Frequently Asked Questions

If the items you ordered are showing as "in stock", they usually ship the same day up until approximately 3PM PST Monday through Friday. Holidays excluded. If all or part of your order is incomplete, we will hold the order until all items are received.

If an item is NOT in stock, here's what generally happens. Unless we're out of a lot of titles for a particular producer, we don't replenish the stock UNTIL someone places an order for it. So if something you want is out of stock, it usually won't get re-ordered unless someone else does or we are placing an order from this producer. If you place the order, then we'll get it in as quickly as possible.

No. ALL our inventory is ordered directly from the independent producers or publishing dealer representatives. Many independent producers "burn" their own product — they burn the DVD themselves, print the overwrap and box them. Some do a more professional job at it than others. Many farm the job out to professional duplicators.

There are a few titles out there with no runtime listed and the time is not supplied by the producer. We suggest you contact the producer and ask why there is no runtime on their particular DVD.

No. All of our products are unopened direct from the producer. Some producers do not shrinkwrap. We encourage you to contact the producer and ask them why they skip this step. The following producers usually do not shrinkwrap: C Vision (newest releases have a security seal on one edge, but aren't shrinkwrapped), Sunday River Productions, Mark I Video, Goodheart, Pacific Vista, Plets, and a few others.

Almost all of the producers work out of their house or a small office. Train DVDs are an extremely small and specialized segment of the market — sales are not in the millions like mainstream DVDs. Some producers simply charge more for their product. In some cases it's based on how difficult it was to obtain or shoot the footage. Vintage-based content is generally more expensive than modern footage.

We want you to get the best bang for your buck, so if you have any particular interests, feel free to contact us for recommendations. We know of hours worth of top-of-the-line vintage footage for under $20.

There are a lot of producers out there and we want to carry the cream of the crop. If you know of a good producer, or you're a producer yourself and want to see your product carried here, please contact us! Unfortunately some producers do not see the benefit of having their product available in more than one place and don't offer their products to resellers.

We don't rent, and we don't know of anyone doing this. Most of the producers we carry prohibit rentals.

Remember before TVs were giant and wide? We used to look at a tube TV that was more square — a 4:3 ratio (4 wide × 3 high). Almost all videos shot before the early 2000s were shot this way, which is called Full Screen. Widescreen fits your current LED/LCD screens. Full Screen will still play, but there will be black stripes on the sides.

DVD and Blu-ray (often mis-spelled as "Blue Ray") are two totally separate types of optical disc. Blu-ray discs are hi-definition and can only be displayed on a high definition TV or computer monitor, and require a Blu-ray player. Blu-rays will NOT play in any DVD player regardless of the type of TV you have.

However, Blu-ray players are backwards compatible — they will play any DVD or CD with no problem. If you have a 1080p or 4K TV, consider replacing your DVD player with a Blu-ray player. They can be had for approximately $65, sometimes cheaper during holidays, and even $5–10 at thrift stores.

We ship all around the world at the lowest rates of anyone. We don't profit from shipping — in fact we subsidize all shipping methods; the price we charge is lower than our cost. See our Shipping Charges page for details.

All of our titles except for Hollywood movies are English only.

Most (but not all) of the DVDs we carry are not regionally encoded (Region Code 0), meaning they will play on any DVD player in the world as long as it can play NTSC DVDs. Most new players can play NTSC or PAL format, and many are now capable of playing any region. We show the region encoding on all individual product pages. Hollywood-type DVDs and Sunday River Productions are the only ones we know of that are regionally encoded.

We pride ourselves on having some of the lowest shipping charges in the business. Don't be fooled by cheaper product prices elsewhere — you'll likely find that their shipping charges are unreasonably high. → Shipping Charges

Yes, this is now possible. We are located in the tiny town of Kensington, CA. Please contact us to arrange it.

We mostly use the US Postal Service, occasionally FedEx and UPS. The method depends upon your choice at checkout. If you must have something by a specific date, we highly recommend contacting us first for the best method. USPS Priority Mail usually delivers in 2–3 days.

International orders ship via Asendia, though we are working to change carriers as Asendia can be slow.

USPS Ground Advantage is generally 2–5 days depending on your location. Economy Media Mail is similar, maybe a day later, and can be a bit unpredictable around holidays. Priority Mail is usually 2–3 days (sometimes 4). In general, anything going USPS will make it, but sometimes packages get routed incorrectly or delayed.

The estimated time shown on the product page is tailored to that particular producer. Some items will be 3–5 days because they deliver fast, others longer. We generally place new orders with producers when stock is low or someone has placed an order. So if you want something that's out of stock, the best way to ensure you get it as quickly as possible is to order it right away — then we'll place a replenishment order.

Please call us at 510-868-5098. We can ship any method using any of the major shipping companies. Priority Mail is generally 1–3 days to most parts of the country. FedEx is exactly 3 business days. We can also offer FedEx or UPS overnight. We don't recommend USPS Express overnight.

a) Freezing or skipping at various points. Try playing it in another player. If it does the same thing at the same spot, you've likely got a defect — please contact us. Note: a disc that has its data slightly off may play fine on some players but not others.

b) No audio. This comes up quite a bit, especially with older Sony players. The audio track is there — the player just can't find it. Look on your remote for an AUDIO or SAP button and press it to cycle audio tracks. Or go to your player's MENU and look for an audio track setting. Once you find and fix it, you shouldn't need to do it again.

c) Damaged case or scratched disc. Contact us. You can continue playing a scratched disc until we send a replacement — your player is optical and cannot be harmed by a scratch (or a magnet!).

Note: some very old DVD players cannot handle DVD-R discs. Contact us if you suspect this is the case.