Ok, so does this mean I have to buy an entire HD player so I can watch the HD version? The only thing I care about is the Dumbledor’s Army commentary, and that one is only on the HD version. How much does an HD player cost? Can someone help me out here.

@ Ian:

The cheapest standalone HD DVD player out there I know of is the Toshiba HD-A2 one that sells for around $250-$300. Now if you have an XBox 360, their add-on HD DVD player is only around $180. Still, it is stupid expensive to get a few more extras they could have included in the normal DVD version.

Discounting exchange rates those prices look normal to your average Aussie. First release DVDs are always $30-35. I’d liek to know the Oz release date too and I wish I knew what HD/Blu ray blah blah blah is…oh well…

Wait. So in order to get all the extras, I have to buy 3 separate DVDs of the same movie? Couldn’t they just have settled for a “normal” release and an additional extended version, like they did with “Lord of the Rings” that would include all the juicy extras? I’d go for that, but I’m definitely not going to buy the same movie 3 times!

Could this be an attempt by WB to increase their UK sales? After all, these people wont be just selling it in their stores, but on the net too…

For you guys complaining about the Americans complaining, you should take a step back and think about it. This is not like a big movie premier where you want to not only get the fans all worked up over the release, but you also need to get the Stars to the theater and such too, it would be impossible for them to be everywhere at once, hence you have to stagger the dates from country to country. This is the DVD release and the only question should be how many of these DVDs can we sell in the first week and month. Every country {ya even the Aussies >:P} who get an un-dubbed version should be taking issue with this, it is not like they are being burned by a mom and pops shop somewhere in Scotland, there will be huge factories pumping these things out in every country that they are sold in. There simply is no reason for the later sale dates for English speaking countries except from a money stand point.

John B.

P.S. God that was a lot longer of a post than I thought it would be lol

P.S.S and I just thought of this, WB might be cutting their sales down a bit by doing this, that is an entire month where people will be able to post it on the net for others to steal. They really could be shooting themselves in the foot by doing this.

A month? We have to wait a freaking month??? Oh my god. Does the PAL system (or whatever the UK use) mean that the UK ones won’t work on American DVD players?

This is what we get for changing our release of the movie in theatres! They’re doing it to spite us!

And the three DVD thing is pissing me off, too! I bought the wrong DVD when I was buying Goblet of Fire, so I’ve still never seen any of the special features. And why is the Dumbledore’s Army thing only on HD?

In short: I hate this.

Great post, JohnB! The America-bashing gets old, and it really doesn’t make sense to have such a difference in the release date, for the reasons you mentioned. I would not be surprised to see this change, just as the movie release changed, but you never know. Ah well, if we’re desperate, I suppose we can always order a copy off Amazon UK, and of course OotP will be on at the second-run theaters for a while too, for when we need our fix! (I think it’s just getting there in my local theater.) And the 7 more minutes of deleted scenes is intriguing—hope it’s better stuff than what’s been mentioned so far!

I must agree that the UK deserves to get it first. For all the reasons mentioned. But by a month That is absurd! And Greg is absolutely right. If they want to make money off of Christmas sales it had better be out by Thanksgiving weekend. Not only are they killing their sales by waiting so long, but Christmas isn’t an argument. A month-long delay to capitalize on Christmas would only make sense if Christmas came a month later in the US. And their stupid manipulative maneuvers (or manoeuvres, if you prefer) to make you have to purchase 3 different copies and a $300 piece of hardware just to enjoy the extras which don’t even include a commentary simply disgust me. What, they don’t make enough money off the film already that they have to resort to extortion to get more money from the fans? If I thought anyone would actually be able to restrain themselves, I’d encourage a boycott. Let them know with our Dollars, Pounds, Euros, and everything else that this kind of crap is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I could wait, either.

YAY CANT WAIT!!!! theres my chrsitmas list lol

Yay, we get something first for once XD

It is very expensive! I guess they can get away with it though because they know people will pay for it sigh I think I’m going to get mine from Play.com, £9.99! Depends what offers the shops come up with.

I really don’t understand why there is such a long stretch of time between the DVDs. It’s not about who gets it first, if one country got it a few days before the other, fine. But a month? It really doesn’t make sense. The US and the UK are the two biggest markets for this movie so they should be released at relatively the same time. I’m wondering if this was a mistake and they sent out a press release too early.

WB is gonna be sorry, because the bootleggers are gonna be going crazy and the joe schmo that would have bought it will just get the bootleg version of it. The intelligence over at WB just astounds me sometimes.

In Argentina we’ll have the DVD on October 31st, we’ll be the first country to have it.

The gift set is going to be my gift to myself for surviving this year! YAY ME!

I’m not impressed that the W.B. are spreading their special features over every edition of the film. That’s very disrespectful to the fans. So if we want to see all the special features we have to buy the regular version, the HD version, the Blue Ray version, and the 5-disc set and, oh yeah, we’ll have to buy HD-DVD players and Blue Ray players to watch them. Lame! It almost makes me not want to buy any version and wait to tape it off HBO in protest, and in the meantime I’ll watch the special features on YouTube. I have never felt this way before, but they are clearly trying to get the fans to buy all versions and that’s terrible.

I’m also confused about the different release dates in the U.S. and U.K. I don’t really care, it just seems odd. And December 11 is a little late for the Christmas season as people usually have most of their shopping done by then, so I don’t understand the delay unless it has something to do with the high-def versions and wanting to release them all at the same time. I don’t know.

$$$$$$ Ka-Ching!