Canadian Criterion are duplicates

[Brandon K]

I posted the issue in "Duplicate entries (Official)" but I'm not sure it was taken seriously - that post can be seen here.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but there aren't "Canadian versions" of Criterion releases. These are just imported and distributed by a Canadian distributor.

Please don't make me go through every one and list it as a duplicate in the "Duplicate entries" thread. Site admins should take this as a project and clean up the database. Should be easy and straightforward to do. As already stated previously, imports should not be counted as somehow separate "releases." Otherwise you would have duplicate entries for every "import" from every country to every other country. There is nothing to distinguish these duplicates as different, including the UPC.

Of the 1112 Criterion US releases, 364 are incorrectly duplicated (usually with incomplete specs and information) as "Canadian versions" when there is no such thing.

Amazon.ca lists their Criterion imports under the label "Video Services Corp." Criterion is imported and distributed in Canada by Unobstructed View - formerly Video Services Corp. VSC was founded in 1993 by former rock critic Jonathan Gross, and is a leading independent DVD distributor with offices in Toronto and Los Angeles.

[Brandon K]

So I know that this site isn't going to change its decision about these releases, but I really think you should. I imagine that you're allowing these database entries just to try to get more affiliate links to Amazon.ca, and having the entries allows you to show them in the "Best Deals."

As a PHP developer and database programmer myself, I definitely think this could be handled so much easier and better - and in fact it would open up a huge door for you in terms of more affiliate links - if you include fields for multiple Amazon regional ASINs (.com, .ca, .co.uk, etc) on a single release.

Now that Amazon has so many imports, this would allow you to give affiliate links to all of those imports from any product page. Especially so many UK imports are now sold on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca, and so many US imports are sold on Amazon.ca.

So for example, a single US product release could have ASINs for both Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. Or a single UK product relase could have ASINs for Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, etc.

Having all these duplicate pages provides no value to users browsing this site... In fact, it not only provides no value, it has a negative effect.

- As previously mentioned, less than 1/3 of Criterion releases are duplicated as "Canadian version"

- Those that are duplicated, can have missing information because they get duplicated and then never updated

- It takes twice the work to update 2 entries for the exact same item.

- If someone writes a review on the Canadian entry, that review may be missed by someone looking for reviews on the US version.

- Someone who wants to review all the details about a Criterion release has to visit 2 pages on the site for possible additional information (such as user reviews).

- It can be misleading or create confusion about these releases, because the common person (such as myself before I researched it) didn't know whether the Canada "versions" are any different, and why some Criterion items were "released" in Canada but many others were not.

And since I was wondering about this myself and wanted to know whether Criterion in Canada were maybe being pressed differently (in cases where Canadian distribution is actually a label and makes their own discs, and can have different encodes, bonus features, etc, such as Mongrel, Elevation, etc), here's the confirmation that there is 100% no difference between these releases. There is no such thing as a "Canadian version."

The following reply received by email from Unobstructed View (formerly Video Services Corp), the Canadian distributor of Criterion:

"The Criterion releases are exactly the same in the U.S. and Canada. We are the exclusive distributor for Criterion in Canada and receive all our product directly from Criterion."