Wing Commander Academy DVD

Discussion in 'General Wing Commander Chat' started by Bandit LOAF, May 24, 2012.

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  1. Worf Vice Admiral

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    Stupid question - any way to get one in Canada? The only sellers on Amazon.ca are zShops (no free shipping)...
    Worf, Jun 4, 2012
    #41

  2. AD Finder of things, Doer of stuff

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    Amazon.com will send you one but you will still pay exchange and shipping to a tune of 12 extra dollars on a 20 dollar purchase. Ordering from one of the importers on amazon.ca will only run you an extra four dollars in comparison though it's up to you how reliable they are.
    AD, Jun 4, 2012
    #42

  3. AD Finder of things, Doer of stuff

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    UPDATE: I ordered the DVD on the 22 or 23rd and they shipped it right away even though the US street date was the 29th... Today the DVD was waiting for me in the mail. That is pretty much exactly 2 weeks for shipping. I'm pretty happy with that.
    AD, Jun 4, 2012
    #43

  4. Worf Vice Admiral

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    Yeah, the big problem is the cheapest Amazon.ca zShow is $17 plus $3.50 for the shipping. But it ships from the US, so $3.50 doesn't go far... last time it happened (oddly for the WC Movie soundtrack), the damn thing took *months* to arrive.

    Cheapest Canadian zShop has it for $28 plus $3.50 shipping, bringing it close to the same price as Amazon.com.

    At that rate, I think spending the extra buck or two for real Amazon.com is far cheaper than either waiting 2-3 months or paying the same price. zShop returns are iffy.
    Worf, Jun 5, 2012
    #44

  5. AD Finder of things, Doer of stuff

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    I don't get the difference.. I paid 19 dollars from one of the amazon.ca importers, paid 3.50 shipping, it shipped before the street date, and I had it a week after the US street date. Plus I paid in CAD instead of getting an exchange rate fee on my credit card. If you order from Amazon.com proper it's $22.48US and you will pay up to 12 dollars in shipping and fees. That is way more than a one or two dollar difference. I think some of the importers on Amazon.ca may have unreliable shipping but if you watch the customer reviews you should be able to narrow down which ones are flakey.

    Keep in mind that if you order from a zshop that ships from Canada they have to import the disk themselves before they sell and ship to you which can potentially increase shipping times and translates into larger fees. Still there's at least one that ships from ontario, only costs 21 plus the 3.50 shipping.
    AD, Jun 5, 2012
    #45

  6. Worf Vice Admiral

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    When I checked it, the US sites were selling it at $17 _ $3.50, which means super slow shipping. The Canadian ones were $28+.

    I'm fairly certain they're all reliable, it's just what kind of shipping you get for $3.50 doesn't pay for much these days - first class if you're lucky, media most likely. Plus nasty duties owing maybe since it originates from the US.
    Worf, Jun 6, 2012
    #46

  7. Pedro Vice Admiral

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    That was a pleasant surprise, I went for the cheapest shipping option and it's already arrived here in Japan :)
    Very happy with the picture quality.
    For anyone worried about region coding I discovered that VLC plays any region DVD straight out of the box these days, which was a nice surprise.
    Pedro, Jun 6, 2012
    #47

  8. Aginor Rear Admiral

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    Are you sure, Pedro???
    I thought that is a firmware thing, so the CD-ROM drive is the problematic point.

