Wall Street Journal on HD Imports

Yeah thats not fair to Xploited at all..... I have nothing but good thigns to say about Tony and his service and fair prices.

Regarding the article...yeah importing is pretty cool and comes in very handy. Just dont use it too much or your costs start to rival the costs required just to go neutral which I ultimately did via 80gb PS3.

Yea, those imports cost almost as much as Fox BDs!
J

Clever?

Those geniuses, figuring out how to buy things over the internet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market

I've always known "grey market" as imports. I've never heard anyone refer to bootlegs as grey market. I believe bootlegs would be considered "Black Market".

I know this is about importing to America however as the whole world is not America I would like to point out that there are probably far more HD DVD's leaving the US than are being imported into the US.

A general rule of thumb is that from America including P&P the HD DVD's cost about 1/2 the price they do in the UK. This is also combined with the fact the US get nearly all the movies first (ie Transformers isn't out here until December and Stardust is just opening in the cinemas)

You may complain that people are circumventing the studio exclusivity however we are sending our money into your country so I would tell them not to complain too loudly

Reading the article, it actually seems pretty fair and complementary to Xploited, with Sony and the Blu-ray folks pretty much the source of the "grey market" comments.

An article like that tends to drive business to a mentioned business, so I'm sure they don't mind.

I like the "savvy consumers" description and the categorical no region encoding for HD DVD meme.

I was about to post the same thing. Grey market refers to leaglly imported items that have no US warranty. Black market irefers to illegal items.

Agreed. Not to mention that some of my favorite DVDs are imports that never even got a US release.

Another agreement, I always thought "black market" was the term for illegal sales of items and that "grey market" meant along the lines of second hand selling. I remember there was an article and the PS3s declining prices on E-Bay and it was titled "PS3 price declines in grey market"

Just curious, why do BD exclusive studios even produce HD DVD versions of their products overseas?

People are often mad when they buy a CE product off a website, and find out that they don't have a warranty because the product they bought was grey market, since such products were not intended for domestic sale. Such shady doings are bad sellers, but grey market isn't really a bad thing.

I owned a British car that had a Grey Market title, because the car was originally from England. Nothing bad about it, though.

Often Grey market products can be purchased for better prices than MSRP domestically.

All being said, if you are buying a grey market product, you do deserve to understand that you are usually not covered by the manufactures warranty.
However, for example, some companies such as Fujitsu have international manufacturers warranties with their products. If you buy a grey market Fujitsu product it should still have a warranty that's good in the US.

Xploiter rules. Have you guys seen the region 0 Hard Boiled they got? Its one of those pseudo HD/Superbit things they were doin in Japan and it ruuuuuuuuuuuuuules!!!!!!!!!

Describing Xploited as 'grey market' is accurate. Grey market means importing legitimate items that were released in a foreign market but are not available locally.

One definition from dictionary.com is "A market where a product is bought and sold outside of the manufacturer's authorized trading channels."

That is exactly what Xploited does.

I'm not saying gray market is bad. That's just what they do.

And as with all other areas, some retailers are better than others. I've ordered discs from Xploited before, and I was very happy.

Sure, agreed, I don't really want to debate the definition of a word.

Back to the topic....

HDM imports I like them, and I'll buy 'em It is also a cool thing you can say you did "I imported a movie from France!"

Here here!
I completely agree!!

I don't agree. Gray market items are huge in the Camera industry. The most respected stores in the business, like B&H Photo and Adorama sell these imported items with no manufacturer warranty, though they usually provide a warranty of their own. Most of the time, gray market gear is available for much lower prices than the (identical) US-branded equipment.

It's not shady. Not even a little bit.

Back on topic, I think it's great that this story hit the major media outlets, and I'm sure Tony will be thrilled with the flood of orders he's about to get.