Counterfeit?

[boowho]

I just bought the complete 8 season set of the series 24 from EBAY.

I found that the DVD's are NOT copy protected and that they have all 8 regions.

This bothers me in that I think they are probably pirated.

Are the two things mentioned above a "dead giveaway" that I do have pirated copies??

Thanks

Boowho??

[Keyser]

Are they factory pressed discs?

[usually_quiet]

If you bought the U.S. release of a genuine box set, it is Region 1, according to Amazon, and would have all the usual copy protection applied.

[jagabo]

Let me guess -- you paid about US$55? Of course it's counterfeit.

[jman98]

Things that are giveaways that you bought pirated discs of a US TV show...

Seller shipped from anywhere in Asia or even just outside the USA and Canada.
Discs are single layer and not double layer, even if pressed. Some pirate copies ARE pressed, believe it or not.
Major macroblocks (look it up if you don't know the word) in the video, particularly in scenes with fast action. If you see this then you also probably have single layer discs too.
Price is way below what Amazon charges.
No copy protection.
Your packaging is different from what it looks like on Amazon for the official version.

There is a zero percent chance that any US TV show on DVD would ship without being copy protected. All regions is unusual but not impossible. But it is VERY unusual and unlikely. By itself it's not proof of anything.

[turk690]

I'd like to know the exact ebay link.

[boowho]

OK, thanks..... I've let the seller know that I'm certain that they are counterfeit. I've given him until next Tudsday to "make it right" or I'm getting EBAY involved, the the copyright enforcement people and lastly the FBI (if I have to).

It's very possible that his supplier is giving him product that he believes is legit, but it's not.

Boowho??

[Hoser Rob]

... It's very possible that his supplier is giving him product that he believes is legit, but it's not.

Sure ...

[jman98]

OK, thanks..... I've let the seller know that I'm certain that they are counterfeit. I've given him until next Tudsday to "make it right" or I'm getting EBAY involved, the the copyright enforcement people and lastly the FBI (if I have to).

It's very possible that his supplier is giving him product that he believes is legit, but it's not.

Boowho??

BAD move. HIGHLY unlikely to work, although not impossible.

Seller will likely insist that his stuff is legit, forcing YOU to disprove that. Since you had to ask how to tell, I'm not going to assume you will be able to win that argument on your own. He may just simply dispute every charge you make and Ebay may view it as what we call a "He said, she said" thing where they don't know who is right.

It's boohoo not boowho by the way. Good grief man.

Ebay likely doesn't care enough to help you if you got your stuff, and you did. Copyright? Ha ha ha ha... if the seller lives outside the USA, then good luck with that one. The FBI may or may not care. Depends on how busy they are at the time. In theory they may care, but in reality they may be so busy with bigger fish to fry that one dude who should have known better than to buy stuff on Ebay may not be a priority for them. Now if you could lead them to the producers of the discs they might care about that.

[Constant Gardener]

Of course, if you buy a good fake on ebay, you'll never know.

[transporterfan]

If I got a real good fake, at a real good price, I wouldn't care where it came from. In fact, I would probably go back again.
The quality of the recording is about the only way you could prove foul play, or spot a fake.

[Noahtuck]

The quality of the recording is about the only way you could prove foul play, or spot a fake.

For a novice maybe, if they are exact dupes of the original that method won't work.

There are other ways, I bought a season of Babylon 5 off Ebay a year or two ago, it came in fold out cases that were definitely not home made and looked like the retail fold out packaging.

The giveaway, they were single layer instead of dual layer and the UDF Implementation id was Nero!!!
And they were pressed media!!

I used to get bootlegged pressed media from asia by the cases back in the day, of movies that were not on DVD and were sourced from LD, on pressed media and in retail quality cases/artwork.
Not to resell but me and family and friends would go in together to get movies we wanted on DVD that were not released.

[transporterfan]

I bought a season of Babylon 5 off Ebay a year or two ago, it came in fold out cases that were definitely not home made and looked like the retail fold out packaging.

Did you keep or return them? Quick rip and a refund?

