Those with LEGIT Voyager DVDs, please help

[msdossys]

Hello! I have bought the full series of Voyager DVDs on eBay, being careful to not buy the obvious pirated copies like the ones in the cardboard boxes. I have been watching auctions for quite some time so I thought I was prepared to not get a pirated copy. I received the DVDs last week and things just did not look ‘right’ to me. Overall, the set looks just like the legit copies, but I started noticing quality problems. The DVDs themselves, while looking perfect, were all pitted on the printed side of the disc. The printing on the outer sleeve (the large round picture on the front of each season) seemed not as good as I would expect a commercial set to look. After searching a little more, I found that each season’s ‘book’ of DVDs has the “Star Trek Voyager” printed on the first ‘page’, where mine was printed on the plastic slipcover. Also, the ‘book’ of DVDs slid out the bottom of the slipcover, not the split slipcover as in legit copies. Overall, If I was not paying attention to the details, I would think this was a perfectly legit set. Even all the UPCs are correct. The real tipoff was the fact that these DVDs are region free. No way that's legit!

Also, in my research, I have learned about all the information that is printed on the inner hub of DVDs and CDs. There is a very small ifpi logo with a letter and 3 numbers ‘branded’ into the plastic of the disc. The code details what machine pressed the disc. That code on my DVDs is ifpi Z977. I found a site that lists a lot of ifpi SID codes, and that says my disc was created in Poland. I doubt Paramount is sourcing DVDs in Poland.

Now my real question for those of you who have the REAL DVDs is… what does your ifpi number read? There are two sets, one ‘branded’ into the plastic, another printed on the underside of the disc by all the barcoding. Could someone (or lots of you) post the REAL ifpi code from the REAL DVDs? I will be using this as proof to eBay that these are indeed fake. Also, I will post some pictures of what I received from the eBay seller tonight when I get home so you (and the rest of the world) can see these new and improved fakes.

[Guy Gardener]

Dude.

If you paid less than half price what a second hand set of disks should have cost, then they're fake.

Don't you read the sellers 'reputation/feedback" before buying?

Why are you buying dvds?

Blurays are coming out soon.

[Lord Manitou]

You'de think they are trying to push something at you with Blueray but all the machines are backward compatable so it doesn't matter. I have an ifpi called 409. Is this legitimate?

[Guy Gardener]

My friends came back from India with a mass of pirated dvds, so I sat down to watch season one of Ugly Betty and half the time during the end credits their was a TV announcer telling you about the weather or what was on next.

They weren't even trying.

But it was sold for a dollar bought from a carboot, it's not like they had to try.

[Tosk]

Guy Gardener wrote:

---

Why are you buying dvds?

Blurays are coming out soon.

Probably because they don't want to wait until 2018 or so. Not unreasonable.

[teacake]

If I ever want the blurays I will force people to give them to me as gifts. It took me years to get all of Trek on dvd, I'm not falling over myself to star that all over again.

By 2018 I might own a blu ray player, assuming my current dvd player doesn't turn into one of those miracle cheapies that never dies. But I'm wondering.. if you have an ancient tv do you notice any real difference with blu rays?

[Guy Gardener]

With free software, your pc can play bluray, and really, your codec package you use to watch the usual media, might already support bluray, and if you've yelled at the right people your pc should be able to widget through your tv.

You don't need no stinking bluray player.

2018 can suck it.

[Melakon]

Are you sure, Guy? My pc was manufactured in 2010. It plays DVDs fine, but nowhere in system specs does it indicate bluray compatible. I've been avoiding buying anything bluray since nothing on the machine says I can play it. I don't have access to a bluray disk to test it.

[Saturn0660]

Or.... Just get netflix streaming.

[Saturn0660]

Guy Gardener wrote:

---

With free software, your pc can play bluray, and really, your codec package you use to watch the usual media, might already support bluray, and if you've yelled at the right people your pc should be able to widget through your tv.

You don't need no stinking bluray player.

2018 can suck it.

Wait... What??? What are you talking about.. If your computer didn't come with said BD play then all the software in the world wont make it play one.. Two totally different lasers to read the disk.

[Guy Gardener]

It seemed reasonable in my head.

I googled.

The results seemed to support me.

I suppose if I had read further it would have said "after you have installed a bluray disk drve".

Curses.

[teacake]

My question is, if you have a bluray player and blurays but an ancient box of a tv with no extra adjectives in front of the word tv will it look any different?

[Melakon]

I believe blu-ray uses a special HDMI (high definition multimedia interface). If you don't have that kind of input jack on your tv, you can't get the benefit of high definition.

[Tosk]

Yeah, you won't get any added visual quality out of an older TV, the only plus you'll have is (usually) more extra features, and sometimes an overall better transfer of the film/TV show than the DVD. (Such as TNG, where even without a HDTV, the quality bump is clear.)

[teacake]

How is "overall better transfer" different from "added visual quality"?