VCDs

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

In the interim period between VHS and DVD, a format emerged known as VCDs. Movies were recorded over two ordinary CDs with better quality than your basic VHS for less money. Pirates loved them as they were easy to buy, burn and distribute - if you had a PC with a CD drive, you could play these movies. They were more prevalent in China and the East in general, but found a niche in Western territories. Did you ever play with VCD movies back in the day?

 

[fla4fun]

In the interim period between VHS and DVD, a format emerged known as VCDs. Movies were recorded over two ordinary CDs with better quality than your basic VHS for less money. Pirates loved them as they were easy to buy, burn and distribute - if you had a PC with a CD drive, you could play these movies. They were more prevalent in China and the East in general, but found a niche in Western territories. Did you ever play with VCD movies back in the day?

I don’t recall seeing anything like that here in the US. I went straight from VHS to DVD myself.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I vaguely remember getting a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on VCD off eBay a long time ago. It would play in the DVD player, but was obviously some kind of pirated thing, but it was OK, got to see the episodes lol

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

What's the current format? DVD was a breath of fresh air, I still remember my first copy (it was Hopkins and Moore in "Hannibal"). But soon we progressed on to BluRay and the failed HD-DVD format, then 3D-BluRay, now, am I right in saying that 4K is taking over? Tech flies by so fast!

 

[bcla]

I'd heard of them. Apparently they sold well in Asia because of a pirate market, but also where a lot of legitimate distributors chose to use the format. I found this of a legal Disney VCD from Singapore. However, they were unencrypted and often available on the gray market. It was also possible for people to make their own VCDs out of home videos that were digitized.

Part of the criticism over them was the poor quality of pirated VCDs. I heard the professionally encoded VCDs were better than VHS but certainly not as high resolution as DVD. They tended to look clean.

 

[bcla]

What's the current format? DVD was a breath of fresh air, I still remember my first copy (it was Hopkins and Moore in "Hannibal"). But soon we progressed on to BluRay and the failed HD-DVD format, then 3D-BluRay, now, am I right in saying that 4K is taking over? Tech flies by so fast!

HD-DVD died. I think the current ones are all an offshoot of Blu-Ray.

Still - physical media is pretty rare these days. Most people stream. Even if videos are "purchased" that's typically in the form of continued access via the internet.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Pirate movies, IIRC, were a bit pot luck. You ranged from Screeners (taken from an authorised source such as DVD or likewise VCD), Cammed (some dodgy geezer filming in a cinema, often with subtitles and AWFUL picture quality, maybe a few audience members coughing!) and TeleSync, where the video was taken from a movie theatre but the sound was from an official source.

Not that I bought pirated movies, obviously

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

There are also derivatives.

SVCDs are MUCH higher resolution, comparable to DVD, but take up 3-4 CDs per film. DivX VCDs were decent digital copies usually on a single CD. then there were CVCDs, VCD-X, SVCD-X and so on... I couldn't keep up!

 

[BrianL]

VCD did exist here, but you couldn't get a lot of movies on them. They were pretty niche.

 

[tvguy]

I've never heard of VCD. And I have always kind of had a soft spot for odd ball formats. Back in 1979 when I bought my first VCR, my choices were Beta, VHS and Q-Format. Beta had better video quality than VHS but only one hour recording time . VHS could record more.....2 or 4 hours per tape, and right as I bought my first VCR, they introduced 6 hour recording speed. Q format used a VHS tape, but recorded differently so the video quality was better than VHS. I came very close to buying the Q format machine....Q standing for Quasar. It was off the market within a year.

 

[barkley]

Pirate movies, IIRC, were a bit pot luck. You ranged from Screeners (taken from an authorised source such as DVD or likewise VCD), Cammed (some dodgy geezer filming in a cinema, often with subtitles and AWFUL picture quality, maybe a few audience members coughing!) and TeleSync, where the video was taken from a movie theatre but the sound was from an official source.

