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There was a thread about disc rot in one of the forums, and I recalled that the early Vivid DVDs I bought among the first ones to test my original PC-based DVD setup had a pattern of swirly clouds on the surface. Had some problems playing them on the PC as well, but that might have been unrelated.
Anyway, to get to the point of this, I dusted off the Ancient Secrets of the Kama Sutra DVD to see if it had developed any "disc rot", which it hadn't - but I did notice that the video quality still compared favourably with most adult DVD offerings I have seen - although naturally not with mainstream titles, which leads me to wonder why Vivid is often cited as producing bad quality discs (editing aside).
I remembered reading some discussion about the flipside of this disc being an audio CD, although at the time neither my CD player or PC recognized the flipside as anything playable. This time I decided to test it again, not expecting any result, but I when put the disc upside down in my DVD drive, it was indeed recognized as an audio CD.
What this audio CD contains seems to be a collection of fairly monotonous hymns. Based on a web search the one I happened to listen is "Jesus, Kneel Beside Me" by Allen E. Cross and Sabine Baring-Gould. I have no idea about the performers, and Winamp's CDDB plugin did not recognize this CD.
The juxtaposition of materials is somewhat funny, but does anyone have any inisight to why this music is on the DVD? Any other stories about strange extras?
I don't think that you can include the "editing aside" when talking about Vivid's early discs. That is a MAJOR problem with their early discs. It seemed (and to some extent it still does seem) like they were doing things because they could do them, not because it was the right thing to do. They spent so much disc space with "Extras" that they didn't leave entough room on the disc for the actual movie that was supposed to be on the disc.
Taking a 10 minute scene and breaking is into a 3 minute scene with two alternate angles is not the right thing to do. People who wanted these movies were better off buying the tape.
Also, IIRC, many early Vivid discs had the same "Extras" as one another. So basically, once someone bought their first Vivid disc, all future discs were just wasting disc space on footage that they already owned.
There are also a large number of people who think that the sex on Vivid titles is too tame or boring for their taste. So it doesn't matter what the technical quality of a Vivid disc is, you will always get the response that the DVD "sucks" from these people.
I agree with you, but I was referring to the transfer quality, which is quite good. The consensus on the reason for cutting their releases is, I think, that they used the Video CD master for the DVDs - just cutting corners everywhere. What is unacceptble is that they used to advertise the DVDs as "director's cuts" - which may be true, on the other hand. Maybe porn directors (barring the few auteurs) do not care one way or another about how their work is cut in the end.
As to the sex being tame - I don't know. The Ancient Secrets of the Kama Sutra DVD has this trailer collection that you are pretty much forced to watch when you start the disc, and it has everything from rug-munching to closeups of anal and DP action interspersed with psychedelic effects and pounding music (which is one reason why the religious CD on the other side, which was the main topic of my post, is kind of funny). On the other hand, I agree that the sex in the main feature could look more interesting. Maybe Vivid directors are limited by having to shoot hard and soft versions at the same time, and that's partly why the camera angles are not the best possible, but I am just guessing.
(Of course this discussion would fit better in the porn forum.)
NuTech DVDs used to have "multiple angles" that were just the mirror image of the picture. Now that is by far the stupidest use of the multiple angle feature I have ever seen. Do they still do that?
NuTech included fake multiple-angles on all their early Adult Classic Series DVDs, not just the Greg Dark titles. At least they had the good sense to make the angle icons optional, allowing viewers to switch them off with the subtitle button and therefore concentrate on the main feature. I own several of those earlier releases (including NOTHING TO HIDE & EASY) and the technical quality cannot be faulted. Four years later, NuTech are still producing DVDs of a far superior standard to most adult companies. They've now dropped the mirror images and instead are promoting 'DTS sound' as their latest marketing gimmick.
Vivid, on the other hand, presented us with equally bogus 'multiple angles' by utilising part of the footage removed from the movie itself. They stuck some obnoxious and permanent angle icons on screen, as a constant distraction for those people with no interest in this useless option. Worst of all, when viewing the feature from the original angle, the picture skips at the exit point as the alternative angle footage ends. This happens on all three of my standalone DVD players, on every one of the early Vivid discs in my collection. I tried WORLD'S LUCKIEST MAN (manufactured by Vivid) in a Toshiba player and the picture skipped forward several frames at every chapter mark on the disc.
