Well this set came today and while I can’t get my hands forever on it till 16th May I did get a sneak peek.
Well I don’t like the holographic front as that feel goes through me
This same pic on every disc is lazy and the picture quality isn’t as a bad as I was expecting. The voice acting on the other hand? AHAHAHAHAhAHAHAhAHAAHAHAhAhahahaHAHAHAH
Okay I am basing that on 30 seconds of Dream Master and Mumm-Rana but was is with the whole pro-nouncing eve-ry le-tt-er in eve-ry wo-rd?
“Panthro they are goinG To run inTo us” what the hell is that about?
I will give my review of all three sets around mid may when I have watched them all.
[QUOTE=blackiecats]
Did you end up ordering it from playusa.com Chris?
[/QUOTE]
Howdy
Erm no actually I got it from Ebay, a little dearer than the playusa, but I knew I wouldn’t get taxed as it came from England.
It came in mint, sealed condition which is good. I plan on getting the other two from ebay as well. I will definitley get He-Man from playusa though since the success of the previous set.
The frustrating thing for me is, having ordered the set from PlayUSA, and the set having dispatched a couple of weeks ago now, I’m still waiting for it! Whereas, my friend Nick “Havoc” Cathery ordered his set from www.amazon.com , which I agree with Neil should take much longer, and his set has already arrived!
I’ve just looked it up and I have an e-mail from PlayUSA saying that the ThunderCats S2V1 set shipped on 12th April, “please allow 3 - 5 days for delivery”. Whilst in the middle of that we’ve had Easter, which will have slowed things up, I have nonetheless been waiting 15 days for my boxed set to arrive! I can’t cancel the order because it’s shipped already - I’m very frustrated!
I’m in the exact same situation as you Chris. I’ve emailed playusa.com and they replied asking me to check my local delivery office and then if it isn’t there let them know and they will sort it. I’d advise you to email playusa as well.
Mine was also meant to have been dispatched on the 12th as well. It seems a bit strange that neither of us have our sets. I honestly don’t know what to say because I’ve ordered a few DVD sets from playusa.com and had them with me within 7 working days.
If my calculations are correct it’s been 9 working days now since the 12th and like you said, 15 days overall. I won’t be ordering the other Thundercats sets from playusa.com after this. It’s too much of a coincidence that both our sets have not arrived. I just wonder if the sets were indeed sent out on the 12th
Well, believe it or not it looks like my DVD set has arrived! I had a note from the post office this morning saying that they weren’t able to deliver my item because I have to pay import duty on it, to the tune of ?9.77! That means the whole set will have ended up costing me ?42.76.
My Dad’s just off to collect this, I’ll update this post if I have anything else to report.
Neil: Could I suggest that you amend, update or delete the “sticky” thread on this Board about where to purchase the TCats boxed sets if you’re in the UK and Europe? IIRC, one of the selling points of PlayUSA was that purchasing from them rather than Amazon.Com or another American-based company was that you would avoid getting charged for import duty - obviously now I’ve been charged for import duty for my PlayUSA order (whereas the previous two TCats sets I ordered from Amazon.Com both slipped through customs without a charge), this doesn’t apply.
To be honest, given that I’ve waited almost 3 weeks for this set to arrive and now having had import duty slapped on the order, I’m going to go back to purchasing my region 1 DVDs from www.amazon.com - in 4 years of regularly purchasing region 1 DVDs from them, I have only ever been charged import duty on one DVD set.
I have received my Thundercats set today with the same charge. I actually never guaranteed avoiding customs charges from playusa.com. I said it was less likely than buying from Amazon, which I stand by.
My problem still remains that with Amazon, sorting any faulty discs out is a lot more complicated due to having to send back to the USA. We all know that faulty discs are always a possibility have the mess up with the very first boxset.
Chris, I don’t believe playusa.com were at fault here. I think it’s customs who had held the parcels for a fortnight while they have faffed about with them.
But like you Chris, I’m also a bit disheartended at having to pay nearly ?10.00 extra and will probably buy the final set off Ebay. I won’t bother with the first season until prices come down on it and I’m guaranteed a clitch free Season one, Volume 1 boxset with corrected Disc 1.
