joshboy

hi guys there was a site i used not ebay about 5weeks ago to buy some legit vcd movies they had International shipping and that was cool and there prices where cheap

i cant find the site anymore have no clue what it was called the movies where eng

any help would be great i know i could get dvds but love to collect for vcd

manicsounds

Why in these days of HD would anyone want to buy a low quality Video CD?

If you bought some discs about 5 weeks ago, you should have emails or a receipt from the site you bought it from, no?

joshboy

used a visa gift card

also i never liked blu-ray much

DJariya

Seriously, you prefer VCD over Blu-Ray?

I admit, I pick up a few $2 VCDs when I go to Hong Kong on vacation for a few junk titles I don't want to spend alot of money on. But the quality of the video is mostly horrendous, especially on a big HDTV. Plus there aren't any extras either.

VCDs are equivalent in video quality to VHS if not worse.

joshboy

i do like blu-ray got lots of cheap blu-rays like simpsons s20 for like $5 and some movies like doom for $1 and family guy its a trap for $1 and lots more all new

but i like vcd as they are cheap and just about anything can play them and if done right vcd movies can look fine

i found the site there movies are $4.50 to $5.50 free shipping anywhere in the world

and what is cool is if you buy $16 worth of stuff on there site you get 5% off and faster shipping

i only get vcd to add to my collection if the dvd of the movie going to cost 3x/4x more then vcd

Brian T

I'll side with the OP on this one, though possibly not for the same reasons. As soon as I saw the discussion title, I knew before clicking that most of the responses would essentially be ragging on him after presuming he favored VCDs over Blu-rays simply because he bought VCDs. That's unfair, but SOP whenever someone dares profess an interest in or need for the format.

My own library is primarily Blu-ray and DVD like everyone else's, but the lowly VCDs have their place. My personal stockpile of Chinese movies (Hong Kong, Taiwan, some mainland stuff), while largely comprised of DVDs and a small amount of Blu-rays (mostly unnecessary, but hey), is also home to a hefty contingent of VCDs, nearly every single one of them containing films never released on DVD or Blu-ray, and unlikely ever to be released on any superior format, and nearly all of them scoured from Chinatown bargain bins for as little as a buck. And these aren't always unworthy films or "junk titles", either; it's just that the better formats can't be justified for every single Hong Kong movie ever made in a market so rife with piracy for so long. If you want to study the form with any seriousness, you simply can't ignore the format that is still widely sold throughout Asia, especially for older, more obscure nuggets from nearly any period save the current one.

Personally, I wouldn't bother getting most American of otherwise western films on the format. Perhaps "Joshboy" does? And if cost savings is the reason, hey, more power to you as long as you get to WATCH the movies one way or another. I will admit to finding the occasional low-budget American and Euro movie that has never seen the light of day here on DVD or Blu-ray. These are generally the kinds of drive-in marvels that many folks here have soft spots for, so it's always fun to uncover them in any digital format while rummaging through various Chinatown haunts in the area, or in the musty corners of YesAsia, Buyoyo, DDDHouse, etc.

Sometimes there really is no alternative, even when prevailing wisdom assumes there is.

And I've got tons of VCDs that are preferable to VHS. As DJariya noted above (while admitting he actually buys 'em ) there are plenty of dodgy ones out there, but my fairly extensive experience with them has taught me that there are just as many good ones on the whole. As good as DVD or Blu? Of course not. But they get the job done and enable me to see a LOT of movies few others will ever see by waiting for them to show up on better formats.

joshboy

what you have said is true

joshboy

facebook . com/VcdCollector

Pizza

You sound like a commercial for this site. And, gosh, it looks like you found the name of the place on your own. Hmmm...

Mr. Salty

And as usual it sounds like he buys mostly bootlegs, regardless of which media format he buys.

Brian T

In fairness to the discussion -- if not necessarily the OP (if what Mr. Salty says is true) -- there are still several companies manufacturing and releasing legitimate VCDs throughout Asia, and by extension the diasporas. These are films from around the world, including Hollywood. They're not hard to source, although as I mentioned, the wise movie buff should only resort to them for titles unavailable on any other format in any other region. Such titles are plentiful on VCD, or at least they were once upon a time (which is why I tend to find them rummaging through musty boxes in the few remaining video stores in Toronto's six Chinatowns. Granted, VCDs, especially overseas, are likely still pirated just as much as DVDs and Blu-rays, but as with those formats, it hasn't stopped the production of the real deal.

Ash Ketchum

The Shaw Bros. VCDs from Celestial generally looked good and were a good low-cost way to sample unfamiliar SB titles and then if they were good, upgrade if you could, but only IF they were also available on DVD, which wasn't always the case. And when the Chinatown stores started phasing out SB titles, I wound up buying dozens of these films cheaply on VCD because they would all soon be out of print.

Brian T

Same here. Those Shaw VCDs were some of the best ever pressed. This town's been a gold mine for clearance-priced Shaw discs. Not just VCDs, but DVDs, too. Seems like every time I clear a place out, a week later they've suddenly discovered a bunch more in some back room or basement. Since I'd already amassed a goodly portion of the Celestial library at "new" prices, it's a relief to fill in the holes (and get some tradable doubles and triples) for as little as $1.00 per VCD and $3.00 - $4.00 per DVD.

