CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 7

CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 7 • 2/13/1999
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 13:09:27 -0800 (PST)
From: Jesse Skeen
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 6

Re "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", I've only found this once, and the disc 
turned out to have a crack in it so I can't play it. I don't know how the 
transfer was, I have a copy of the Media Home Entertainment VHS, which 
came out after Wizard Video went under, and it's pretty bad looking, this 
was filmed in cheap 16mm so that may have been the way it's supposed to 
look. I'll probably get the new DVD just because it has extra "making of" 
material, I'm a little offended that they remixed this for stereo though 
since this was such a low-budget film, it says the DVD also has the 
original mono soundtrack too though.
I do have one other Wizard Video title, "The Boogey Man", kind of strange 
how Vestron distributed their titles on disc- these were on laserdisc 
too- when as far as I can tell their tapes did not have the Vestron 
label. Another strange one is "Death Wish II", which was on tape from 
Warner but both disc formats were from Vestron.
RCA did not want any porno stuff to be on CED because they wanted it to 
be a more wholesome, "family-oriented" product, RCA did however put out 
the only X-rated movie, "Last Tango in Paris" (I don't know whether 
Caligula had any rating.) Someone told me RCA factory workers were 
offered taking the day off when they pressed that if they were offended 
by it. Vestron Video certainly had some of the more interesting things on 
CED though, with stuff like "Candid Candid Camera," a Showtime special, 
and "Penthouse Video Magazine" and a strange European 
movie starring Tony Curtis playing Cassanova in "Sex on the Run", which 
pushed the envelope a bit. But let's not forget Vestron had the biggest 
selling direct-to-video title of its time, Michael Jackson's "Thriller". 
They contributed greatly to the early years of home video, but after they 
started distributing theatrical films, they had one success with "Dirty 
Dancing" but only flops after that which dragged them down. Live 
Entertainment (now called Artisan) picked up many of Vestron's titles, 
but left a lot of stuff out in the cold yet to be reissued.
The only other stuff that would have gone into the "adult" section in a 
video store was Playboy's 1982-83 "video magazines" and "Playmate Review" 
titles, from CBS/Fox Video of all places. A friend of mine was surprised 
to see these existed on CED.
An interesting idea- how about someone compare the CED and DVD editions 
of the same movie? I don't yet have the same movie on both formats yet, 
but I'm sure someone on this mailing list does.

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From: junkfellow
Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 08:17:41 -0500 (EST)
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: Caligula

Caligula could be the nastiest CED except this is the R rated version
with a lot cut. I remeber a scene in the movie theater missing from the
disk where they castrate a guy and feed it to the royal hounds. Several
people got up and left the theater after that. I heard the big name actors
in the movie didn't know about these other scenes and were shocked when
they saw the final version. Another adult disk is Eroticize, an exercise
disk with Kitten Navidad. I watched 10 minutes of this and thought this
was a Jane Fonda workout clone with Kitten filling in for Jane, but
watched more of it a couple years later and was surprised whne the ladies
start losing their outfits until theyre stark naked by the end.

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Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 10:34:45 -0500 (EST)
From: kate jenkins
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: comments: disney/death to DIVX/adult CEDs

> Another note about Disney- when the first ever laserdiscs were out (under
> the MCA/Discovision label) there were a few "Wonderful World of Disney"
> shows available, and on the back cover was a cool picture of Mickey Mouse
> reaching out of a TV screen hitting the play button on a Magnavox
> laserdisc player, which look nothing like the later models! For some
> reason, Disney denies these discs ever existed, and when someone was
> shown one of the covers, they said someone could have made it with a
> computer! What reason they would have for this is anyone's guess...

My guess is that Disney is such a huge company with so many divisions and 
products, the spokespeople who work for Disney in 1999 do not even know 
about products they put out in the past.

And it seems in the world of CED, no one wants to admit they ever had 
anything to do with it. Including RCA! I guess this is what makes the 
format such a loveable pariah to us all. How many times have people come 
to your house and exclaimed, "I've never seen or even heard of one of these 
things!"

