Since I purchased my first Blu-ray discs yesterday (ENTER THE DRAGON and THE WILD BUNCH), I reminisced about the first DVD I ever bought. It was 1999, and I went to K-Mart (!) to buy a DVD player, which was an RCA. Since I had to have a DVD to go with it--duh--I looked around K-Mart's skimpy offerings. I wanted a disc with plenty of extras, so I could experience what that was like, which left out many. I finally settled on one of the MGM 007 discs, because I had heard they were impressive. My pick turned out to be FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, because I hadn't seen it in awhile and because it was one of the better 007 movies K-Mart had available.

Even though I have upgraded to the recent James Bond collection sets and given away all my previous 007 discs, I held on to FOR YOUR EYES ONLY for nostalgia only (and DIE ANOTHER DAY, which is terrible, but has extras the new disc doesn't).

So...FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. How about you?

I bought two on the same shopping trip: FLASH GORDON and SMALL SOLDIERS.

The first-week, April 1997 releases of BATMAN, COOL HAND LUKE and THE FUGITIVE, as I recall.

I *think* it may have been the Anchor Bay BLIND DEAD flipper.

I bought my first DVD player at the Good Guys [remember them?] and the sales guy threw in a DVD of my choosing. Pickings were very slim. As I recall, they had no more than a dozen or so discs in the store. I chose LA CONFIDENTIAL.

I was in Chinatown buying VCDs to play on my computer around the time I'd decided to buy my first DVD player. So, preparing for that event, I bought my first DVD, Tsui Hark's ZU WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983), for $12.50. Three days later, Jan. 31, 2001, also in Chinatown, I bought my first DVD player (Pioneer and code-free, which I'm still using, paid for with $400 cash), and also bought two more DVDs, Sammo Hung's MILLIONAIRES' EXPRESS ($12.50) and Yuen Wo Ping's IRON MONKEY ($24). I recently bought an upgrade of MILLIONAIRES, released as SHANGHAI EXPRESS, which offers as an extra a set of "deleted scenes" that are all IN the film in the original DVD!

MARS ATTACKS in June of 1997, a month before I had a player (the first Sony model, which I had to order because it was in such demand they couldn't keep up). This was back when Warner had that ridiculous zone nonsense, which restricted sales of DVDs to certain parts of the US, so it wasn't even "legal" for me to be able to buy this disc. Retail outlets here in Canada complied, but Chinatown stores didn't, so for the first few months, I bought almost all of my discs there.

On New Year's Eve 1999, waiting for the Millennium Bug to hit, I went to the local Indian neighborhood for dinner, then out of curiosity stopped in a video shop.

There were subtitled DVDs. I had a DVD drive in my computer. So I asked a clerk for some recommendations, and took home KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI, DIL SE, and DIL TO PAGAL HAI. The first one, at least, became and remains my favorite Bollywood film.

The downside was that I had only just started looking on the bright side of the demise of the laserdisc format, that being the pleasure of not seeing all my disposable income vanishing into a stack of shiny media discs. Well, my LD collection ultimately totalled over 200 titles, but now I've got twice that many DVDs in my unwatched pile alone. Thanks, DVD. B)

In a 3-DVDs-for-some-amount-I-can't-remember special offer, I picked up Contact, The Wild Bunch and something else I can't remember. Doesn't really seem to have made quite the impression on me that it did others I guess!

If I remember correctly, my "first DVD" was actually a batch of five titles, mail-ordered from Ken Crane's (now DVD Planet) in January 1999, where I had previously ordered many laserdiscs. In that batch:

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY (the old MGM release, with the extra footage undubbed and seperate from the film)
GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (Simitar...classic G in Tohoscope!)
GODZILLA VS. MONSTER ZERO (Simitar...ditto!)
MISTER ROBERTS (Widescreen! TCM and AMC were still running this in P&S)
STARSHIP TROOPERS

I also remember the initial reason why I made the switch to DVD from LD (besides the fact that the LD format was dying a quick death): news that the "Emma Peel" episodes of THE AVENGERS (starting backwards, with the color season) were soon to be released on R1 DVD from A&E, but those were still a couple of months away, so I "settled" for the above titles (and I still have all of them).

