection of older and more esoteric single-track stuff, mostly 70s and 80s music with the occasional oddball track...)

I don't think they were banned - they were just told they had to charge VAT, or something.

Anyway, play.com has similar prices and in my experience has great service.

How about

www.play.com

they seem to have reasonable prices and for once, show the final price inc shipping rather than one before VAT + Shipping + Additional costs :)

Everyone, put your CSS and region-control concerns behind you, and buy a fuckload of Futurama DVDs.

I already did.

Looking at Play I see no less than four R2 versions of the DVD, so why are you putting up with Korean bootlegs?

The only thing was... CDs in the UK are so expensive! I went into a couple Vigin Megastores while I was there... the average CD was something like 15-17 pounds!

You just have to know where to look .

I'm getting tired of paying more money for the same thing

Well if that's honestly what you believe then just don't buy it.

Personally I'm all for it - I never got around to getting 2k3 and can get 2k4 for half price in the UK from play.com.

Play.com actually only sell Region 2 discs now, they have a spin off site PlayUSA.com which sells Region 1 discs, still in GBP and still with free shipping. Another one would be CdWow.com who sell Region 1, 2 and 3 DVDs.

There's a really cool trick I've seen, used by Internet retailers, where they have offices just outside the UK, and post region 1 DVDs from there. They accept payment in UKP, and your product arrives typically within 2 days. play.com, DC-DVD and a few others all do this.

play.com have been selling this for a few days for 338.23 (including delivery), actually probably longer but a few days I have known about it.

I bet the 1000 boxes are already sold, just ont hat site alone, never mind everyone else who seems to be selling it.

Anyone who shops online at HMV.co.uk is crazy. Try Play.com or CD-WOW.com if you're a UK consumer shopping online.

CD-WOW concentrates on more popular music (not just mainstream) and doesn't have either item but Play.com has your Josie and the Pussycats CD at 9.99 pounds and the DVD at 6.99 pounds. So why you'd ever pay over twice as much for either item is beyond me.

Seriously, only an idiot would shop at HMV UK's online store. With a few exceptions, its prices are set to match those in its stores, so people who want to know how much a CD, DVD or whatever will cost can browse the site before they head to their local HMV.

Pointing out that HMV.co.uk is expensive is as revolutionary as saying "the sky is blue" or "it's cold in the North Pole". Similarly, using it as a comparison shopping example ("hey, look at how expensive everything is here in Britain!") is equally stupid, as you've picked an expensive retailer to start with, failed to point out that VAT (sales tax) of 17.5% is included in those prices, etc.

Can I recommend DVD Price Check and also CD/DVD sites like play.com and CD WOW! to get your music at under 10 quid? Shop on the Net...you'll find it about 1/3rd cheaper than the UK high street...

...you have to remember who their target audience is for this venture.

The target audience certainly isn't the more technical or internet-savvy PC or Mac user (the disc is dual format), it's the PC or Mac user who hasn't used their machine for much more than word processing, light browsing and email.

The kind of people who are wary of buying from websites like CD-Wow.com, Play.com, etc who offer great prices simply because they don't recognise the brands that they're dealing with are far more likely to buy something from a site backed by a brand (The Sunday Times) that they are familiar and comfortable with, respect and with which they possibly have a life-long affinity. In that respect, the CD serves its purpose.

Don't for a second be under any illusion that the CD is aimed at the typical Slashdot reader. A newspaper unlike a website can't differentiate between a nethead or a newbie, and as there are more people at the newbie end of the scale then the nethead one it is natural for The Sunday Times to pitch its offering at the less technical end of the PC and Mac market.

Remember, this isn't an addition to attract people who know one end of a PCI card from the other, it's an addition to attract floating readers to this particular broadsheet newspaper as opposed to the ones next to it on the shelves.

Get US-encoded DVD's? Does the submitter mean getting those DVD's in Australia ... well....fat chance.

Is there a law in place in Australia against importing Region 1 DVDs???

I understand that there are trade-barriers in place, so that you have to pay VAT on the DVD's. But is there a law that actually states that you cannot import region 1 DVDs?

Last I checked, several online retailers in the US and Canada are willing to ship their DVD's worldwide. DVDBoxOffice will even package them one by one so you don't have to pay VAT (when shipping to Europe atleast). Play is based in the UK, and they sell region 1 DVDs and ship worldwide.

