German DVDs

Hi all,

The person who bought the German UFO DVDs on eBay sent me scans
of the packaging. After looking at these, the first thing I
noticed was the lack of a Carlton logo on them, which to me indicates
that these are illegal products. The person who bought them says
that the quality of the video and packaging is excellent, but I don't
think that means anything in this day and age, because video pirates
these days can make high quality products -- especially when they can
simply copy the video tracks from the UK UFO DVDs.

Anyway, here's one of the scans:

http://ufoseries.com/german.jpg

Another indicator is that these DVDs seem to not be available at any
German DVD store, and yet they are everywhere on eBay:

http://search.ebay.de/ws/search/SaleSearch?ht=1&salistedinsite=77&satitle=ufo&sokeywordredirect=1&sorecordsperpage=50&sosortproperty=1&sacategory=11232&catref=C1

So does anyone have any *real* information about these DVDs, and
whether they are legitimate or not? Otherwise, I'll assume that
they are not.

Marc

No, I'm sure it's a dupe.

Clues:
- No non-standard logo (I'm half-German, and we're rather particular to
detail)
- The Layout is dreadful
- The text only discusses 'The Psychobombs' The notes say running time: 75
mins, and yet the notes do not mentioned the other episode
- The boxed notes are in English - everything else is in German (again this
is unusual)
- If there is no regional code - the marketing would be in English (with
some other language)
- What's the 0013 mean? It's certainly not the episode number
- The crummy SHADO logo (a: what's it doing there, and b: it's the wrong
color
- Dolby Digital 2.0 is ONLY available from a pure original source (like DDD
with CD's) with best they could do is the equivalent of ADD - It cannot be
Dolby Digital 2.0
- My information tells me there is no legitimate authoring house called
Power Station
- There is something wrong with the bar code

etc. etc

-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Martin [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 9:03 PM
To: SHADO Discussion Group
Subject: [SHADO] German DVDs


Hi all,

The person who bought the German UFO DVDs on eBay sent me scans
of the packaging. After looking at these, the first thing I
noticed was the lack of a Carlton logo on them, which to me indicates
that these are illegal products. The person who bought them says
that the quality of the video and packaging is excellent, but I don't
think that means anything in this day and age, because video pirates
these days can make high quality products -- especially when they can
simply copy the video tracks from the UK UFO DVDs.

Anyway, here's one of the scans:

http://ufoseries.com/german.jpg

Another indicator is that these DVDs seem to not be available at any
German DVD store, and yet they are everywhere on eBay:

http://search.ebay.de/ws/search/SaleSearch?ht=1&salistedinsite=77&satitle=uf
o&sokeywordredirect=1&sorecordsperpage=50&sosortproperty=1&sacategory=11232&
catref=C1

So does anyone have any *real* information about these DVDs, and
whether they are legitimate or not? Otherwise, I'll assume that
they are not.

Marc

--- In [hidden email], "Griff" <griff@g...> wrote:
> No, I'm sure it's a dupe.
>
> Clues:
> - No non-standard logo (I'm half-German, and we're rather
particular to
> detail)
> - The Layout is dreadful
> - The text only discusses 'The Psychobombs' The notes say running
time: 75
> mins, and yet the notes do not mentioned the other episode
> - The boxed notes are in English - everything else is in German
(again this
> is unusual)
> - If there is no regional code - the marketing would be in English
(with
> some other language)

I think it's extremely unlikely that Carlton would approve a Region 0
disc, when they've used region-specific encoding on all their other
releases (and licensed other region-specific releases to other
people, like A&E).

If they're 'all over Ebay,' somebody notify Carlton--They can shut
them down if they'd like.

