Looking at the original 1981 Magnetic Video release of Phantasm [4066-80], i notice i have the cover as described in the ratkins notes:-

'Known MVC versions include U.S. and Japanese pressings on 1-disc/2-sides. The Japanese disc is found in an American jacket with "Made in Japan" sticker. There also exists a Japanese printed jacket that has 'MAGNETIC VIDEO' on the cover, instead of the 'MVC' logo.'

I have the cover not pictured, the MVC version with a 'Made in Japan' sticker on the back and an 'MVC' logo bottom right on the front cover, instead of 'Magnetic Video'.


Is it possible to create an 'alternative cover' on any relevant release with multiple covers.

Obviously there are many discs that were re-issued with different artwork, ie when a title was released by 20th Century Fox and then re-issued by CBS/FOX... but how many 'alternate covers' are out there??

JULIEN... is it possible to create alternate covers on any relevant page?

Good joe,

I must admit that whenever I notice a Japanese Laserdisc that has a different cover to the US release, or sometimes the same cover, all be it with the added Collectible OBI strip.

There must be hundreds of alternative LD covers, going by what I have personally seen.

Regards to all

Not only were there different variations of jacket artwork for the same release but the catalogs would often picture a jacket that, as far as we could tell, never existed in real life - and they didn't appear to be mock up's, but actual jackets that just never were used. US MagVid jackets and the later Fox labels are really guilty of this.

Ron (Ratkins) took the Phantasm info from our LaserVision Landmarks site - he's an official partner in the site, BTW. The early days of LaserDisc were weird with jackets because they often had variations within the same title. As we run across them, they'll be documented on the Landmarks site.

As a side-note, the MagVid LD release of Phantasm has the best rechanneled (not remixed) stereo I've ever heard - they only rechanneled the music and FX tracks, the dialog was run straight down the center in mono so it doesn't have that weird phasey sound that fake rechanneled stereo often suffers from and it sounds right when ran through a surround decoder. 9 to 5 is an awful rechannel job with all the even frequencies on one side and the odd frequencies on the other, like Capitol Records used to do.

There are other covers such as the 83' Warner releases of Dirty Harry and The Exorcist that lddb does not reflect correctly.. Should be updated and source the original covers for the pics.

I thought Phantasm sounded good last night. Not watched it in years so not heard it through the tag, it decodes nicely to give a decent size to the sound, and the music in the film is great too.

Does anyone have the 'widescreen' ld to compare to the p/s? I suspect widescreen is merely matted to 1.85.1 and the 'p/s' is open matte. It frames up nicely on a widescreen tv.


Regarding US releases to the their Japanese counterparts, obviously the jackets are usually different in some way, but some releases get two or three different obi's, ie evergreen releases get reissued with best of best 99+big1 or best of best 100 campaign obis two or three years later. That would make a lot more pics to have to store on the databases server....

I have the signed box set of Phantasm and its just matted WS - the Mag Vid release is open matte all the way.

Thanks for the information clarification. I suspected it was open matte. Corrections have been updated on the Phantasm pages.