Personally I think pirate dvd's are a waste of time & money. As I said on a previous thread my mother-in-law used to bring dvd's from Indonesia when she came to visit us. This country has such a giant problem with pirate dvd's that nearly every dvd you buy in their RETAIL OUTLETS are PIRATE! I would tell her not to bother bringing them and she would insist they are the real thing as the shop keeper hat told her this (and the cover would normally say stuff like DTS, and Special Edition, Special Features, etc.) But when I show her the movie they would all be rubbish. Things to expect with a pirate copy:
1) Bad picture quality
: Grainy, blurry, lacking in colour, contrast, and brightness. Sometimes with the odd person walking about (to get popcorn, go the the toilet, etc.)
2) God awful sound
: Buzzing, hiss, rustle of crisp packets, popcorn, etc. DTS? (Dire terrible sound, more like!)
3) Missing ending
: This is probably the most annoying thing (and was the one that finally convinced me to stop bothering with pirate copies). To get all the way through a film and find the ending cut or more annoyingly the dvd just freezes up towards the end with a pixelated mess (this is very common) really pi**es me off and ruins my evening's viewing. One crazy example got all the way to the end of the cartoon Pinnochio to find that all important song, 'When you wish upon a star' cut after the first bit of the opening verse only to jump straight back to the dvd menu
4) No special features
: None whatsoever ! No trailer, no documentaries, no commentaries, most of the time no subtitles either. Despite what it says on the cover.
Now tell me why someone would want to pay up to £5 for that tat.
As a side note, every dvd that my mother-in-law bought I ended up buying the original afterwards.