Over the years at various Asian cinema discussion forums, I've read comments by supposed fans of Hong Kong cinema -- including those who would anoint themselves "experts" -- dismissing the VCD format outright, as if anything released on it but not on DVD simply wasn't worth watching anyway. Certainly when it comes to Hong Kong cinema, that's about as far from the truth as you can get. Of course, it also makes easier the task of dismissing -- or at least questioning -- the experience and critical opinions of those same experts.

I've also spent years sourcing movies from Hong Kong's post-handover "videogramme" era, which ran roughly from 1998/9 through to 2004, and which remains almost entirely ignored by supposed fans and scholars alike. While the city's industry was still shooting many productions on film during this period, they were inarguably shooting more of them on video (utilizing the gamut of equipment quality), and it's these shows that kept an impressive number of performers and crew (relatively) gainfully employed through the decline/leveling off of the industry and the inevitable (and personally lamented) shift of focus toward co-productions with the mainland.

Most of these movies (sometimes entire series' worth like the NEW OPTION or BOND'S ANGELS or TROUBLESOME NIGHT serials) were designed to fill shelves, turn small profits on miniscule investments, and keep faces in the public eye. Plenty of them are forgettable, some even inept and sad, but there are some real gems to be found, and occasionally they represent the early work of filmmakers who continue to toil away in Hong Kong's increasingly well-regarded independent film scene (the kinds of movies that don't get video releases in North America or reviews on DVD Talk, sadly). While many of these productions were distributed on both formats (and even in small theatre chains owned by the production companies, as in the case of B&S Films), most saw release only on VCD.

Alan Smithee

It seems harder to find something that will play VCDs these days- most of the early DVD players could play them, but many new ones can't.

Brian T

This probably goes without saying, but in Chinatowns far and wide you can not only get DVD players that will still play multiple formats (including VCD), but brand new dedicated VCD players, too. The latter, i'd imagine, are probably not big sellers. Also, I was in a Walmart superstore here just the other night and noticed that at least two of the cheapo-but-still-brand-name DVD players still had VCD capability listed on the box (along with -R, +R, CD, etc). So they're still out there, to some degree.

hanshotfirst1138

I have a few VCDs of some Hong Kong films which you STILL can't get uncut, remastered and English-subtitles after all of these years like the Chinese cut of Police Story IV: First Strike, Fist of Legend, Tsui Hark's The Blade, and of course, the accursed Drunken Master II. My Blu-Ray player and DVD player both played them, surprisingly, and let me switch between the Cantonese left channel and Mandarin right channel like I could switch between audio tracks on a DVD. They look terrible, but hey, it's the only way to get some of the version of these movies. I think it's the only place to get the Once Upon A Time in Triad Society and School on Fire, to name a few.

Brian T

I've got those ones, too! They're like hidden treasures, and it kills me that no companies either there or here have bothered to included the extra footage for those showsAnyone who wants to consider themselves a serious Hong Kong cinema buff yet scoffs at the format -- even today, when it's still widely produced in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China -- should probably rethink their interests! And noted by the titles you mention, Hong Kong cinema is just such that, probably more than any other cinema out there, multiple extant versions were quite often the rule rather than the exception back in the day, even for top shelf shows.

The Once Upon A Time In Triad Society films are criminally under-appreciated films, especially the second one, and virtually impossible to track down now (and the only thing worse than VCD quality is VCD quality run through YouTube, but hey, at lea sty they're there!). Of course, they're just two among hundreds of such Hong Kong films I've discovered in my travels, a fact made all the more frustrating whenever an American DVD label takes the easy road and releases yet another derivative, repetitive, tiresome Mainland action epic simply because it has swords, or kung-fu, or bullet ballet or one of about six former Hong Kong box office kings above the title. Or loads of CGI. I'd kill for Criterion to find some grouping of "representative" Hong Kong films for inclusion in an Eclipse box set, where flaws in source material quality are more easily explained away (as they would need to be for a great many HK films). I couldn't even begin to make a list it would be so long, but there would be plenty that have only ever been released on the humble VCD.

(School on Fire was released on DVD, by the way, as part of Joy Sales' Legendary Collection. Cut version, of course. I think the VCD was cut, too, although I vaguely recall there being differences between the two. It's been awhile, though. I think the first Triad Society film may have seen a DVD release somewhere, too (I never found it), but I'm almost certain the not-really-a-sequel -- which is awesome -- was strictly VCD)

hanshotfirst1138

It's kind of surprising that they got released at all on home video, even on VCD.

It's sadly the only way to see a lot of HK films.

I don't know if they've gotten released any other way. I think there might've been laserdisc releases, and I think Tai Seng's VHS versions were lifted off of those.

That's not what's frustrating, what's frustrating is that so many of those classic HK films which get released over and over and over STILL haven't gotten proper releases. 83rd time still isn't the charm.

Hong Kong has been pretty underrepresented by Criterion. The tangled web of rights issues probably doesn't help, nor does the fact that HK releases have had such horrible storage conditions.

joshboy

Cool

joshboy

i only buy official release vcd movies

Mr. Salty

Mm-hmm, sure.

A quote by you in a previous VCD thread: "i will pick up a bootleg one here and there if the shop is having 4cds for $1"

MisterHowie

Sometimes I buy a cheaper VCD when it's a movie I don't care to keep but I want to get a version with Chinese subtitles to watch with my mom. It's convenient in that way, but the PQ is pretty awful.