I kept doing VHS for a few years, probably because of my investments in the mid-1990's in two double deck VCR's.

But I bought two at once when I started purchasing: USED CARS, still my favorite movie of all time, and THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN.

HCH

Looking for a movie to show off the format, I'm pretty sure it was THE MATRIX.

By the Spring of '99, I fully heard the bell tolling for laserdisc and had a PC with a DVD drive. So, I hit Amazon for 3 titles that were quite desired but a bit much for my budget on laser. Criterion's Seven Samurai, Psycho, and the Media Arts Once Upon A Time In China Part 2. But still, something was missing. Cushing and Lee. Shortly thereafter, I went to Tower and picked up a cheapo copy of Horror Express, which looked like crap and defeated the whole point of DVD, but was watched more often than all three of the other discs put together.

It was either Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge: Alpha (1997) or the first Tenchi Muyô - Ultimate Editon OAV box.

I think the first one I ever bought was THE ROAD WARRIOR... oh the days of those Warner "snapper" cases...

John Carpenter's THE THING and STARSHIP TROOPERS.

And we're still cursed with those shabby, flimsy snappers.

THE WILD BUNCH (mainly because I wanted to see the documentary), BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES and THE GAUNTLET. The main reason I decided to buy a DVD player was because it gave me the opportunity to own leterboxed transfers of films (such as the two Eastwood titles) that were only available panned-and-scanned on video.

THE WILD BUNCH (a flipper disc) is the only one of these DVDs I subsequently upgraded.

FRANKENSTEIN (1931), followed by HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) and HEAT (1995).

I got three or four free DVDs with my Sony player in late 97. I'm pretty sure two of the titles were VIDEODROME and BAD LT.

Why that would be BLADE. I ran over to Tower Records in the Stonestown Gallery after purchasing a $700 dvd player/karaoke machine at a Chinese video store in San Mateo. I also went over to the neighboring Good Guys and picked up a $700 GoVideo vcr which was (and remains?) one of the only vcrs which can tape from dvd.

Having been spoiled by years of laserdisc, BLADE is an appropriately glossy and shiny movie to make me oooooo and aaaaaaah over the relative clarity of standard definition.

And you know? I'm not sure if it's the impact of that first impression, but watching the BLADE dvd now still has the same effect on me, but it looks just as good to me now as it did back then. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say that it looks better than some subsequent dvds I've bought over the years.

I popped in a week or two ago and it made me feel a little bit sad and wistful about the demise (sorry, I mean assimilation) of New Line. BLADE is the type of all-out genre film that they did rather well. More importantly, the continuing excellence of that particular disc (snapper case be damned) made me sneer a little bit at the doomsayers who promise me that these things will only last about 10 years. BLADE still looks pretty great for a disc that's nearing the end of its projected life cycle.

Of course, just you wait. Next year, I'll open the case just in time to watch the disc disappear in a puff of pixels and the last laugh will clearly be on me.

It'll be at that moment that I march directly to Target and pick up BLADE on BluRay and a player to play it.

I decided at first to get things I didn't have before upgrading. This was probably late 1999, early 2000: RUN LOLA RUN, PINK FLOYD: THE WALL, and the Image LISA AND THE DEVIL/THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM. Still got all of 'em, though I did upgrade and get LISA/HOUSE again in the BAVA 2 set.

WILLY WONKA.

First VHS was SLITHIS. Still waiting for that on DVD.

It does, indeed. A remarkably solid presentation, mercifully free of digital 'improvements'. And the compression's no joke - a full 120-minute feature, lots of extras, and extensive, full motion menus all jostling for space.

