'The' DVD Price Portal (dvdpricecheck.co.uk)

Member Name: blackjane

Product:	dvdpricecheck.co.uk
Date:	01/06/02 (423 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Save ££££'s, Intelligent and comprehensive search engine, Relatively simple to use

Disadvantages: Can your finances take the strain?

Like many others I have recently joined the DVD revolution and I expect that I'm also not the only person to begrudge paying over the odds for my favourite digital versatile discs.

As an Internet veteran I soon discovered that it was possible to buy DVD's via the web at prices that were significantly cheaper than the high street. I quickly discovered some of the better sites by word of mouth and also by trial and error on my part. However, it still seemed to be hit and miss as to whether I paid a pound or two more than necessary, and there's nothing worse than finding a disc that is two or three pounds cheaper the next week.

Thankfully this problem can now be reduced significantly thanks to the excellent DVD Price Check site (at www.dvdpricecheck.co.uk) This site utilises an intelligent search engine that ensures you can find exactly what you want at the best prices, even taking into account the postage costs where relevant.

You'll find all of the usual suspects here, such as Play 247, Amazon, DVD.co.uk etc., but you will also be impressed by the sheer range of sites on offer. At present fifty different sites are included, and this number is likely to increase further as more and more sites are added.

Each site is categorised into one of four main regions. Some sites, such as CD-Wow, that offer discs from many regions are simply classified by a single main region - 1 in their case.

The breakdown of sites by region is as follows:

Region 1 (21) (US & Canada)
Region 2 (19) (Europe & Japan)
Region 3 (2) (Asia)
Region 4 (8) (Australasia)

If you are unfortunate enough not to have a multi-region DVD player, you can limit your search to just the region 2 sites, but otherwise you can take you pick of all available discs from around the world.

The results of each search are listed in descending order of price, with postage charges included and assumptions made regarding cu
rrency conversions where this is necessary. The results also include the disc's region, the site where the disk has been found and that site's country of origin (by use of a flag symbol.)

Links are provided, which enable you to click through to any of the results from a search and open up these details in a new window. It is also possible to save your search options so that you don't need to decide which sites to include for subsequent searches.

In addition to the main search engine, the site also has regular polls, its own forum, as well as reviews of all the sites used by the search engine. However, it will be the main search engine itself that ensures you keep coming back here time and time again.

At present guests are able to use the search facilities, but would also need to be registered to use the forum. Registration is of course is free, but I have been happily searching as a guest for several weeks now as this is the only part of the site that I have needed to use.

All in all this is a great idea that has been very well executed, and has already saved me several pounds by giving me the ultimate choice of where to buy my DVD's at the best prices. Just pray that your credit card can take the strain when you see all the bargains that are on offer!

(An original Dooyoo opinion
© Blackjane 2002}

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