What's the deal with Columbia House videos? Are the series that you sign up for already complete, or are they still creating videos while you're ordering? I am considering buying Cheers, but they don't have that many volumes available, according to amazon.com. Is it better to just wait until these videos are available and purchase them on amazon.com for 9.95, instead of 19.95 a tape? What's the difference? Does amazon.copm not get them for a long time after they're released? Are the columbia videos complete versions of the show, with the corresponding themse songs for the episodes? If you're just joining, columbia house, can you get the first 5 videos in a series, for the 5 1 cent videos that you get for joining? Thanks in advance. I'm very confused about the whole thing.

You asked alot of questions, so I'll try to take them one at a time based on what I know. First of all the videos Columbia House puts out and the ones Amazon.com has are entirely different. While they may contain the same episodes, Columbia House NEVER to my knowlege sells their videos anywhere else besides their video club so you can't get them from Amazon.com.

Some series are complete whenever you first sign up and some aren't, it just depends on which series you want. Most of the time Columbia House releases 10-20 volumes of a series, and if sales are good enough they'll continue the series. Some series were released years ago and so those ship with no delays. Newer series sometimes have lulls between groups of tapes because of manufacturing or licensing delays.

As for the tapes themselves, I've seen several of their series and they've built a reputation for putting out a quality product. The shows are as complete as can be obtained and they are "authorized" videos, so you get the real theme songs as well. You can't use the 5 videos for a penny thing for the TV Collection though. If you sign up for a TV Collection you pay $4.95 for your first volume, and then 19.95 for each volume after that. That's before shipping BTW.

Originally posted by Chad Palmer:
While they may contain the same episodes, Columbia House NEVER to my knowlege sells their videos anywhere else besides their video club so you can't get them from Amazon.com.

I thought I heard somewhere that Suncoast or one of those other video stores sells the Columbia House videos. You have to wonder how people on eBay are able to get the videos in sealed format and sell them so cheaply.

I hadn't heard of that. eBay is a good place to find Columbia House videos cheap though. Alot of times people only watch the things once or twice then store them away and sell them cheap on eBay. I got 14 videos of one series for like $40 on there once, all in excellent condition.