All the DVD’s were Chinese Movies. No Western Movies. Often it is not clear to me when a shop is legit or not in Shanghai. Anyways the Prof. is Chinese and how they plan to use all of them I do not know nor want to know. I did say upfront when I contacted them I could not be sure they were pirated.

I am just happy with the tax deduction.

Anyways, more DVDs equal larger DVD binders. The binder’s by Case Logic that hold 200 discs. But you’re right, many times, a DVD is simply not worth keeping because you’ll never watch it again. I just added 1) Iron Man 2) War, Inc. 3) Indian Jones 4) Zohan to the collection.

Are the DVD9 vs. DVD5 still being used as marketing tactics? Remember that one stop in Hangzhou that sold “thin” discs as “higher quality?”

I have lived in four different houses in Shanghai and each time, after I found my way around my neighborhood, I’ve found my favorite local dvd seller / shop. My favorite place was near Fu Dan University. This guy had a small shop, just below my apartment complex. After going there quite often for late night movie runs, one night he offered me this new promotion, a dvd pass. Basically it was a card that I bought for 100 RMB that was good for 100 rentals. This place was just like any other dvd shop, but somehow I was able to pay 100 RMB up front for this card and rent any movie in the store, just like a rental shop. When I rented a movie (or two or three), he would write it down in this book, and keep track of my total. It was totally awesome, because like everyone above has said, keeping the dvd is kind of useless, and all that packaging is even more wasteful. Unfortunately, I have never seen any such promotion in my new neighborhood.

I’m also mystified, why does every disc we buy have a scratch near the central opening? Looks like someone deliberately puts it there to legitimately discard/sell them later…