Not that I bought pirated movies, obviously

there are still pirate movies (not that i have any 'personal knowledge') and the quality can be STUNNING. what is truly amazing is when it's something that had to have been taken from an old taped recording of a tv airing b/c the movie/show/special never aired in a theater or was legaly released on beta/vhs/dvd/bluray/streaming.

 

[tvguy]

there are still pirate movies (not that i have any 'personal knowledge') and the quality can be STUNNING. what is truly amazing is when it's something that had to have been taken from an old taped recording of a tv airing b/c the movie/show/special never aired in a theater or was legaly released on beta/vhs/dvd/bluray/streaming.

Seems like every State Fair, County Fair or show with Vendors has pirated DVDs (and VHS) tapes of Disney's "Song of The South". Has to be pirated because Disney never released Song of The South on any home format in the U.S.
Just checking, you can get it on Amazon. But I sure don't see "Disney" anywhere on the package online.

 

[barkley]

Seems like every State Fair, County Fair or show with Vendors has pirated DVDs (and VHS) tapes of Disney's "Song of The South". Has to be pirated because Disney never released Song of The South on any home format in the U.S.
Just checking, you can get it on Amazon. But I sure don't see "Disney" anywhere on the package online.

the copies available on amazon likely originated in japan where disney's copyright ended in 2021 and the film entered public domain. prior to 2021 any time a copy came up on amazon, etsy or other fairly publicized sites they were taken down pretty quickly.

 

[tvguy]

the copies available on amazon likely originated in japan where disney's copyright ended in 2021 and the film entered public domain. prior to 2021 any time a copy came up on amazon, etsy or other fairly publicized sites they were taken down pretty quickly.

But I don't see Disney on the packaging or description anywhere which I find odd.

 

[bcla]

But I don't see Disney on the packaging or description anywhere which I find odd.

The Disney logo and name are trademarked. That being said, I thought the discussion was about Song of the South, which is still under Disney's copyright.

 

[tvguy]

The Disney logo and name are trademarked. That being said, I thought the discussion was about Song of the South, which is still under Disney's copyright.

See Post # 13 Song of the South is available from Amazon. And as I mentioned, from vendors at just about every State and County Fair.
https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Song...5098&sprefix=song+of+the+south,aps,162&sr=8-1

 

[bcla]

See Post # 13 Song of the South is available from Amazon. And as I mentioned, from vendors at just about every State and County Fair.
https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Song-South-DVD-Deluxe/dp/B0B4BQXMV9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Q8SBB5D9NRHM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.uF22nMVn58I_5UgFXhff8_xKJhjQYE4LpDL2YgNNBCRl2b-5wK91a5Py2gMSohP4gLl5yqqs_qfiP5WAG3DCBLxA7lkOasfG0bpyIR1pu3SVBhUCQS1mz_3YRm4WOQ_EFzneSx2HgJbRTQnX7r4J077u9SZZHk2xNEUnzr74ojtuaDC5aqzKTCN3BT63884gasLYSYtdmiN6TIPZ8LNVHlMycIF6jpaITC5w9NaWtc0.WRd1NjvBCYvUyxIr50ixcKZT70VPVmPsO2ck36eiPzM&dib_tag=se&keywords=song+of+the+south&qid=1711855098&sprefix=song+of+the+south,aps,162&sr=8-1

I checked one of the reviews that said it came on a "recordable DVD". It's clearly unauthorized and I'm surprised that Amazon hasn't removed the listing and banned the seller.

They certainly have a policy against bootleg products. I would think it has to fit under one of these:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/201165970​

It is each seller’s and supplier’s responsibility to source, sell, and fulfill only authentic products. Prohibited products include bootlegs, fakes, or pirated copies of products or content; products that have been illegally replicated, reproduced, or manufactured; and products that infringe another party’s intellectual property rights. If you sell or supply inauthentic products, we may immediately suspend or terminate your Amazon selling account (and any related accounts) and dispose of any inauthentic products in our fulfillment centers at your expense. In addition, we do not pay sellers until we are confident our customers have received the authentic products they ordered. We may withhold payments if we determine that an Amazon account has been used to sell inauthentic goods, commit fraud, or engage in other illegal activity.​