Malaysia Going Blu

[micrococcus]

Forgot to introduce myself when I first joined this blu community. I’m a Chinese residing in Malaysia and I’m “straight” in blu (HD-DVD is definitely out of my league).

Herein, I’d like to share with u guys the current blu-trend that's going on in West Malaysia. Though Malaysia is kinda slow in picking up the HD fever, to date, every electronics shop in the country is selling HD TVs (Pioneer, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony, LG, etc.). There is now 1 blu-ray player out in the market – Sony BDP-S1E (price: RM4,999.00 = USD 1,486.46) & another new Sony blu-ray player is coming end of October 2007 (retailing at RM3,999.00 = USD 1,189.12). A free blu-ray title will be given for each purchase of the player. All the major AV / electronics retailers are selling only blu-ray players with the exception of Toshiba which is selling HD-DVD Player (I’m not sure about the price ‘cause I don’t bother).

Another good news is, a few of the major computer companies have started selling notebook computers bundled with blu-ray drives. DELL provides blu-ray drives for a few selected Inspiron models (RM2,000.00 = USD 594.69 for the drive) and Sony has 3 notebook models with blu-ray drives (VGN-AR49G retailing at RM 13,988.00 = USD 4,158.88; VGN-AR38G retailing at RM 14,988.00 = USD 4,456.20; and lastly VGN-FZ18G selling at RM 9,988.00 = USD 2,969.95). I bought the VGN-FZ18G notebook for watching blu-ray movies. Again, only Toshiba is selling the Qosmio notebook with HD-DVD drive and Hewlett-Packard has 1 notebook installed with HD-DVD drive (but the HP business notebooks come with blu-ray drives – mmm … guess HP is format neutral). Acer, Asus and Fujitsu in Malaysia have confirmed their blu-ray-only support and they’ll be releasing notebooks with blu-ray drives early next year.

More good news: Besides the blu-ray players and computer drives, Malaysia is also flooded with Playstation 3 consoles (Pricing between RM1,700 – RM1,900.00 = USD 505.43 – USD 564.89). As for X-Box 360, “sad” to say that you can’t get a HD-DVD drive add-on if you purchase X-Box in Malaysia.

Now for the movie (disc) manufacturers and distributors in Malaysia, below is the list (note that Sdn. Bhd. stands for Private Limited): -
(1) Speedy Video Sdn. Bhd. – the largest DVD manufacturer and distributor. The company also has the most number of retail chain outlets in Malaysia (almost all the shopping complexes in Malaysia have a Speedy Video retail shop). Since the beginning of October 2007, Speedy Video has started selling blu-ray movie titles from Twentieth Century Fox only (so far). In addition to the retail side, they also produce their own DVDs (region free) for movies from the US and Hong Kong (examples of DVDs they produce: Halloween H20, Halloween Resurrection, Komodo, etc.). Guess it’s not long before they start manufacturing movies in blu-ray.
(2) Berjaya HVN – the second largest DVD manufacturer and distributor. The company also has numerous retail chain outlets under the name of Video EZY. Berjaya HVN own the rights to manufacturing and distributing movies from Warner Bros, Paramount, and Universal. Their retail chains are the only ones selling HD-DVDs from Universal Pictures (however, they’ve only ordered the first batch with less than 12 HD-DVD titles – The Hulk, Fast & the Furious, The Mummy, etc.; now they’ve stopped ordering which is good news). Berjaya HVN seems to be format neutral at the moment. They’ve started selling blu-ray titles from Sony Pictures since September 2007. Hopefully they’d release Transformers in blu-ray next year.
(3) Movie Magic Sdn. Bhd. – own the rights to distribute Fox and MGM blu-ray titles.
(4) Dragon Entertainment Sdn. Bhd. – own the rights to produce and distribute DVDs from New Line Cinema (Malaysia has its own region-free “Final Destination 3”, “She’s the Man”, etc.) and other smaller movie studios in the US.
(5) Mediamax Sdn. Bhd. – own the rights to produce and distribute DVDs and blu-ray titles from Sony Pictures and Dreamworks (strangely it’s separated from Paramount). Example of the DVD manufactured by this company – our own region-free “The Island”.
(6) Alliance Entertainment Sdn. Bhd. – own the rights to produce and distribute DVDs for some of the Warner Bros titles (e.g. “Batman & Robin").

Wow! Enough said. This article is too long. In a nutshell, just want to say that Malaysia is going blu. Oh, forgot to mention, there’s already a video shop in Malaysia selling ALL the blu-ray movie titles (the shop has only 1 shelf for HD-DVDs and 3 shelves for blu-ray titles). The blu-ray titles in Malaysia retail from RM149.90 (USD 44.57) to RM170.00 (USD 50.55).