Jon

>
> So does anyone have any *real* information about these DVDs, and
> whether they are legitimate or not? Otherwise, I'll assume that
> they are not.
>
> Marc


Does the owner of these discs say if they have screen
printed disc labels like the real ones?
Screen printing is a specialized process especially
on something like a full colour label on a disc, which
would be quite time consuming.
Four colour process paper printing on the DVD packaging
(assuming it is not ink jet) is a bit more easily done if you
have contacts with somebody who works in a printing company.
With computers, a colour design can be made then sent out
to a graphics company who will transfer the image to film for
making the printing plates.
I used to work in the printing industry for several companies,
and you wouldn't believe the number of jobs printed on the
side that the boss didn't know about, particularly on night shift.
A genuine screen printed label can be easily recognised by
the image on the disc giving the appearance of being raised
up off the disc due to the large amount of ink carried, which
is in contrast to any flat dull stick-on computer printed labels.
With only a short playing time and one episode is it a DVD-R?
The DVD-Rs I have are a purple/blue colour, are these suspect
discs this colour also or are they gold dual layer like the
real ones? In my humble opinion the disc should tell the story
in this case, Purple with no screen printed label = non legit.

Kevin.

CONTENTS DELETED

>Does the owner of these discs say if they have screen
>printed disc labels like the real ones?

It's his thinking that these are official releases, because
the quality is so good, so I suppose that includes not only
the packaging but the discs themselves. Here is a scan
of one of the discs:

http://ufoseries.com/disc.jpg

Marc

I am by no means a DVD expert but the scan of that disc doesn't look
that professional. The fact that a good protion of SID is missing
due to the center hole leads me to think bootleg. Many professional
discs do a better job with this. Also Amazon Germany only lists the
UFO from the UK. You would think they would have it if anyone.

KP


-- In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@u...> wrote:

"Ken Parker" wrote:
> I am by no means a DVD expert but the scan of that disc doesn't
> look that professional. The fact that a good protion of SID is
> missing due to the center hole leads me to think bootleg. Many
> professional discs do a better job with this. Also Amazon Germany
> only lists the UFO from the UK. You would think they would have
> it if anyone.
>

Quite honestly, to me it looks more likely to be legitimate on the
basis of the scan, although it's far from conclusive. A lot of
legal, official releases do a worse job with the packaging. I
vividly remember the old 'Dalotek Affair' cover from one of the old
UK VHS releases, with the following synopis printed on the back
(absolutely verbatim, and without typing errors on my part):

".. When communications between Dalotek and the earth mysteriously
break doun, commander straner insists a immediate investigation into
Dalatek's affars"

"I think it's extremely unlikely that Carlton would
approve a Region 0
disc, when they've used region-specific encoding on
all their other
releases (and licensed other region-specific releases
to other
people, like A&E)."

The Carlton UK DVDs are region free...They are in PAL
but are region free.

=====

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I got a reply on the question of the disc label -- it's printed directly
onto the disc, and it is not inkjet. So if it's an illegal version, it's
a well-made illegal version!

Marc

Why not contact Carlton directly and see if they have licensed a German
release? If not, you'll earn brownie points for fingering a pirate.

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Martin" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 2:14 PM
Subject: [SHADO] Re: German DVDs

>Why not contact Carlton directly and see if they have licensed a German
>release? If not, you'll earn brownie points for fingering a pirate.

I've already emailed them... still awaiting a reply...

Marc

>>Why not contact Carlton directly and see if they have licensed a German
>>release? If not, you'll earn brownie points for fingering a pirate.
>
>I've already emailed them... still awaiting a reply...

And here's the reply from Carlton:

----
Hi Marc,

Thank you for bringing my attention to this product, it indeed looks a
little suspect. For your information we have just licensed U.F.O in
Germany so you should expect an official release some time in the near
future. Thanks once again.

Kind regards
Rob Bassett
----

> For your information we have just
> licensed U.F.O in Germany so you
> should expect an official release
> some time in the near future.

WOW! Now, *that* is good News! :-))

Oh, heck! I've just bought the six DVDs from eBay :-/
On the other hand, as a UFO fan I can get over this :-)

Christian