How to Tell if Your Dvd is Fake/Bootleg or Is This Dvd Real?

[Big Worms]

Does it matter?? I don't mean to be crass, but if it plays fine, who cares. I know for a fact that the copy of The Little Mermaid that I got for my daughter is a boot, but it looks and sounds great and will do just fine until October of next year. I'm sure you will buy the 2-disc CE Pinocchio when it comes out, so just enjoy this one for now and write it off to experience. Once again, I'm not belittling you or your plight.

Tom

Yes it matters! Nobody here wants to buy an illegal piece of junk. Not to mention that the person can end up paying alot for this dvd. Last thing you want is to pay $50 bucks for an illegal dvd that somebody copied and is selling now.

What is it lately on this forum with people liking bootlegs!

[MinnieMe]

Does it matter?? I don't mean to be crass, but if it plays fine, who cares. I know for a fact that the copy of The Little Mermaid that I got for my daughter is a boot, but it looks and sounds great and will do just fine until October of next year. I'm sure you will buy the 2-disc CE Pinocchio when it comes out, so just enjoy this one for now and write it off to experience. Once again, I'm not belittling you or your plight.

Tom

Yes it matters! Nobody here wants to buy an illegal piece of junk. Not to mention that the person can end up paying alot for this dvd. Last thing you want is to pay $50 bucks for an illegal dvd that somebody copied and is selling now.

What is it lately on this forum with people liking bootlegs!

I agree. I know that I got bootlegs at a flea market of Snow White, Aladdin and Garden State. I also paid only $10 a piece for them (8 for SW) so I wasn't hugely disappointed when I discovered they were boots. But it makes me mad still and I'll be buying legit copies of Aladdin and SW.

Tom in North Carolina- you should also realize that many on this forum are collectors and buy DVDs not only for entertainment value but for collector's value as well.

Also, you're paying $30 or $40 bucks to a criminal.

[RJKD23]

What is it lately on this forum with people liking bootlegs!

1.) "as long as its cheap, let's get it."
2.) "as long as I have it on DVD, I'm fine."

*but those are just assumptions and opinions.

The thing is...why would you waste money on a bootleg when later on, you'll just spend it on the "real" thing when you find it?

The reason I get pissy when I get a bootleg because I work hard to earn money (and its not great when you're in college) and I expect a *real* DVD, not one made illegally.

[Starion]

I hope item 6398412728 item is real. It looks real. It's too late to retract my bid because I already placed a bid.

THE LION KING II: Simba's Pride (limited issue, DVD)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6398412728

[Lightyear]

I hope item 6398412728 item is real. It looks real. It's too late to retract my bid because I already placed a bid.

THE LION KING II: Simba's Pride (limited issue, DVD)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6398412728

For all reasoning, it looks legit to me.

[bennyb98]

Based on the fact that the Limited Issue of the Little Mermaid didnt sell very well and was priced high, is it safe to assume that most of the copies on ebay are fakes?
what if they have a security label?

[MickeyMousePal]

Starion wrote:

I hope item 6398412728 item is real. It looks real. It's too late to retract my bid because I already placed a bid.

THE LION KING II: Simba's Pride (limited issue, DVD)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6398412728

Looks real to me. I trust this auctions.

[Starion]

bennyb98, I've seen some fake Little Mermaid I and II DVDs from Malaysia, Singapore or Taiwan. Half of the DVDs I've seen have these stupid DTS surround sound banners on top. I don't believe Disney has ever put a DTS Surround sound banner on a DVD case/artwork before.

Be careful on what you bid on.

Thanks for the info MickeyMousePal!

[RJKD23]

what if they have a security label?

It's hard to tell. Some pro-bootleg sellers can easily make their stickers and surprisingly...BVHE Stamp.

So, we reword..
It's safe to assume that 85% of the copies on EBAY are fakes. (maybe).

[Starion]

I'm starting to notice that some sellers give a false location. They say that they are in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the item is in the United States of America. The seller ships the item from Malaysia though.

I've also seen some Region 1 DVDs with large Chinese or Japanese characters on them. Sorry, I can't tell which language I am looking at.

[Lightyear]

I'm starting to notice that some sellers give a false location. They say that they are in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the item is in the United States of America. The seller ships the item from Malaysia though.

I've also seen some Region 1 DVDs with large Chinese or Japanese characters on them. Sorry, I can't tell which language I am looking at.

Yes, that's how I got bitten by the bootleg bug.. I orderded from someone in the midwest, and it was postmarked malaysia.. so I protested it via paypal and got my money back.. he emailed me and asked why I was so angry and I told him it was a bootleg from overseas and he called me a liar and said he mailed it himself.. I laughed.. I can't imagine how stupid he thinks people are

[Lightyear]

Hey folks, found this cool link and figured I'd share it.