[Noahtuck]

Returned them!!
No rip, as if I wanted a compressed version of them I could rent or download them and burn them myself!!
Hell I could rent them and rip them and burn them to DL+R's!!
NO difference in quality from the originals!!

I wanted the full set in retail packaging on full sized factory pressed discs in the best quality available!!

The thing that sucks is they have yet to do a Bluray release!!!
They probably never will but I can always hope!!

The point is, there are still pressed bootlegs being made and sold with retail packaging.
It is just not as prevalent in the last 5-10 years because of dual layer media, torrents and
easy compression methods and most people don't seem to care about quality or what media
they are on.

[transporterfan]

I blame youtube for the decline in people caring about quality.
That, and the fast turnover of movies by the studios. Few people really appreciate the art anymore.
It seems no sooner is a blockbuster released than another one is waiting in the wings.
I remember everyone awestruck by lightsabres and flying down trenches, there was even talk of womp rats...
Dialogue fades, only the SFX remain...

[TimA-C]

I blame youtube for the decline in people caring about quality.

I blame the frequently poor quality of our digital TV (Freeview) Channels here in the UK. The number of channels that are still broadcasting at 544x576 pixels at around 2mbps If You're Lucky! If the picture and sound quality of your regular TV is so poor, why wouldn't you accept poor quality downloads or streams, especially if you're just going to watch them on a smartphone or a tablet.

[classfour]

If the disc is pressed, could be an Asian copy.

I did have a seller (not ebay) send a copy of a movie to me. I ran media info on the disc, emailed the seller that the disc was counterfeit and demanded a refund. I did receive a full refund, and did not return the disc.

I did also advise that I would report the seller for selling fakes.

[Instant Martian]

Sorry for my intrusion.
I have searched a cartoon series for a long time. It was released on DVD several years ago but Region 2 version had some flaws and I wasn't used to buy NTSC DVDs (still I am not, to say the truth) so I missed it. Now it is OOP and it's almost impossible to find (at least at a non-ridiculous price). I found it on eBay recently but it's a Mexican edition (with english audio track and menus) I have never heard of.
It is Region 1 + Region 4 NTSC, it looks exactly like a legit edition (packaging, labels, case are perfect, don't look cheap or home-made).
Do you think it could be a counterfeit?

[jman98]

Well, you probably should tell the name of the series. If someone knows of a better option they can tell you.

Look, here's the rule on buying on Ebay - if you buy on Ebay then you do so because price or availability is your number one concern. If you are worried about counterfeit or bootleg discs, then DON'T EVER buy on Ebay. It's that simple.

You should be aware that cartoon DVDs may have flaws even in region 1 discs so buying this set may not necessarily be better, but it may avoid the NTSC-> PAL conversion problems you probably saw in the region 2 DVDs. Speed Racer, for example, had a problem in the official region 1 DVDs where one of the episodes was "time shortened" where they did some kind of frame per second speedup to make it shorter and save space on the DVD.

[Instant Martian]

I have bought DVDs on eBay in the past, no problem (maybe lucky). But I knew exactly what I was buying, this time I have never heard of this edition.
The flaw in the Region 2 editions (even the UK one) was that some genius had the idea of cropping a full-frame 4:3 video to achieve a widescreen effect (I wish I could see his/her face).
The series is The Pink Panther.

[Instant Martian]

I bought the Pink Panther DVDs.
I checked one with Nero DiscSpeed, this is the output:

Nero DiscSpeed: Disc Info
Basic Information
Disc type: : DVD-ROM
Capacity: : 6.56 GB
: 6721 MB
: 7048112128 bytes
Extended Information
Layers : 2
Layer break : 3.33 GB
Track path : OTP
Copyright protection : CSS/CPPM
Region(s) : 1 - 4
Raw Data
Physical Format Information (00h)
0000 - 01 02 31 10 00 03 00 00 00 FC 44 34 00 1D 9F 7F - ..1.......D4....
0010 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - ................

Since they are DL copy-protected discs, I can reasonably assume they are legit, can't I?