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Buying Guide Home Region coding and video standards Recommendations Customs duties Region 1 (US) Region 4 (Australia) Region 2 (Japan) Region 2 (UK) Region 2 (Europe) Region 3/0 (HK and Indonesia) Oxford Anime Vision |
Region 4 (Australia) releasesAnime seems to be becoming incresingly popular in Australia. Whilst they have nowhere near the range of discs available on Region 1 release, a good number of popular anime series are available and are ridiculously cheap. Delivery also tends to be fast, generally around a week. Check our notes on customs charges but most discs from Australia are cheap enough to fall below the minimum taxable value for imports. Australian DVDs are encoded in PAL. They will either be Region 4 or dual region Region 2 and 4. A dual region disc should play on unmodified UK DVD players. Generally, if you're happy with importing and the disc you want is released in Australia, buy it :) Recent Australian DVD releases include:
Prices for a DVD tend to be around AUD$25-30 with AUD$5 per disc for shipping. AUD$35 corresponds to £12.43 at current exchange rates (10/11/02). Whilst all Australian sites include the Australian sales tax (GST) in their prices most, including DVDCrave and EzyDVD, refund this tax on international orders, knocking about 10% off the listed price. For a cheap DVD like Eva this can take the price per DVD below a tenner. Shipping from Australia seems quick and reliable. Frequently it's faster to get a release from Sydney than a UK importer based in Stevenage... A useful price comparison website for Australian companies is DVD Pricecheck UK. It compares prices at a large number of Australian site and keeps up to date with special offers, so it's often worth a look before making a purchase. Our recommended Australian site: EzyDVD stock all of the Australian anime titles. Register as an international customer and the prices on the site will appear less GST. They take between four days and a week to ship and are very reliable. Highly Recommended. DVDCrave we used to recommend but they do not have seemed to have kept up with the latest anime releases. However, for discs they do keep they can be a dollar or two cheaper than EzyDVD and also ship quickly. Madman are the Australian distributors for most anime titles and hence are the place to check to see if the anime you want has been released in Australia. You can order from their site but it's not as geared up for international orders as the others and is often more expensive. |