I can't comment on the KAMA SUTRA DVD (I have an unwatched copy gathering dust on the shelf), but I found the image quality on several other Vivid releases to be totally unacceptable. Significant amounts of pixellation on all titles, particularly noticeable during the Vivid Girls trailer and the repetitive extras.
Not sure if Vivid have made any improvements recently, but I'll give them a call if I need any more coasters.
On the other hand, NuTech's mirror image segments were a totally useless waste bandwidth, which could have been put to a much better use. Also, interestingly enough, the worst DVD transfer I have ever seen in any adult DVD title is from NuTech - Takin' It To The Limit 6. (Besides being pixelated all to hell it also had an annoying Bruce Seven Productions on screen all the time. This title does not have the mirror images, by the way.) To be fair, the other NuTech DVD I own, Psycho Sexuals, is quite watchable, although it appears to be censored.
On the Vivid side, Nymph was not exactly a perfect transfer either. I have maybe a handful of Vivid titles, three or four of the "features" and a few of the "Raw" line DVD's, and generally I have found them to be at least average for adult fare in transfer quality - more or less the same as the Anabolics, better than the one Elegant Angel title I have, and so on.
To mention something on the other end qualitywise, I watched Barely Legal 7 last night, and not only was it as near perfection as I have ever seen in the content department, the video and audio were extremely well done. Wonderful stuff!
Simply untrue. I may have missed a couple aside from the Dark titles but certainly not all, or even most of their early titles had multiple angles. And I own a number of these myself, including all of the Bruce Seven titles and Safari Jane.
I think it is hilarious but it is also VERY practical: The PERFECT way to hide one's porn collection!
And if ever caught, I could say, "Oh my god - that company must be an instrument of the devil - I didn't know the backs of CDs could be played that way!"
More porn DVDs should come with commentary tracks filled with full-bore, hellfire and brimstone sermonisin' and testifin' upon the of evils of FORNICATION, HARLOTRY, the MORTAL SIN OF ONAN, the torments in the PIT thereof, and the obvious imminence of THE END TIMES .
I just can't stay focused on it, no matter how hard I try. Something in my brain made a popping sound (OK, explosion, what's the difference?) right when I first read about that and from then on if I start to ponder the very fact of it for more than a second or two, my brain, acting in a safety valve fashion, makes me forgeee....ummm, what was I talking about now?
I stand corrected. I should've said, all of NuTech's early Adult Classic Series DVDs had fake multiple angles, not just the Greg Dark titles as you mistakenly suggested earlier. This series comprised approximately 12 titles, a large percentage of their output in the first year and consistently among the top selling discs. I realize that NuTech released many other titles during this period, few of which had multiple angles.
I should also point out that I judge the quality of NuTech DVDs based almost entirely on their classic releases. I rarely buy any other titles in their catalog.
NuTech's Adult Classic Series DVDs from 1998 appear to be in RSDL format, which may explain their superiority over many other adult releases. There's plenty of storage capacity on a dual layer (or even a single layer) disc for a movie with no extras other than a few angles and a basic menu, without compromising the picture quality. Vivid cluttered their DVDs with lots of other crap in addition to the alternative angles and squeezed everything onto single layer discs.
I agree that TAKIN' IT TO THE LIMIT 6 is sub-standard, but the level of pixelation seems no higher than the typical Vivid presentation. I've seen far worse from Private (Operation Sex Siege), Evil Angel (Buttman's Big Tit Adventure #4), Sunshine (the Seymore Butts titles) and many other companies. In the interests of accuracy, the Bruce Seven Productions logo is not displayed "all the time", it appears briefly 2 or 3 times per scene. I'm not going to defend the use of these permanent on-screen distractions and would never have bought the disc had I known in advance. I can only guess that NuTech were required to do this when purchasing the DVD rights from Bruce Seven. This title has now been repackaged and reissued by NuTech and I would be interested to know if these aberrations have been corrected.
