Will someone please try, yes please try to explain why in the hell I can’t buy the West Wing on DVD but the rest of the free world can?
The British have it readily available. So do the Germans. And Lord help me, even the French can use 1Click to get Jed Bartlett into their living rooms! [The sentence that used to appear here and many of it's explicatives were removed after careful editorial review. — ED.]
I'll bet Hans Blix is kicking back at night snacking on freedom fries and watching West Wing - Season One while I have to settle for whatever my Tivo can manage to record once a week.
Heresy!
Is it possible the European Union is involved because I can't imagine this is just a problem with American supply and demand. Nor can I imagine that Paramount Studios is swimming in so much cash that it's just ignoring the products domestic sales potential.
And where are the Elephants? Do the Democrats have any idea of what kind of propaganda potential they have with this series? Why hasn't Tom Daschel lifted a single finger to get his parties message out to the masses? Come on Tom, forget the tax cut already! It's time for legistlation that would put a copies of the West Wing in every home in America.
Martin Sheen — Mr. President, sir — If you're reading this maybe you could take the duct tape off your mouth for five minutes and do something about this because Aaron Sorkin isn't returning my phone calls.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Here's why, from the very same Amazon page you linked to (see the customer reviews):
The reason WHY The West Wing is not available on DVD in the US is because the producers have sold syndication rights to the Bravo cable channel for a reputed 1 million an episode. Bravo only broadcasts in the US and will begin the series at the beginning. Once Bravo feels they've got their moneys worth, THEN a region one West Wing will appear. This will probably take several years. It's all about money!
That really stinks. We've taped every episode on VHS (yuck!) for the time being. When the DVDs come out here, we'll be standing in line with the rest of youse.
I broke down some time ago and bought a region-free DVD player. The impetus for this was the lack of Futurama DVDs - they're 2 seasons ahead in releasing them in Europe. I've already got 33 episodes of West Wing on DVD, and perusing the other American shows available on amazon.co.uk - the ones you can buy in America. Ridiculous. Part of the blame should also go to movie studios that mandated the laughable region code system. The good news is that it's not a law so you can purchase the discs and players. Just not at retailers who want to keep their cushy relationships with the movie studios.
Gene, I thought all European video required PAL televisions or was that just a VHS thing?
Buy a cheap Apex DVD player and then download a hack, burn it to a CD, play it in the cheap Apex player and Voila! a region-free DVD player.
Ryan, don't be such a tease. If you're going to post that something can be hacked then you must provide a link.
It's the first rule of Airbag don'cha know?!
It is possibly the work of Evil Doers?
Ok, who's idea was this? Come on, which one of you is responsible. Ha, ha. Good one, now bring Sorkin back. Ok you got me, tell E! it's all a big joke.
http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk/
There you go for Region Free DVD hacks on Apex players. I got a chip for my AD-500w at
http://apexmodchip.com/macrovision.html
I was thinking about getting it. Then my wife won a Prisioner box set of DVDs on eBay. The first bummer: "It's only $50!!!". My response, "That's POUNDS, not dollars!". My next response, "That's a region 2 disc!!!!" I guess I would have had to move to Europe if it wasn't for the Mod chip! :)