I have the option of purchasing the following Laserdisc (rot free): Fleetwood Mac: Documentary and Live Concert (1980) [74-011]

From what I understand this Laserdisc has never been released on any other media format.

According to the blam website (a link is on the LDDB page). Apparently it has an attrocious audio mix!
It is Discovision, and most of these discs suffered the dreaded laser rot.

Is this worth owning in a collection? How rare is it? Does any one own it and can comment on the video and audio ?

I really hate it when people say "the dreaded laser rot". It's worse than "could care less", "a whole nother" and "ya gotta love it" combined, although nowhere near as bad as "haters gonna hate".

Do you like Fleetwood Mac? Then buy it. How rare is it? Well, it will be the only copy in your house. Is that rare enough?

DISCOVISION says it all .............
Hope for the best but prepare for the worst !

NICE post signofzeta !

if it has no rot then it's rare, but how many have no rot or how many are out there or how badly do you want it.
and if the audio is horrible it won't matter, i would rather hear and see a bad copy of something than no copy of it.

and what type of price are we talking about 30 bucks or 300 bucks??? or 15 bucks, just do it for a lower price and
enjoy the disc for what it is.

how would you look locked in someones basement for 30+ years like that poor LD was

My understanding is that it has been very well looked after, is rot free, and will be about $15-20 inc. shipping.

I am not a massive fan of Fleetwood Mac, but I do like some of their music and that is why I was interested in this disc and so curious about the audio and video quality.

Thanks for your comments. I can see laser rot is a sensitive subject

The video footage is actually far worse than the audio however if you are Fleetwood Mac fan it is still an essential purchase.
It covers Tusk era Fleetwood Mac and includes such gems as 'Sara' which Stevie Nicks rarely ever sang on more recent concerts, except for the 1982 solo LD which is also unavailable on DVD and was the first laserdisc I ever bought.

Definitely a risk to buy in terms of rot but all those discovision titles are fun to collect still. I have all the music ones.

Thank you laserdisc_fan for your helpful reply. Good to hear from someone who has viewed this laserdisc.
I did not appreciate the significance of Sara, even though I saw the tracklisting and should of realised.
I will get this, be well worth adding to the collection.

I have it as well, rot free. I think mine was less that 10.00. Sound is a little flat. I don't think it's that rare, I had a harder time finding the '82 Mirage title. Overall, I think there's too much documentary and not enough music.

That is a very accurate assessment. It is relatively easy to find a decent copy of and don't pay too much. Mirage definitely is a lot tougher to find a mint copy of.

The Japanese pressing of the title is the one to look for. Most of the Japanese copies I've seen are excellent.

The Fleetwood Mac disc was a program that was made specifically for release on MCA DiscoVision and a lot of money was spent on it for the audio mix, etc... (Not that you'd know it from the final mix). Due to delays on MCA's part, it was actually released on tape first - with mono sound of course. And although its not marked anywhere on the disc jacket, the program is mixed/encoded in the CBS SQ Quadraphonic Matrix - but again, the mix is so bad that even decoded through the very best SQ decoder ever made, the Fosgate Tate II 101A SQ decoder, the sound is still awful and doesn't sound much like quad at all.

The Japanese pressing (I've never seen an American pressing, and I've seen well over 40 copies of the Fleetwood Mac LD - at the date it was released, I doubt any pressings were done in America - all were Pioneer Kofu, Japan) is very good, with, for the time, excellent picture quality and quiet audio backgrounds, despite it not being CX encoded. I can't say enough about how bad the audio mix is though - the vocals are buried in the music and in some parts, almost impossible to hear. It's a truly awful program and one Fleetwood Mac spent a lot of money on - just like their awful Tusk album. It's almost a warning video for other artists showing how rampant drug use will destroy a groups creativity - while they are so coked up they think they are being brilliant.

It and the movie Deliverance are the only Warner titles that were released by DiscoVision. Blondie Eat To The Beat was a made for LaserDisc release, but MCA's inability to get it released caused a lawsuit to pop up between Warner/Blondie and DiscoVision - and it never got released in America, although a Japanese LaserDisc was released and RCA released it as a mono CED VideoDisc. The lawsuit also delayed its release on VHS and Beta since it was, like Fleetwood Mac, supposed to be a LaserDisc exclusive on DiscoVision.