My first DVD player (Panasonic, now the least used of the six players in the house) was a birthday present in 2001. I received YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and SHANGHAI NOON along with it. Pretty sure the first DVD I ever purchased myself was THE THING - later replaced by the anamorphic version and recently the HD DVD (simultaneously the best and cheapest upgrade, natch). The first non-R1 DVD I bought was the recalled version of the first series of I'M ALAN PARTRIDGE - also the subject of a later upgrade - purchased immediately after the recall and before my Malata(still going strong after seven years) had even been shipped.

Anchor Bay's first DAWN OF THE DEAD release (the "director's cut" flipper), THE EXORCIST (also a flipper- widescreen on one side, full-frame on the other), and THE WILD BUNCH (again, a flipper, albeit with the movie itself split up over both sides of the DVD).

The DVD player itself was a Christmas present back in 1997 and the person who gave it to me included two DVDs he bought for me- THELMA & LOUISE and THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK. Of those five initial DVDs, I still have THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK.

Vincent

P.S.- A bit off-topic, but my first LaserDisc was the Japanese import of Dario Argento's PHENOMENA, purchased by me at the age of 16 used from fellow thread poster Marshall Crist. I still have that LD, too, and it still plays flawlessly.

that was also one of my first discs along with BAD LT. and VIDEODROME.

I totally shoplifted PINK FLOYD - THE WALL from the college bookstore and watched it on on a computer since I didn't have a player. Yes, I feel appropriately bad about it now. The thousands of dollars I've dumped into DVD collecting since, we may consider atonement for such crimes.

Like many Brits, I bought the first sub-£200 DVD player courtesy of some coupon promotion and a price-match deal running at shops owned by the same parent group - Woolworths, Currys and some other store I don't recall. Prior to this, I think DVD players had been more than twice that price, this being sometime around 1999, I think.

It was a Samsung machine, easily remote hackable, and actually not too bad. It came with three titles - Shawshank Redemption, Hellraiser and mediocre Brit comedy Brassed Off.

First title I bought of my own volition, I think, was the Criterion edition of Robocop, purchased from the now defunct (I think) DVD Express.

Subsequent American imports came from Reel, who had a ludicrously generous coupon system that was quite easy to exploit, including a quiz that rewarded you with 50c off for a right answer every day!

Ah, memories...

I bought my first DVD player in November '98, but I'd started buying a few DVDs before I got the player. I'm pretty sure my first DVD was SHORT CINEMA JOURNAL 1. Looking back through some archived emails, I'm reminded of all the now-defunct online vendors that early-adopter DVD buyers flocked to back in the day: 800.com, shopping.com, DVD Express...

Unlike most folks, I suspect, I took full advantage of increasingly steep discounts on laserdiscs as DVD really started to take off and it became apparent that LD's days were numbered. I still have almost every LD I bought back then, and with three fully functional LD players (and two others I need to get repaired), I expect to be able to continue playing LDs for the foreseeable future.

And I still occasionally watch VHS tapes, too.

Same as my first VHS purchase... Night of the Living Dead. It was some crap public domain knockoff (some company called Mendacity or something like that).

Of course, since I'm nothing if not consistent, I'll wait until there's a BluRay version before I buy a player. Which is sort of silly... is it really gonna look any better than the Millennium Edition?

On a side note... I was watching the colorized version recently (for whatever reason) and stumbled on that phenomenon that happens as you get older... the realization (for me) that Helen Cooper was pretty damned hot.

Yeah, it will. The Elite NotLD transfer, as good as it was for its time, doesn't really hold up so well these days. I think Don can chime in with more details, but the tools they had back then to clean up image damage and such were very crude by today's standards, and tended to suck a ton of detail out of the image along with dirt and debris. Not to mention, telecine technology has come a really, REALLY long way since they did that transfer back in 1993, and NotLD was shot in glorious 35mm, which has greater inherent detail than even 1080P High-Def. A new HD transfer of NotLD released on Blu-ray has the potential to look pretty damned stunning and should blow the Elite DVD out of the water.

Vincent

Late September 2000...bought my first DVD player at a local Best Buy...the discs?

