How are the Star Wars VCD´s? (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan Dagmar]

But I DO collect novelty items!

 

[Edward Brand]

Jonathan,

Go for it. I used to own the set and think it is kind of cool to have. If you collect Star Wars "stuff" get this set. I like to collect 'ALIEN' memorabilia and get everything I can to satisfy my craving. For example I own an original super-8 film copy w/sound. It has around 8 minutes of the movie in p/s. I think it is so cool having this and I would never consider selling it. You will probably feel the same way about the vcd's in a few years. Just my 2-cents.

By the way the reason I sold the vcd's is to replace them with the Laser discs. I own the 'Faces' trilogy and the 'Special Edition' box and think they are wonderful to have. --Edward

 

[Randy B A]

Johnathan, yhpm

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

I know LOL, BRB, YMMV, ROTF, LMAO, ROTFLMAO, and a dozen others, but Randy B A, YHPM is one that I just don't get...

 

[Randy B A]

Sorry, That was supposed to be ygpm For youve got private mail. Typo with the G and H right next to each other.

I sent a PM to let you know that I have this set viewed once that I am willing to trade.

Randy B A

 

[Bryan_Bortz]

What the hell, is this real?!?!
http://www.coolvcd.com/viewproduct.asp?productcode=5864
-Owl

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

yes, that's real.

 

[Bryan_Bortz]

So all the VCDs at CoolVCD are all made by the studios?

Wow, I just find it amazing that studios make them... Specially since VCD = Pirating video in my mind...

-Owl

 

[JustinCleveland]

I doubt they are real, since they aren't listed on New Line's official site anywhere.

 

[Ray H]

VCDs may seem like bootleg material in America, but in Asian countries they seem to be just as common as DVDs and are released directly from studios.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

VCDs are legitmate, and popular in Asia, because when they were introduced in 1993, few homes in asia, unlike in North America, had VCRS.

 

[Jason Walstrom]

I've looked for the widescreen VHS of Empire strikes back for forever, does anyone know where i can find this brand new? I considered the vcd but it's not in widescreen so that defeats the purpose, i have the original Empire vhs that was released in the 80's and let's just say it has seen better days and it's in full screen.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

ebay would be a good bet.

Honestly I wouldn't bother with widescreen VHS at this point, as we (finally) only have one year to wait for the DVDs. I'd condier them as collectors items, except that VHS seems to have almost no value, unlike laserdics.

 

[Jason Walstrom]

Good point, i've waited this long, and once i did have the vhs widescreen it'd only make me long for the dvd.

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

the problem with widescreen vhs is that the resolution is so very poor. I have considered purchasing a laserdisc player and widescreen lasderdiscs, but i simply cant justify the rather singificant cost.

I do have the original, non special editions on VHS, but then my vcr is broken... It sucks, back in those days I didn't even know laserdisc existed, so the only copies of the un-edited original trilogy will eventually wear out.

maybe i should look into converting them to vcd myself..

 

[Jonathan Dagmar]

I recieved my Star Wars VCDs in the mail today, and I thought I would post my impressions.

First of all the packaging is much more flimsy and cheap than it looks in the pictures. But, hey, that's minor. The actual CDs are actually presented quite nicely.

Now, as for the quality of the video:

I considered ordering the NTSC VCDs from Honk Kong, which I was told featured a new transfer and overall better video quality, and since I live in NTSC land, it would have probably been better. However after working out that it would cost more than $50 Canadian dollars after shipping to order the much less common Hink Kong discs, I decided against it. These are novelties, I ain't spending $50+ dollars for shi**y pan and scan, lousy video quality that will never be watched again after the DVD's come out...

So instead I made a trade with a memmber of this forum for the Malaysian discs. Even though the disc are PAL they play back flawlessly. One anomally is that I was expecting the top and the bottom of the picture to be cropped as a result of playing back PAL on NTSC equipment, but after comparing a few frames on my PC which is, of course, not subject to the whole NTSC/PAL crap, I found that there were no scnaline being dropped... I can't quite figure this out....

The picture quality is terrible. I am not sure if it is worse than VHS or about the same. I haven't watched VHS in a long time (VCR broke, never replaced), and have never watched VHS on my current TV, so I was unable to do a direct comparison. I am inclined to think it is a little worse, especially due to compression artifacts. The picture is also quite jerky, obviously due to the MPEG 1 compression, we all know how MPEG compresses video by only updating the parts the frame that have changed, well, in this case it often doesnt update parts of the frames that HAVE chnaged. The resutling effect is quite odd... Oh well, I didn't expect much better...

The Audio fares better. While it is decidedly lacking in dynamic range (I had to turn down my reciever about 20 steps lower than the level I typcially listen to DVDs on), it was otherwise clear with good stereo separation. pro Logic 2 provided very nice surround sound. Curiously it didn't seem like the audio was suffering from PAL speedup which I cannot explain..

I am not the least bit disapointed with the VCDs, they are exactly what I was expecting. The end result however is an even more incredible desire for Star Wars on DVD!

UPDATE: Upon further listening (and watching) it is clear that there is PAL speed-up at work here. The jerky action of the MPEG compresion was masking the fact that everything is moving just a little faster than it should....and Harison for sounds just a little girly... I don't know how you Europeans can stand this, I am surprisingly sensestive to it...

Still am wondering how my player is displaying a PAL image on my NTSC TV without cropping scanlines...

 

[Michael Reuben]

Post regard bootleg DVDs deleted. As provided in the HTF Rules (Rules 12):

In addition, the discussion of bootleg material is prohibited in this forum in any form. Such posts will be deleted automatically without explanation.

It's an easy rule to follow: When you know something's a bootleg, don't talk about it. Simple.
M.