Cheap dvd films at bargain prices are now common place at car boot sales. For the dvd film collector and even the casual film watcher who does not want to pay high street prices this is great news. Unfortunatley however, there is a growing market it pirate dvds.

 

A pirate dvd is one which has either been copied directly from an original dvd film disk, or more commonly, one which has been downloaded via the Internet and burned to dvd disk.

 

This of course is illegal, blatently infringing on copyright and trademark laws. However, for this alone perhaps we shouldn't condemn the guilty parties. After all, they are not the first entrepreneurs to tread a fine line at the car boots. Many things sold at car boot sales are copies, reproductions and cheap imitations, so why are these cheap dvd film sellers any worse?

 

BECAUSE, aside from the obvious legal issues, you will not usually get what you expect to when you part with your money.

 

To explain this, I'll take a moment to explain how these cheap dvd films are often copied.

 

Anyone with access to the Internet, a DVD burner and a little knowledge (easily acquired from the Internet), can download and copy to dvd disk a movie. However, file sizes are very large and it is only with the arrival of broadband and faster connection speeds that this has become a regular practice. Even with a fast connection though (e.g. 1mb) , to get a working, full quality copy, it may take up to 24 hours to download all the necessary files (of which there are many), and then a further hour or more just to compile the files and write them to disk.

 

Clearly the time involved would make this an uneconomical practice for most dvd pirates. So they take shortcuts. They only download the necessary files to get a working version of the movie itself. This means that most copies you buy won't come with the "Additional Features" advertised with the original disk, e.g. director's commentary, trailers, deleted scenes. Next, they will burn the files to disk without cheking the files themselves.

 

Often when downloading movies, due to the volume of files involved and the very nature of dvd piracy, there is 50/50 chance that some of the files will be corrupted, either at source or during the download. This means that if you buy a copied dvd, there is a 50/50 chance that it won't work at all, or will stop working part way through the movie.

 

Furthermore, pirates are greedy, so even if they do check the files before burning them to disk, they want to produce as many copies as they can to sell, in as short a period of time as possible. To do this they reduce the quality settings on their dvd burner software, enabling them to burn a whole movie to disk in under 15 minutes. This results in a poor picture, low quality or unsynchronised sound, jumped frames, frozen screens and often an unwatchable film.

 

Suddenly the £5 you parted with to purchase a dvd version of a movie only just released at the cinema, no longer seems such good value. And really, it's unnecessary too.

 

It is possible to buy genuine cheap dvd films online now much cheaper than high street prices, and if you have a multi regional player, buying from overseas means that you can sometimes get a copy before it is released in the UK. For example, Region 1 dvds in the US and Canada, are usually still released some weeks before the Region 2 dvd films in the UK. Occasionally, the Region 1 dvds will come with more features as well, although this is becoming less common thanks to a welcome degree of customer demand for the same release features here in the UK.

 

In addition to online dvd retailers, there is now a growth industry in online dvd rental. This is usually much cheaper than hiring a video at your local video store. Then there's eBay, which supports a regular trade in second hand dvd films, although again you have to apply a certain degree of caution.

 

So how do you spot a pirate dvd film? Well the first giveaway is often the title of the film itself. If it is still showing at the cinema, or has only just completed it's run, then you can gurantee that the dvd version you are looking at is a copy. Also, take a close look at the dvd label. Run your finger over it. Does it feel rough? Can you see clear pixelation in the print? If you can, it's almost certainly a copy. Apply the same test to the dvd cover.

 

Another obvious giveaway is the seller themselves. Haven't you ever thought it rather odd that the car boot seller selling these cheap dvd films, doesn't seem to have a car with them? Very often, they will set up their stall, and then park their car elsewhere. That way when they are challenged by an irrate customer or a browsing Trading Standards Officer they can do a quick dissappearing act without anyone taking their car registration number!

 

So next time you are at the car boot sale and you pass a stall with in impressive array of the latest cinema releases on dvd, keep walking. Go to the next stall, and see if they have a genuine second hand copy of an equally enjoyable film. Or when you get home, take a look on eBay.co.uk for DVDs from £1 (see below for a list of links to dvd films currently listed on eBay.co.uk), or try some of the online dvd retailers, or rental firms. OR, and here's a wacky idea, if you are that desperate to see the latest film release, go to the cinema! They are usually better on the big screen anyway.