Thursday, March 10

Subspecies (1991) - Full Moon/Sirius Publishing, Inc. MovieCD CD-ROM

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Anyone remember MovieCDs? My memory of this failed computer video-based "stopgap" format goes back to when EBGames was known as Electronics Boutique. There was a row of them, nearly untouched, towards the back of the store for what seemed like years. After DVD debuted, it wasn't long before they simply disappeared from shelves everywhere into the scrapheap of history.

Looking back, the format seemed doomed to begin with considering how many system requirements one's PC needed to have. There's even a troubleshooting foldout in the clamshell case that runs down a litany of potential conflicts. Not to mention the film being spread out on two discs, viewing on the computer screen, a whooping video bitrate of 211 kilobytes per second, and a hardly-better-than-VHS 320x236 resolution. Laughable nowadays with the usual 30-50 megabyte per second bitrate of many 1920x1080 Blu-rays. There's a bunch of hoops to jump through to watch MovieCDs on modern operating systems. Blah, just hop on over to YouTube...

4 comments:

Craig Edwards said...

That's amazing - I love forgotten old movie formats! Were you able to pick any up on clearance?

Jayson Kennedy said...

Actually I bought this one along with Tracers III for $2 last year. I never cared much for them when they could still be found in-store.

Ryan W. Featherston said...

I used to own some MovieCDs myself. The Mask (1994) and Night of the Living Dead (1968) were 2 specific ones that I owned. My mom would always pick me up select ones at Micro Center.

Ryan W. Featherston said...

There was also a MovieCD of the original Puppet Master. Curiously, this release featured the uncut version of the film.

...do you dare tread upon the staircase?

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