Very few DiscoVision titles have been afflicted with rot - their defects are mainly inclusions (dust/dirt trapped under the plastic), missing pits that cause the laser to stop in its tracks, bifringence which reflects and scatters the laser unevenly and mastering errors. Laser rot on DiscoVision is very rare and the odds are more than in your favor that if you find a good copy of a DV title, it will stay good - they simply don't rot like later LaserDisc's. they do play best on top loading machines with the red HeNe laser - it can read past the dirt and defects trapped under the plastic. I assume the Hi-Vision players would play them well too. Amazingly, my Runco plays DiscoVision wonderfully - so well in fact that I rarely use my top loading LD-1100 for them anymore.

Some copies of the discovision Fleetwood Mac LD come in a plastic coated jacket that is super tough. I wish they had used this coating on other laserdisc jackets as it is almost indestructable. Other pressings of the same title just come with the normal card jacket with no special plastic coating. I have examples of both.

I've only collected the music discovision titles so cannot comment on all discovision titles in general but I had to buy multiple copies of nearly all of them to get good playback copies.

As for Tusk being an awful album - it was certainly massively self indulgence with almost one side of material per member but it still has its moments if you take the time to listen to it all. The best tracks tend to be those written by Stevie Nicks or Christine McVie. The Lindsay Buckingham tracks don't do much for me. It's certainly a more interesting album than 'Mirage' , 'Behind The Mask' (which truly was an awful album) or 'Time'.

The jacket is the Japanese Mirror Coat type jacket used for US releases and the flimsy jackets are made in America - they never used the Mirror coat for discs meant for the Japanese market. Olivia Physical on MCA Videodisc is another title that has both flimsy American made jackets (with a sticker on the back that says Disc Made In Japan) and the Japanese made Mirror Coat jacket.

The later released music DiscoVision titles like ABBA were mastered on the MASTER V DRAW system (Direct Read After Write) and Discovision Associates had improved the quality some what so disc defects were not nearly as prevalent. And titles like Mel Torme & Della Reese were pressed only in Japan - and I've never seen an American made Fleetwood Mac, but that doesn't mean there are not any - Jackets could be made in America or Japan but didn't always indicate that the disc inside was American or Japanese.

The sound on Fleetwood Mac is what damns the disc so heavily - when decoded into its 4 channels it sounds a bit better and you can hear vocals better, but its still sub par, especially considering the work that they put into it.

The Japanese pressing of "Fleetwood Mac" is in the typical Japanese produced jackets like we get with "Mission Galactica", "Four Seasons" and "Bustin' Loose". The US pressing has a heavier jacket typical of the US pressings like "ABBA" and "Olivia".

Thanks for the information.

Always wanted one of these and keep an eye out for it in the wild. Found an upload of it on YouTube (below)



As pointed out, the sound mix has a lot to be desired and it's a shame because Fleetwood Mac were known at the time for their cutting edge sound. The overpowering kick drum and bass guitar during the opening track "The Chain" makes it sound suspiciously like they used a soundboard mix from the gig rather than a fresh new remix from a multi-track (usually the first song in a show will be a little wonky on the mix).

Very surprised this documentary didn't make it on the Tusk Super Deluxe Box Set released in 2015. The footage of recording "Save Me a Place", "Angel", "Never Make Me Cry" during the Tusk sessions validate the documentary's existence alone.

The original laserdisc_fan here.... no connection to Paulisdead!

I had forgotten about this thread as it was a long time ago but I still really like that Tusk era Discovision title.
For all its flaws the footage was still very cool to watch and to this day remains unreleased on later formats, despite the huge re-issue campaign Fleetwood Mac embarked on over the last 10 years with super deluxe versions boxsets of all of their most prolific albums. If you collect Fleetwood Mac I would say it is essential. Whilst some copies do suffer from laser rot, there are plenty that don't so the odds of getting a good copy are still pretty high. Also try to get hold of one with the plastic coated jacket if you can which is very resilent to wear.