> evidence of their existence. Divx just may overtake CED in being the
> biggest mistake in consumer electronics history, and rightfully so, as
> nothing before has tried to take away as much control from consumers.

DIVX will die. No matter how hard Circuit City tries to push them. 
Every comsumer who has DIVX explained to them can see the logic flaws. Do 
you know any real person who thinks it's a cool idea to have to buy 
something twice? The only people who like the idea of DIVX are it's 
creators. And they should have done a public opinion poll before ever 
releasing it.

> through Vestron Video.How rare or common is this disc? Also was there any
> Porno released on CED format? I noticed that the movie "CALIGULA" is on CED.

I remember reading in a past issue of this digest (I believe) that "The 
Story of O" was pressed but never released (making the copies 
extrememly rare) because it was too risque. Although story of o is 
considered a "classic" it's very softcore. If my memory serves me 
correctly, nudity in the movie is brief and infrequent. It's more of a 
"mental" stimulation thing, I think.

Take care,  Kate.

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From: KatGlen1
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 19:39:37 EST
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 6

I have "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" on CED.  I purchased them new back in the
early 80's.  Both are on the RCA label.  Black and white was more forgiving
with CED and they look pretty good.  I have not seen any of the old Universal
films on CED anywhere in many years, but I do remember in the early 80's they
were very easy to come by at the dealers selling new discs.  I lived in
Sacramento then and RCA had a dealer there (Advanced TV) who ordered 3 copies
(minimum) of every new CED disc as it was released.  This store was very
supportive of CED.  When RCA announced they were getting out of CED and the
players were heavily discounted the owner took me back into the warehouse one
day and there was over 200 new machines in inventory.  Boxes of new players
stacked about 10 feet high.  SJT100, 300, 400, etc.  I still remember this
like it was just a short time ago.  How would you like to find some of these
babies new in boxes today?        Glenn

<< see any of the classic Universal monster films (Frankenstein, Dracula, the
 Mummy, etc.) on CED. Are these particularly rare? If they exist, does
 anyone have them for sale? (I've purchased several CEDs through eBay over
 the last year, but I have yet to see any the abovementioned films there!) >>

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Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 6
From:  peterg
To: "Tom Howe" <ceds@teleport.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 01:07:21 -0500

 Wanted: Working remote for the SGT-250 CED player. It doesnt have to be 
for the SGT-250 only the SGT 300 remote works on the 250 also. I am also 
in need of a needle for my SGT-250, I would like the needle that came 
with the 250 not the 14900 for the SGT-100.

 Also would discs skip more if the alligment of a needle was off my just 
a hair? I put new old 14900 needle in my SGT-250. It seems to skip more 
then when I had the 15400 that was in the player. I also have a disc that 
has was brand new before I played it. When I did play it it skipped like 
crazy. I didnt see any marks on the discs itself. However that particular 
discs came in a box with 17 others. They seemed to be packed well, but 
could have suffered from the old discs stacked on top of each other 
syndrome. Some of the other discs in that lot skip more then the should. 
However some discs that never skipped now skip more then when I had the 
original needle(15400) in the 250,then now with the new old 14900.

 So coud the skipping problem have to do with the alligment of the new 
old 14900 and or the discs?

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To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: Caligula and others
From: craig v roberts
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 07:10:08 EST

  I have the ced CALIGULA and it was done by Penthouse so it is no
surprise there is a fair amount of T&A on that movie.  Personally, I
think I CLAUDIUS was the best video done on the decadence of the Roman
Empire. That was not done on ced, unfortunately.  There were several
other racey movies done on the ced format but I do not want to encourage
the prurient interests of folks on this website.  Alfred Hitchcock had it
right when he did REAR WINDOW.   If anybody is interested in titles,
e-mail me.  I did run across a batch of these whose previous owner had an
interest in soft porn.   CRAIG   Greenbelt, Maryland
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