I’ll probably still get my He-man and She-ra boxsets from playusa.com though, because the next He-man boxset is only ?22.99 delivered and should almost certainly not attract a customs fee as it’s only ?4.99 over the allowance (?18.00) and VAT on that wouldn’t be much. I think the VAT charge has to be ?5 or over to be applied.
Now I have the hassle of sorting out the duplicate set that playusa.com apparently sent out yesterday!:roll:
I ain’t paying another customs charge for a set I’ll be sending back to them, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen there. I think I’m gonna wait to contact playusa.com about this until I’ve finished watching the set and checked it’s all ok first.
So far I’ve watched disc 1 and have to say that the picture looks very good to me on the Thundercats Ho! saga and I’m a picky person! If this is what the first 2 boxsets picture quality looked like then I have to lean towards the thought that certain individuals were moaning for no reason. The colours are bright and vibrant with no pixellation at all. However like I said, I do need to watch the other 29 episodes on this though.
I definately hate the hologram box front. I think it looks terrible to be honest and it hurts my eyes just looking at it. I do like that the discs are in cases though. That’s the one mistake BCI are making with the He-man boxsets as I do not like Digi-pak packaging as the cardboard wears far too easy. It’s also cumbersome to get a certain disc out with having to unfold the whole pak.
[QUOTE=blackiecats]
I have received my Thundercats set today with the same charge. I actually never guaranteed avoiding customs charges from playusa.com. I said it was less likely than buying from Amazon, which I stand by.
[/quote]
That’s cool - I hope you don’t think I was having a go at you or anything! My only reason for suggesting drawing people’s attention to what’s been happening is that, given that you & I are TCL.Org team members and have kind-of endorsed PlayUSA, you by saying that the TCats DVDs from them are less likely to attract a customs charge and me by ordering from them, I feel it’s important that people know the experience that we’ve had.
Given that the region 1 DVDs from PlayUSA used to ship from Jersey (?), I’d agree with your assessment that they would be less likely to attract a customs charge. Unfortunately, my concern now is whether PlayUSA have begun shipping new or pre-ordered US region 1 DVDs directly from the States, perhaps as a means of fulfilling pre-orders more quickly whilst they wait for stock to arrive to them in Jersey…? (Obviously don’t know this for certain, just speculating.)
True, and I agree that that’s something in PlayUSA’s favour. I guess I’ve been lucky that I’ve never had a faulty region 1 disc sent to me yet (amazing when I think of the number of faulty region 2 DVDs I’ve encountered) - the closest thing was disc 1 of TCats S1V1 with the missing music track for “The Unholy Alliance”, but given that my VHS copy of that episode is in decent nick I was happy to keep ahold of that disc for its novelty value!
I’m inclined to agree - I think the customs service in this country is a scandal, and I object to the principle of having to pay a tax on an item that I’ve purchased just because it happens to be foreign in origin! :mad:
I think I’ll probably get my S2V2 set from www.amazon.com and hope my luck runs true - only because, if I purchased a mint, sealed set off eBay but one of the discs was faulty, I’ve got no redress, whereas at least with Amazon.Com I can send it back for a replacement, albeit I have to send it back to the US!
Very sensible IMO - plus it gives you a good reason to watch ThunderCats episodes to the exclusion of all housework! (j/k!)
I haven’t had chance to watch any of my set yet, but FWIW I do think a lot of the complaints about picture quality on the first two sets were unfounded. Yes, there is a grade up in terms of the picture quality you can obtain from DVD, but to be honest the images are still sharper than most of my TCats VHS recordings from the late 1980s/early 1990s (and believe me, those are impressively sharp!), and so I’m very happy with them.
I agree with everything you say - in the defence of this hologram box, IMO this is the worst one where the images are the most indistinct, the other two were much better. But, I would have preferred a static image that was really nicely embossed, perhaps with sparkling silver and/or gold on the Sword of Omens as a means of making the sets eye-catching. But, I’m happy with all the rest of the packaging, and also disagree with the people who’ve complained about the artwork on the interior packaging, I personally really like it!
