I have two LaserDiscs that are the two worst looking discs I've ever seen.

The first is "Virgin Queen of St. Francis High" (1987) The disc was made by PDO UK and has the worst case of oxidation that I've ever found. It looks so bad that I haven't the nerve to stick it in any of my players. The jacket, however, is in great shape! Too bad I can't play the jacket. LOL!

The second is the first release of "I Spit on Your Grave" from Vestron Video. The disc look good cosmetically, but when I played it I found it to have considerable noise in the picture, with an enormous amount of hiss and other sound problems. The rear of the jacket has a sticker that reads "Made in W. Germany." The labels have the same notation. The disc has no mint marks. Another collector and I have narrowed the manufacturer down to Sonopress. If so this is the only NTSC release that I've found made by them. Anyone out there that can confirm that this disc was made by Sonopress?

Anyone know of any good copies of these two releases?

STAY AWESOME!

Never got the Vestron/Wizard release of ISOYG. I just go with the Elite special edition.

If it helps, I do have the Vestrong/Wizard release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is showing some signs of rot.

Yeah, I have the elite of that as well. I will check a vestron I have as soon as I can and let you know if it has rot.

Thanks. Yeah, I know of the Elite release, and that it's vastly superior to the Vestron Video/Wizard Video and Image Entertainment releases, but I got the Vestron release really cheap as part of a bundle.

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Philips made a lot of discs in W. Germany, many which have rotted into a bronze "coffee stained" look, which their Blackburn-made discs also did. While Philips used the cold 2P casting process to make discs, their quality and longevity was awful. Don't be afraid to try playing the disc though - it can't hurt the player. Anyway, if I remember correctly, the problem Philips had was sulfur contaminating the aluminum used to make the discs reflective... I've certainly never seen that kind of rot in MCA DIscoVision discs or any other US/Japanese/Austria made discs... It's confined to Philips made discs. Didn't Philips have an LD plant in Holland too? if so, does anyone know what their quality and disc longevity was like?

It's too bad gold was never used for the reflective layer on LD's - since gold is totally inert, it would have eliminated a major source of rot. Just as Mobile Fidelity had their 24k gold UltraDiscs, Criterion should have made their discs with gold reflective layers... The Chineese Technicolor LD plant was capable of making them. The 2P process with a gold reflective layer would have been a great combination.

According to the LDDb their list of LD manfacturers only list two LD facilities in W. Germany. Sonopress and WEA Manufacturing. I didn't even know that Technicolor had an LD plant. I do have some DVDs made by Technicolor, but I believe they are located in the U.S. Have you told Julien of these other LD facilities? He needs to add them to the pulldown menu if they made any commercial releases.

There are two facilities that are somewhat rare it seems. I have over 800 NTSC LD releases and only one made by Sonopress, and only one made by DMI Disctronics. The DMI disc looks stunning.

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The Technicolor plant In China wasn't really owned by Technicolor... They bought Technicolors last IB Tech film printing equipment in the late 70's and kept the IB process alive until Technicolor revived it in the 90's. They also made LD's and recordable blanks for the RLV system. I don't know what the companies real name was... Everyone just always referred to them as Technicolor China.

Disctronics was owned and operated by the original engineers from MCA DiscoVision - they mastered and pressed some copies of A Video Standard as well as some 5-inch CD-Videos but were mostly industrial.

My DMI made disc is "Peach O'Reno" (1931), published by Image Entertainment/Turner Home Entertainment. They seemed to have made quite a few commercial releases for the Hong Kong market.

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