Originally posted by: Karyudo
I've read in the past that often the R4 release of some films is compromised in some way, when compared to the R1 -- or even the R2? -- release (which is one of the reasons that antipodean consumers have a high rate of region-free DVD player adoption, presumably).

Actually, it is more often the other way around; R4 releases generally get all the same features as R1 (or even more in many cases), but with PAL resolution. As boris mentioned, pretty much all R2 and R4 releases are the same. A good R1/R4 comparision site is michaeldvd.com.au. Of the DVDs they've reviewed they considered 3,636 releases to be even, 1,275 R1 releases to be better and 2,629 R4 releases to be better.

I'd say the real reason for the high adoption of region-free players isn't because we all buy R1 releases (I don't know anyone that does, I don't even know many that have a clue what region-coding is), but because in New Zealand region coding was actually deemed illegal and all players HAVE to be sold region-free, whereas in Australia it was seen as anti-competitive so all retailers had to mod the players on request, or often just did it anyway. Recently a retailer was trying to convince me that the opposite is now true in Australia due to the free trade agreement with the US, hadn't heard about that anywhere, but probably just because no one here cares about R1!

EzyDVD (the store boris mentioned) and JB Hifi are probably your best bets. JB Hifi usually is a little cheaper, but EzyDVD probably ships cheaper (and often have more bonuses, half their items tend to be in 'limited edition tin cases'!).