Could be it. My replacement set came in the post this morning and that has a UK return address on it, whereas my first set that got held up in customs has an NY USA return address on it. Oh and the replacement set was valued at zero being as I didn’t pay for it (it being a replacement) so it obviously avoided any fees. But then if it was mailed from within the UK fees wouldn’t have applied anyway.
I’ve emailed playusa.com about it and hopefully I can get it all sorted out with the duplicate set fairly soon.
I’m still waiting it out because I definately want the corrected version with all the sound on that episode.
Actually I might do as well. I joined up with the Amazon associates program for my Dreamstone site a while back, mainly to push sales of the debut Dreamstone DVD. Hopefully I’ll get up to ?10 in referrals (minimum amount before you can spend the earnings) and I’ll then probably order the Season 2, Vol.2 Thundercats DVD from Amazon (at the same time getting ?10 off it) Then hopefully the sale price will just fall under the $35 mark (which will make it equal to or less than ?18, avoiding any import duties!:))
Wow you two have had quite a saga with you Thundercats DVD’s huh?
I on the other hand am boring so no adventures for me
Neil, I disagree with you on one area, the packaging. My Season 2 Volume 1 set came yesterday and I managed again to get a sneak peak and yes the holograms are horrible but in no way is the packaging better than He-Man. I personally love digi-paks and the He-Man ones are some of the best. All the images are vibrant, the screen grabs the images on the disks the embossed character on the front all spot on.
Obviously this is all objective and I know we are going to get into a pointless argument about this, you seem from some of your posts a little to intelligent for that. But I just thought I would contradict you, can’t have people agreeing with you a lot now can we
Anyway, again my main problems in terms of quality and the WB for these Thundercats sets are the saem INCONSISTENCY. Why are there quite a few differences with these sets, it can’t be rocket science to release similar sets in terms of design with different epsiodes:
1.Okay changing from Blue to Yellow, fine BUT, on S1V2 you have a blue rectangle thing on the top of each DVD case, why isn’t this the same for the yellow?
On S1V2 when you look at the front of each individual case there is a long blue line detailing the disc…again this info is found on S2V1 but not in the same place.
WHY DO ALL THE EPSIODES ON THE BACK OF ALL THE DVDS START FROM ONE. I can understand this on T-Cats Ho! and Mumm-Ra Lives but then you come to cat fight and it says ‘1’, not good for a new/old T-Cats watcher like me to remember the eps by number.
Embossed side and top of T-Cats set S1V2 but not on S2V1.
Don’t even get me started on the different audio options.
These may seem quite silly in terms of criticisms but it just bugs me. Especially when you look at the quality and CONSISTENCY of the He-Man boxsets.
Still none of these things will prevent me from getting S2V2 at Christmas.
The artwork and images on the He-man sets beats Thundercats hands down. There is no question about that.
However I just don’t like all that cardboard and having to fold and unfold it everytime you want to take a disc out. The side of my He-man Season 1, Volume 2 set are already wearing.
I’d much sooner have had He-man packed in plastic cases that slide into the box. They still could have used the same artwork they did on the box for each DVD cases cover. Don’t get me wrong, digi-pak packaging looks nice, but it just isn’t practical for a collectible DVD set in my opinion.
[QUOTE=blackiecats]
The artwork and images on the He-man sets beats Thundercats hands down. There is no question about that.
However I just don’t like all that cardboard and having to fold and unfold it everytime you want to take a disc out. The side of my He-man Season 1, Volume 2 set are already wearing.
I’d much sooner have had He-man packed in plastic cases that slide into the box. They still could have used the same artwork they did on the box for each DVD cases cover. Don’t get me wrong, digi-pak packaging looks nice, but it just isn’t practical for a collectible DVD set in my opinion.
[/QUOTE]
Howdy
I can see where you are coming from, I mean my 10 Best will need to be bought again asit looks a little bad now
And I agree with you on the unfolding out, it annoys me with the X-Files sets as it takes bloody ages.
I think I prefer digi-paks as I like them aestetically rather than pratically…hey I am shallow But yes the Thundercats ones will last irrevecobly longer.