When your look'n for the negative feedback use this link and it will show you only that users negative and nuetrual feedbacks. Saves the time and effort of scanning through pages of positive feedbacks.

http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs

[Starion]

Sometimes I can connect to the site. But other times, my browser gives me a Domain Name Server error. Strange.

[SuicideSeaside]

Hey folks, found this cool link and figured I'd share it.

When your look'n for the negative feedback use this link and it will show you only that users negative and nuetrual feedbacks. Saves the time and effort of scanning through pages of positive feedbacks.

http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs

Ooo. That's pretty nifty. I was scammed once...but it wasn't with a DVD. It was a guitar. I was trying to buy a Fender Stratocaster but the guy sent me a Squire...which is a cheap version of a Fender. GRRR I got a refund though.

[orestes.]

I know someone who purchased a DVD on eBay and it came from Malaysia and was a bootleg and I have seen it and well they didn't even try to make it look real.

Sadly I was told they had some photos of the DVD on their eBay page but they were all of the Platinum edition and that's what they advertised.

They weren't as 'slick' as the people that I got the bootleg from which tried so hard to make it look real and when they got negative feedback they tried to suck up so hard to get their negative feedback removed so they could keep their illegal operation going without questions from worried buyers. I costed them money. Eh... I don't give a damn really.

[Starion]

Thanks for sharing the interesting story orestes.

I noticed that some sellers in Asia display a price in Great British Pounds. That's strange.

I think the correct term that we are thinking of is piracy; not bootleg. Piracy is the illegal sale and distribution of copywrighted works that have been released by companies and publishers. Bootlegs, on the other hand, is the sale and distribution of materials that companies have not commercially released.

[Captain EO]

Hello all. Long time lurker, first time poster. I recently just purchased Pinocchio Gold Collection used off of half.com for $22 shipped, which was a pretty good deal. However, all these posts of bootleg dvds have me kinda scared I purchased a bootleg, even though it doesn't look like it. It's in good "used" condition, and even had part of the seal tape on the back (you know, the tape on top that says "pull" in order to open the case) and it has both inserts. The DVD itself looks great, and I even checked the dates on the files of them, and they are November 1999, so the date seems right too. I'm pretty sure this is the real deal, but is there another tell-tale sign of a bootleg? Can someone post a picture of their disc so I can compare it to mine? Thanks soo much in advance!

[Wonderlicious]

Welcome to the forums!

A way to find out if it is real or not is, if you have one, to do a test on your DVD ROM drive. I'm from the UK and some (although not all) of the Disney DVD releases over here are abysmal compared to the Region 1 releases (for example, thanks to Eisner's Nazi regime at the House of Mouse, the SE Alice in Wonderland was snipped down to nothing more than a glorified Gold Collection equivalent). We have always had a multi-region player, but there was one problem; our old TV ended up showing Region 1 releases in black and white as it wasn't fully NTSC compatible! (for the record, my current TV is multi-standard)

I decided to change the settings on the DVD ROM drive to Region 1. On my computer, at least, which was set to Region 2. A window would pop up when I stuck in a Region 1 disc that said "we cannot play this disc so would you like to change your settings?". There were about four or five times you could change the region within seconds.

Assuming that you have a DVD drive and have never played any other region on there, try to use one of your five tries switching by going onto Region 2/3/4 settings depending on the disc (I'm not sure if you know anybody with a multi-region player, but if they do, ask to borrow one of their discs). Then, pop in Pinocchio. Almost all bootlegs are Region 0, meaning that they're automatically compatible for any DVD player around the world. If Pinocchio plays instantly, 'tis a bootleg! If not and you have to use up another one of your goes to get it working again, you're fine.

Hopefully this helps (it's a stupid theory, I'll admit ). And I hope you like Pinocchio, as it is truly a wonderful animated classic.

[Captain EO]

Thanks for the welcome and the tip. I have some DVD software that is able to tell me the region codes, and it came up with "Region 1, 4" which I guess means there are 2 possible region codes, one for North America (1) and the other for Australia (4). So it does have a region code, but there are 2... is this common for early release Disney DVDs? My Pinocchio disc has the limited issue printing on it, and on the review of the DVD on this site, it says having that is common. Hmmm..... The plot thickens......

[2099net]

Thanks for the welcome and the tip. I have some DVD software that is able to tell me the region codes, and it came up with "Region 1, 4" which I guess means there are 2 possible region codes, one for North America (1) and the other for Australia (4). So it does have a region code, but there are 2... is this common for early release Disney DVDs? My Pinocchio disc has the limited issue printing on it, and on the review of the DVD on this site, it says having that is common. Hmmm..... The plot thickens......

Yes. In this case, being as the Disc is NTSC, the Region for is for South America, not Australia. Disney often release the same discs in North America, Canada and South America countries. I guess it's just cheaper and simpler to make one disc for all three instead of making 3 pressings.

You disc sounds authentic to me.