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Got 5 days holiday, and my DVD guy has shut up shop. Situation is grim (may resort to watching “Snakes On A Plane” which i just found in the closet. Yes, THAT grim.) Anybody know a shop in the south? Discretion may be required to protect the proprietor….?
Chinese friend just showed me this website www. beiwody. com
Loads of films to stream on this, there is a link at the top for 720. these are the better quality films, plenty to choose from.
Right now I dont bother buying dvd, just watch them all here.
@andy: thanks man, I’ll try it, but i’m pretty old school and still dig DVD’s. Man, don’t get me started on VHS. Those were golden days….
All the real goldmines are hidden. They’re usually near one of the computer city buildings though, either at 1st Ring Road and Renmin Nanlu or Bainao Hui on Kehua Beilu. There are places that sell movies out of binders out of the computer city buildings directly, and then a courier will run to wherever they’re at and bring them back.
The best thing to do is probably find wherever they’re at, once you find them inside (“DVD!” “DVD!”) they’ll take you to the motherlode either on the 5th floor or above, or in a room nearby. A lot of times you’ll take the stairs to the ground floor and then go to a building across the street or next door.
I think the price for DVD’s is still 5 kuai for DVD-5 (single layer) and 9 kuai for DVD-9 (dual layer). Blu-rays go for 15 yuan including box (like pictured below).
Thanks guys. I was trying to avoid the computer city touts. Being led around by those guys was always a pain. I miss my old DVD guy! I thought we had a special connection. He had his films sorted into genre (strangely, porn films would show up in the animation section, but that could be naughty customers) and his recommendations were often pretty accurate. Just like street shao kao, illegal DVD shops seem to be disappearing. The gentrification of Chengdu?
You only go through the touts at the beginning, once they take you to the spot you just return there in the future.
Most of the DVD shops on the street (there aren’t many as you say) don’t have the selection of stuff you’ll find near the computer malls. There are probably a dozen+ hole in the wall DVD/Blu-Ray spots in Chengdu that have walls covered with DVD’s and Blu-Rays.
My first DVD buying experience in Chengdu two days ago was pretty much as described by Charlie. I went to this computer city building to one of the higher floors and asked for DVDs and then a lady called her husband who took me first downstairs to the next building and then to the 8th or 9th floor where I could choose from plenty of movies in a dark and isolate room, to be honest it was a bit creepy at the beginning.
I paid 10 kuai each for the ones with better quality (he showed me that their release dates were later than the same movies with worse quality which would be a bit cheaper).
Thanks for the tip with weibody, gonna try it soon!
Yeah sometimes it feels like you’re stepping into a crack den or something. Same with buying bikes from the underground market at Jiuyan Qiao. Glad you found it though, it’s a good adventure to experience and a cheap selection of movies is always good to have.
My guy is back! Said he was just taking a short holiday (even DVD pirates need a break sometimes). Anyway, he’s just 5 mins from computer city, on Yihuan Lu towards Chuna Da. Some of you guys might know his shop. He’s a good guy. He laughed when I showed him Snakes on A Plane! But yeah, i shoud also hit this beiwody.com. Even us dinosaurs gotta evolve….
If you’re into or interested in US TV shows, I found the best source is eztv.it – download speed is surprisingly fast, no advertisements to deal with, and most good shows available.
There are other torrent sites with much larger variety, but eztv does a good job of filtering them, sorting them, and ensuring whatever you’re getting is the better version that’s released shortly after the show is aired – not as much likelihood of going through a bunch of torrents from different release groups that have varying results. I hit it daily and load up my queue. 😀
Another great site for TV shows and movies is PPTV. Thousands of movies and TV shows in good quality, and they stream quickly from inside China. The site only works if you’re located in China so if you’re using a VPN you’ll want to disable it for this.
@Charlie : I didn’t see that much of foreign movies and TV shows on PPTV…
Got a very good website but most of the content is in french…
@Giugz: yeah, used to be a great litttle dvd shop there, with cds also. Had a great seection of jazz stuff. Interestingly, the owner said that alot of the students were into jazz. I cleaned out his jazz section, but he had some absolutely obscure gems also (a Warped comp from 2005, an old Godflesh cd). Days like that make life worthwhile…
I saw 2 shops but there might be more, I was really surprised to find these into a University but well we’re in China !
Quote:I saw 2 shops but there might be more, I was really surprised to find these into a University but well we’re in China !University students are a lucrative market for DVD vendors. There isn’t really much policing of the “illegal” movie vendors at all. Once or twice a year they send police into the computer centers to check for pirated goods but it’s just a formality and they never seem to actually bust anyone, ever.
But why do the guys in Computer city are hidding ? The could just put a shop in the street like the ones in the university…
Quote:But why do the guys in Computer city are hidding ? The could just put a shop in the street like the ones in the university…Good question, I don’t know if there’s really a logical answer to that.
My understanding is this: on the surface, China says “We are combating piracy” to other countries but it’s not really doing anything but going through the motions. I’ve been at computer city on the 4th floor before the police come up. They send notice via radio from downstairs that police are coming up, and then suddenly there’s a whirlwind of activity as everyone is rushing to cover everything with sheets. Then police come up and see everyone standing around with sheets over everything and they go: “Ok, nothing out of the ordinary here!”. Then they go downstairs and the sheets come off. This repeats at determined intervals.
Quote:Can you stream full episodes from the US networks, such as CBS.com, NBC.com and ABC.com?You’ll need a VPN
Quote:@Charlie : I didn’t see that much of foreign movies and TV shows on PPTV… Got a very good website but most of the content is in french…I just posted a new thread on this so the info doesn’t get buried here: How to Stream Movies on PPTV
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