In regards to the region protection in DVDplayers.. well.. it's a joke. I think I could solder a chip into one of those players in my sleep (I know some are harder etc). On top of that, some cheap players I've come across had a hidden menu where you could simply change the region. So, I don't see how it would be difficult to get Region 1 DVD's in Australia, or any other western country for that matter.

For example, the first season is due out on 22nd September. Region 2 (obviously), but shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll order mine, never got my VHS tape collection complete... :(

>The copy protection system used on DVDs seems to have been effective in discouraging many people from copying DVDs

The so-called protection on DVDs doesn't prevent them from being copied. It prevents them from being decoded. As a pirate, I could make a bit-wise copy of a DVD and sell it. It's a digital medium, my copy would be 100% accurate.

What the protection does prevent is unauthorised playback. As a consumer, if I choose to buy a DVD from play.com rather than pay twice the price in a high-street store, I may still find my player won't play it because of region encoding. Sony have explicitly stated that they sell region-locked DVD players to prevent you from playing foreign (read "cheaper") DVDs.

Piracy is wrong, but the protection on DVDs is not aimed at, and does nothing to hinder, pirates.

I buy CDs from play. They cost about 9 quid delivered.

You can get many Ealing comedies from play.com, as 4-disc sets here and here.

You can get many Ealing comedies from play.com, as 4-disc sets here and here.

You can get many Ealing comedies from play.com, as 4-disc sets here and here.

And a good place to buy region 1 DVDs is Play 247 who's prices are cheaper then the high street.

About a third of my collection is Region 1 and I bought both Pitch Black and Resident Evil before they came out in cinema here. But that hasn't stopped me from going to see the films in cinema after I saw them on DVD, and I recently payed to see both Blade Runner and Aliens in the cinema - both films I own on DVD already.

Undergound shops? Yeah, these little shops are well underground In fact, you have to go DEEP underground to find a shop that would sell region free players!

O.K, I guess it depends on exactly where you are in this big place called "Europe", but hey, I've got stacks of R1 disks...

It'd help if I put in the URL, wouldn't it?

I don't see any sign at all of these Tron DVDs for Region 2 - this is extremely poor indeed, there's no excuse I can think of for a 20th Anniversary DVD set to come out at different times in the US vs. UK (Tron didn't get a theatre re-release or anything, so regional differences should be irrelevant).

As for the discs themselves, it's a good 2-DVD set - not quite on a par with the US Terminator 2 Ultimate DVD edition (hey, but that's set a DVD benchmark in extras, sound, branching and picture quality that no-one's beaten yet, IMHO, plus it's a great action movie of course).

I know some other helpful people got to this already, but here is a whole list of Region 2 Anime DVDs with English subtitles or dubbing. The Futurama Season one boxed set has also been released abroad, for those of you who don't appreciate animation that happens to be Japanese.

First series already released if you are in Europe (or have a multi region DVD player). See this link for details As for a region 1 release, I dont know! OffTopic a little I know but: If anyone has this have a look at the easter eggs : on the main menu of all three discs you can select something in the background (for example on disc 1 it is a flying car is I remember right) that lets you view some spoof tv and film posters. V.Funny!

It was delivered on Saturday 12th January 2002 - 3 days before its official release date :-)

Not actually had a chance to watch it, mind you...

However, at that price (32 quid !), I'll wait for it to get a US release and buy it from the same site (Simpsons Season 1 was half the price in the US compared to the UK).

Feel free to moderate me up :-)

R1 Box £17.99 Delivered
R2 Box £31.99 Delivered

R1 Box £17.99 Delivered
R2 Box £31.99 Delivered

Naaah .. Play has had a cube shaped system for much longer than the Qube has been around. and IMHO it is a much better system than apple would produce for quite a while anyway.

I've long been wanting to check out Trinity, made by the some of the same people who were instrumental in developing the Amiga Video Toaster.

The base package is only ~$8k usd which is damn near affordable even for a hobbyist.

I am preparing a web page showing my homebuilt tesla coil. You will be able to find it at http://cml.grc.nasa.gov/~chuck/tesla.html , but it's not finished just yet. I hate to do this, but I have to boot into Win95 in order to use my Snappy video capture (I already complained to http://www.play.com about not having a Linux driver, but it did no good and I'm too cheap to run out and buy a real video capture board). I'll put up some pictures showing my setup along with a quick and dirty explanation. By today's tesla coil standards, this is about the simplest and crudest design possible, but it does work. I know there are much better designs out there, so if you want more sophisticated stuff, do a google search.