For background info, please understand I am a major domo home-theater enthusiast who has, among other things, ordered hundreds of mainstream titles through such superb online vendors as DVD Empire, the old 800.com, and others. In all that time, I have received but three errant shipments in which the discs had come loose from their keepcase retaining spindles. (Two of them were Star Trek: TOS volumes.)

And this is out of more than 450 DVDs in my library. I have purchased only four or five titles at brick-and-mortar stores.

As a rule, the mainstream studios release quality product.

My luck with adult titles, on the other hand, is way more hit-or-miss. And the principle offending studios appear to be Filmco (the Peeing Contest people) and Mother Productions/Fetish Films. In the past three or so weeks I have received seven or eight titles in which the discs were rattling around loose in their cases and were very scratched as a result.

Interestingly, all the discs loaded and played flawlessly in my three players (a Sony DVPS-9000ES, a Sony DVP-S550D, and a Toshiba SD-2800). However, I pay for scratch-free discs.

What I have done, in some cases, is keep the scratched discs, and have continued to order the same titles over again through Adult DVD Empire (the staff is unfailingly helpful, and has even extended credit to me for some discs I kept). And some of these titles I would reorder anyway--Mother Productions's Peeing series, I fear, may be not long for this John Ashcroft-empowered world. I could see these excellent videos becoming extinct under the present illegal junta occupying the White House.

But what's up with the quality control at these studios' replicating houses? Why can they not purchase better keepcases?

I have no choice but to order online. Even here in Los Angeles, the porn capitol of the world, it's hard to find such specialty titles in a b&m. Yet, I am getting tired of this hold-my-breath-and-hope-the-disc-arrives-safely routine.

Yesterday's experience is what has become an-all-too-common case in point. I received my latest DVD Empire order: one mainstream title (Blackhawk Down ) and two adult titles (Mother's newest peeing release, Squat & Squirt #3 , and Filmo's latest, Watch Me Tinkle ). Both adult discs arrived loose and were rattling in their cases. And both were scratched yet playable.

Thing is, the Watch Me Tinkle disc was itself intended as a replacement for an earlier copy of the same title which also had arrived loose and scratched (yet playable).

I have decided to ask my favorite contact at DVD Empire if she might be able to get in touch directly with the marketing people at Mother Productions and Filmco and advise them as to these quality-control issues.

This situation is simply unacceptable.

Meanwhile, I will return the second copy of Watch Me Tinkle and simply keep Squat & Squirt #3 and reorder it in the hopes of receiving a pristine copy.

But I am weary of holding my breath in apprehensive unease in much the same way I feel just prior to a Space Shuttle launch: I only breathe a sigh of relief when there's a happy ending.

Edited by - cygnus5 on Jun 22 2002