PINK FLOYD: THE WALL
PHANTASM (MGM edition)
Carpenter's THE THING
FIGHT CLUB (2-disc edition)
BOOGIE NIGHTS (2-disc edition)
MAGNOLIA (2-disc edition)

I remember playing BOOGIE NIGHTS first and being massively disappointed with the sub-VHS image quality...until I realized that the extra I was watching (The John C. Reilly Files) was work print footage. Once I started the main feature, it was a whole different story.

Well, cool. To say the least.

And since this is the 40th Anniversary, I hope there's something in the pipeline.

First DVD purchase:
THE SADIST (Allday Entertainment)

First laserdisc purchase:
THE NAKED KISS and SHOCK CORRIDOR (the color scenes sold that one to me, although I didn't have a player at that moment)

First VHS purchase:
Two oddities from a mail-order company called Thunderbird Films, a two-hour compilation of horror/sci-fi previews, and the 1971 drive-in classic THE YOUNG GRADUATES (the latter probably wasn't an authorized release).

I think I already had already purchased a poor PAL to NTSC DVD of The Beyond released by dodgy EC Entertainment - hard coded Region 2 yet still pushed to NTSC. EC Entertainment never could explain to me why they did that standards conversion to NTSC for the European DVD (perhaps for a Laserdisc it would be understandable) - yet Shaw Brothers DVDs are still doing the same crap standards conversions for their DVDs! I did manage to sell The Beyond on eBay several years ago, and have tried to sell upgraded material (VHS, LD, VCD) when I have the time. I do still keep DVDs when I have a Hi-Def version, as DVDs are easier to convert to portable media players.

I also bought a very expensive (something more than UKP 700) Pioneer (405?) which was Region selectable on the remote from the long running UK 'official' Pioneer laserdisc player shop 'Stereo Regent Street' (which has moved several times). The Pioneer player is still going, but it never liked CDRs or DVD-R). This was all mid 1997, if I recall, and by the time I took a friend to the same shop the player had already dropped some UKP 200 which he bought!

The last Ken Crane's order was a mix of my last purchased as new LDs (Fleetwood Mac's The Dance) and my first import Region 1 DVDs - probably some of the Warner snappers mentioned too! Also bought lots of Hong Kong DVDs from Chinatown in Soho, London.

Laserdiscs never caught on in this territory so just as DVD appeared, the VHS market was enjoying a marketing upswing with the proliferation of widescreen tape releases such as JAWS and ALIEN series. Of course the resolution of VHS wasn't up to rendering a decent Panavision image (although sometimes compromises were made like the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER tape that presented a 1.85 version even though it was shown at 2.35:1 theatrically. DVD finally offered all the benefits of LD that I'd yearned for but in a more affordable and compact format. Adopting early, there wasn't much software to choose from so I think my first purchase was on-line. The primary reason for investing was to finally see my favourite Carpenter movies in widescreen - the ones that weren't released as such in any local format. Unless I'm mistaken, my first order contained THE THING and possibly PRINCE OF DARKNESS but the first screened disc from that package was almost certainly DARK CITY - a stunning looking disc to my eyes at the time. The first local purchase was a used copy of BULLITT.

Victor

LA FEMME NIKITA and THE ROAD WARRIOR, late '98 or early '99.

I picked up the TOMORROW NEVER DIES special edition (in the silver cover, or whatever it was -- yes, I've since sold it off) a good month or two before a dvd player entered my life. If I'm not mistaken, it was the first Bond dvd that had substantial extras that the laserdisc release didn't have (the TND laserdisc may have been bare bones, I think, unlike GOLDENEYE), which persuaded me the time had come...

First dvds: eXISTENz, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and BLACK SUNDAY. Later upgraded the Cronenberg to the superior Canadian edition; still haven't gotten around to updating the other two yet.

First laserdisc: BLUE VELVET
Last laserdisc: WAR REQUIEM, SONGS FOR DRELLA, and KISS ME DEADLY from the bargain bins.

First vhs: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD