[jwyg]

lately i've been buying quite a few of the sub £5 dvd's available at amazon, some late 80's early 90's films etc.

i've noticed that none of them have any inserts, and with some of them the disc itself is just a plain silver disc with the film title and a few other bits printed in black on the front. is this normal? it's typically the ones from amazon directly rather than amazon marketplace but maybe i should put together a little table and find out for sure

[bearman3784]

no, amazon would not sell fake dvds

[Sarah7]

If you receive a fake then definitely complain, although buying from Amazon themselves (or indigostarfish) should hopefully make this very unlikely!

I don't think any of the things you've commented on would positively identify a fake. Many cheap releases and re-releases don't have booklets and not all DVDs are picture discs (especially older releases, including for example many early BBC releases which just had text printed on the discs).

So far as I know, I've never been sold a fake out of thousands of DVDs; although I'd guess that most fakes are burned using domestic equipment rather than pressed, so what I'd look for is the colour of the reverse side of the disc (if it's more gold than silver, that could be an indication of a burned disc) and the quality of any pictures printed on the disc. I think something like Nero Infotool could also tell you the type of media, e.g. DVD-R/DVD+R or a disc pressed in a factory.

[mikegambit]

Amazon don't sell fakes but some of their Marketplace sellers do.
You can pick up several long deleted Disney classics new and sealed for under £15.

Playtrade is the same.

Plenty of dvd's are silver with black writing - only worry if the writing is in felt pen.

I got a bootleg Heroes season 1 set from an Amazon seller.
It was an "Asian" import and the packaging and discs looked genuine and the discs were pressed like legit ones.

But playback problems, no audio in places and region 0 gave the game away.
I got a refund

[jwyg]

cool thanks - i'll continue to pick up the cheap re-releases i missed the first time round then!