My Blu-Ray collection:
Eragon, Flyboys, Hellboy, The Lake House, Mission Impossible III, Disturbia, The Covenant, Speed, & Superman Returns.

[bassmkanik808]

awesome! whats the region coding for southeast asia? im headed to the philippines this winter and i was planning on doing some blu-shopping

[micrococcus]

Originally Posted by bassmkanik808

awesome! whats the region coding for southeast asia? im headed to the philippines this winter and i was planning on doing some blu-shopping

It's Region A, same as the US. How convenient!

[flynho_PS3]

Wow! that is some great news for Blu...thanks for the info...it's becoming really clear how people are recognizing blu as superior format...

[w_tanoto]

Southeast asia seems to sided with blu....
philippine, I was told, is 100% blu, along with malaysia.
indonesia is (I've seen it with my own eyes) 100% blu.
The price is (Indonesian Rupiah): about IDR 400000 = GBP 20

All asia (except china) is region A (India -?)

[Ascended_Saiyan]

India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Russia, etc are region C. It seems they put all the high pirating areas into one region.

[Rio]

Only country Toshiba and M$ are caring about is US. Amir clearly stated in his recent interview on Japanese press AV Watch that they don't even care about Japanese market either, while Japanese market might be the only place where Toshiba was supposed to earn profit, instead of loss, from not subsidized HD DVD recorders, but in reality, no one seems buying their recorders .

They certainly think if they could paint US in red, or at least mix blue and red and make it in cyan, all others would follow suit .

[Jaui]

Even though larger retailers are starting to stock Blu-Ray movies, the cheapest way (even though it takes a while) is to order through Amazon.com... I figured it out to be about USD28 to 30 per disc which works out to be about RM96 including shipping... that's about a rm50 saving!!

Plus there will be no problems with zoning!!

[ifti7861]

anyone know of a good retail store in KL which has better range of blu rays than what speedy and rock corner has to offer? I have checked availability in KLCC and Mid Valley, but found the collection to be quite pathetic!

[iNCREDiPiNOY]

I want to see The Sleeping Dictionary on BLU.

[Blu Titan]

Welcome aboard to our Malasian members. It is nice to see that Blu-ray is becoming popular on a global basis.

[ranma]

The only place on the earth that hddvd is still struggling is china.

[ethanhawke]

Just replynig to Ascended_Saiyan that even though India is categorized into Region C, we are getting Region B players. There are no Region C players available here. Go to eu.playstation.com & you shall see India added in the list as well.

Then i think as per your point of view all the Europen as well as Asian countries are clubbed into a high pirated region ie REGION B.

[WickyWoo]

Malaysia is Region A, along with the rest of east asia

It's also the source of the majority of the bootleg DVDs and CDs on the market. Most pressing plants there moonlight for the triads

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by ifti7861

anyone know of a good retail store in KL which has better range of blu rays than what speedy and rock corner has to offer? I have checked availability in KLCC and Mid Valley, but found the collection to be quite pathetic!

There's a store in Cineleisure in Mutiara Damansara that imports stuff but they also have their source from the same companies. They may reduce their markup if you're a regular but don't expect Amazon prices.


fuad

[javaman_idn]

The best to get Blu-ray discs in Asia is to go to Hongkong. There, the disc is relatively cheap compare to other places, even Singapore. Even good news is that they import many from other places, such as US, Europe, Japan, etc, and even good news is that they release the new titles 2-3 weeks even before the US official release date.

To find out more on the release movies, see my thread below:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=34395

[MotionBlurr]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Russia, etc are region C. It seems they put all the high pirating areas into one region.

You're absolutely right. These countries are very into music and movies. I've seen stores bigger than Best Buy full of music and movies. I noticed that only the American movies were pirated. Also, they don't care much about picture quality because I've seen trilogies like Lords of the Rings all compressed into one DVD.

[Stepheno]

Hi, I'm a newbie. I just bought a PS3 machine and was testing out on the machine. I am testing out games and now finding for movies to test on this machine on my LCD TV. Anyone know where I can rent some Blu -ray movies in Malaysia (KL)?

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by Stepheno

Hi, I'm a newbie. I just bought a PS3 machine and was testing out on the machine. I am testing out games and now finding for movies to test on this machine on my LCD TV. Anyone know where I can rent some Blu -ray movies in Malaysia (KL)?

Not that I know of. The rental market is dead here.

Order from Amazon and make sure that the shipment is small (less than 10 BDs). Their price and shipping PER BD are easily cheaper than RM150. Make a list of the movies that you want, compare that with the list of BD titles already released, then compare that with reviews that gives it at least a thumbs up on audio and video and you're set to order.


fuad

[Stepheno]

Thanks Faud for the informative guide. I was just wondering how many Blu-ray user that we have in Malaysia today? Maybe we can trade the movie with each other.....was thinking in more economical way...hehehe