    If it is true I will order WCAtv as soon as I can.
    Aginor, Jun 6, 2012
    #48

  9. LeHah 212 Squadron, "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"

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    In my experience with PC DVD-ROMs, I've never had one with a region block on it?
    LeHah, Jun 6, 2012
    #49

  10. Aginor Rear Admiral

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    some years ago I had one that could only play region 2 DVDs because I changed the region code 5 times. It retained that settings even though I plugged it into another PC. It was a firmware thing and I couldn't find a firmware update to get it working again. That sucked, which is why I am very careful with that now.
    Aginor, Jun 6, 2012
    #50

  11. Pedro Vice Admiral

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    I've not imported DVDs in a long time, but a quick google says VLC ignores RPC1 region coding, but not RPC2, so it depends which your drive is as to whether or not it will work out of the box. My DVD drive is just the one that came with my Dell.
    Pedro, Jun 6, 2012
    #51

  12. Worf Vice Admiral

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    All drives are RPC2 these days (region code embedded in drive) - it's a requirement for the "DVD" logo. If you have a drive older than 5 years, it's quite likely to be an RPC1 drive. RPC1 drives are "region free" and region coding is enforced by software. RPC2 drives are region coded in hardware.

    RPC1 drives are so rare that Microsoft dropped support for them purely because they didn't have any hardware left to test with.

    It's not that big a deal - dvd writers are so cheap (like $20) so even coding them permanently isn't too bad. And the region means nothing when it comes to data DVDs.

    Edit: RPC2 drives came about because the DVD Forum got wind of all the "region code resetters" that let you reset the 5 region changes in software, so they made it permanent in hardware.
    Worf, Jun 7, 2012
    #52

  13. Pedro Vice Admiral

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    I'll have a look tonight, but the laptop is only a year old, and the drive was the standard model that came with it. I also have a external blu-ray drive so I'll test it out on that tonight.
    Pedro, Jun 7, 2012
    #53

  14. Oggy Rear Admiral

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    My copies arrived yesterday morning, so I will be having a Wing Commnader Marathon tonight!!!

    Dispatched 29th May - Arrived 7th June, not a bad turn around. Shipping cost almost as much as the DVD, haha. Still it was worth it :)
    Oggy, Jun 8, 2012
    #54

  15. Pedro Vice Admiral

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    Well I tested it with my Blu-ray drive, again it wouldn't play in PowerDVD, but it did in VLC. I'll leave the 'why' to other people. It'd be interesting to hear if other people have the same experience.
    Pedro, Jun 8, 2012
    #55

  16. drmayeda Spaceman

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    My copy of Wing Commander Academy arrived a few days ago and it was a minor disappointment due to the lack of extras like an episode guide that tells us which episodes are on which disk and what they are about. It's almost as if they just took the shows and dumped the unedited material on DVD. That's something you can get on the gray market. Anyone know where I can get an episode guide or would I have to make one. TV.com has episode guides for some shows but the one for Wing Commander Academy has quite a few blank spots
    drmayeda, Jun 10, 2012
    #56

  17. AD Finder of things, Doer of stuff

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    http://www.wcnews.com/news/2004/03/11/how-to-watch-wing-commander-academy

    AD, Jun 10, 2012
    #57

  18. Nomad Terror Rear Admiral

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    PowerDVD likely respects the region code of the drive, while VLC is able to bypass it.
    Nomad Terror, Jun 10, 2012
    #58

  19. Oggy Rear Admiral

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    Eh? I thought Chain of Command came after Expendable in terms of storyline?

    I agree with LOAF, the quality is excellent,
    A few things I saw, that sculpture of the Hellcat type ship in Red and Blue has got Four guns under the nose, not two as I initially thought
    On most delicate instrument I could read the reflections of "Danger: Overload" and "System Offline" in the pilots visors, the attention to detail was amazing for a hand drawn cartoon.
    Oggy, Jun 10, 2012
    #59

  20. AD Finder of things, Doer of stuff

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    Yes. This is explained in the link in my post. The list itself that I quoted is there because he asked about episode descriptions. It follows the original air date which doesn't follow the timeline or production order. The recomended order for watching the episodes is as follows:

    Red & Blue
    The Last One Left
    The Most Delicate Instrument
    Lords of the Sky
    Word of Honor
    Expendable
    Chain of Command
    Walking Wounded
    Invisible Enemy
    Recreation
    On Both Your Houses
    Price of Victory
    Glory of Sivar
    AD, Jun 10, 2012
    #60
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