3DO ZONE Forums

As you all know I came to this forum originally to find info on video cd's well I have made some progress on that front, first I found a few for sale on ebay and a couple of private sellers on the sister forum I am going to look into. Second I dug up an old DVD player out of the basement that not only still works, basement flooded and infested with bugs, it also turns out it does play video cd's so I already saved self having to buy and expensive cd-i or 3Do player for watching movies on (yeah I still want one for that purpose but now I can at least get started with what I have)

Also I came across my first ever beta max cassette today at a thrift store, it was the original Arthur, not a bad movie to start my collection with so no complaints there. This was only the third time I have ever even come across a Beta cassette in my life, the first time was way back in like 87 or so when a friend of mine invited me to his house to watch a movie on Beta and I we had just gotten our first VHS VCR so it turned into a big argument ending our friendship (I was 7) and the second time I ever saw a beta tape was a few years ago we moved into an old house and there were 2 in the basement in a closet buried under layers of dusts. They were Jaws and the first Friday the 13th. Being religious people my parents tossed them into the trash before I could snatch them up.



I am still lacking a player but it is cool to finally own my first movie on a long dead, should be forgoten, and extremely outdated format.


Final bit of interesting news, along my the way of my months of digging for into on Video CD's I started looking into some other obscure formats I had always been curious about but always got a headache searching good old google. Well I finally got smart about it and decided to do some proper digging and have now compiled a partial list of officially released titles on Super-VHS, which I posted on my blog but can re-post here if any one is interested.


This was a milestone for me because I always knew Super-VHS movies did exist cuz my uncle had a player and he had I think 1 old movie on it. I forget what it was because well that was along time ago, I was just a kid and it was probably some old movie I never heard of. But I do remember it was Super VHS because for one Beta was already gone by then and he kept bragging about how you could still play regular VHS too, which was a big deal for my dad, and he bragged about it all the time. I never knew what happened to that old player though and my uncle, well we didn't keep in touch.


So anyways those are the latest developments in the exciting world of home video collecting by a guy who has way too much time on his hands.

I would love to see that list of released titles on Super-VHS. Although LaserDiscs are my poison.

I posted it to my blog but as of right now it is incomplete. All my sources indicate, at least in the US Japan is another story, that there was a total of between 50 and 75 titles, most of which were either Orion releases and sold as promotional give aways, OR were a lot of public domain stuff sold by this mail order company out of California.


Here is the preliminary list I have.

1. Beat the Devil
2. Blade Runner
3. A Chorus Line
4. Colors
5. D.O.A
6. Dressed to Kill
7. Emerald Forest, The
8. A Farewell to Arms
9. His Girl Friday
10. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
11. It's A Wonderful Life
12. It's Not Easy Being Me
13. The Last Emperor
14. Little Shop of Horrors, The (1960)
15. Lost Horizon, The
16. Malone
17. Messenger, The
18. Monkee Shines
19. Night of the Living Dead
20. No Man's Land
21. Nothin' Goes Right
22. On Golden Pond
23. Princess Bride
24. Robocop
25. Scanners
26. Sherlock Holmes and The Secret Weapon
27. Snows of Kilimanjaro, The
28. Terror, The
29. Throw Mama from the Train
30. White Mischief
31. Unbearable Lightness of Being





Now I had 12 titles that were demo tapes, mostly tours of country side, or a few concert tapes like a Bruce Springteen tape and some others, those I did not put on the list because they were not 'films' and to me personally didn't count. If you add the twelve back and the total is 50 that leaves 7 movies or titles unaccounted for by my count.


ALL data was dug up browsing through old mail order catalogs, news paper and magazine articles and official reviews in Popular Science magazines archived on Google.



As best as I can tell nothing was ever sold in stores either you got a free tape with your player, you got to select from a variety of free tapes for purchasing a player (like how HD-DVD did for a while) or you ordered them from this one mail order place called Super Source Video out of San Fransisco.

Here are the non-film titles I could find.

Elton John Live in Australia

Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies

Rolling Stones: Let's Spend the Night Together

Impact Zone, a documentary on windsurfing,

Riversong, "a paean to the Colorado River as it spills through the Grand Canyon"

The Worlds Below an underwater tour of Monterey Bay - shot, edited and mastered in component video

The Perfect Picture System ($34.95). This tape includes tests for checking the color, hue, brightness, contrast, and audio capabilities of an audio-video system.

Tour Of Yellowstone

Your Of Yosemite

Tour Of Grand Canyon

"Orion's catalog of 40 major titles (29 from Orion Pictures and 11 from Nelson Entertainment) available, on S-VHS tapes, to buyers of Hitachi S-VHS units."



Orion Pictures supposedly offered 40 titles from their catalog alone, Super Source offered 25 total videos so that puts the total around 65 but there were some demo tapes and tourist videos too. I can't find the remaining orion films though as much as I dig I will keep looking but I am afraid they may have been canceled these were all listed with prices and order forms so I assume they were released.



I have read unconfirmed reports The Terminator may have also been on the format, if Robocop was it makes sense Terminator would be too.

I actually have the original Max Headroom movie on Beta. I'll sell it to you if you are interested.

now that is something I could go for, PM for details.

I finally got my first official VCD, X-Men Night of the Sentinels. It was hassle but I had to really bargain with the guy because they were asking way too much for it. I still have yet to find any Super VHS but I figure those are going to be a real challenge.