I just contributed a profile for the R3 Hong Kong release of the Japanese movie "Tada, kimi wo aishiteru" (Heavenly Forest). I had to contribute it by disc ID as DVD Profiler rejected the UPC/EAN printed on the packaging as non-valid (and hence wouldn't let me contribute).

Here's my scan of the rear cover, showing the UPC/EAN:



As you can see, there is a UPC/EAN of 9200801000118 clearly shown. This is an official R3 HK release (and as far as I know the only release of this film with English subtitles), not a bootleg or anything nasty like that. So is DVD Profiler right to be rejecting the UPC? Do they use some other non-standard numbering scheme in Hong Kong or something?

And was I right to contribute by disc ID?

Here is the link to that thread.

Quoting TheFly:

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As you can see, there is a UPC/EAN of 9200801000118 clearly shown.

Jupp, but that is a invalid EAN. The 'next' possible would be 9-200801-000112, as Giga already mentioned.

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Do they use some other non-standard numbering scheme in Hong Kong or something?

Most likely they simply don't want to pay(!) for the privilege to use UPC/EAN so they make up their own numbers.

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And was I right to contribute by disc ID?

Absolutely.

Quoting synner_man:

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The only suggestion I was given was to use the disc ID, but I would like to see the program implement their UPC/EAN scheme so we can properly contribute the titles.

Well, the problem would be that their namespace collides with the UPC/EAN. And further more, I really doubt that they coordinate with other HK-Distributors, so another one could even use exactly the same numbers for his different products.

cya, Mithi

Thanks for your responses everyone. It seems then that unless this company start using real EANs we'll have to continue contributing their releases by disc ID. Not a big deal, at least we have an alternative option.