Video Game Empire

"Did you bring something?"

In the darkness, a young man just jumped from the small fishing boat to the shore when he heard someone questioning him. He looked up and saw that the spark of the other party's cigarette **** was very eye-catching in the dark night.

"It's Brother Kun, I've already brought everything, it's in my bag." He just finished speaking when the other party turned on a flashlight. With the light, he finally saw that the four or five people in front of him were vaguely surrounding him. But he smiled very calmly, as if he didn't care at all.

"Your name is Ah Fei, right? You have some courage. Come with me."

This guy named Kun finally spoke up again. So Ah Fei followed behind Brother Kun and walked two or three hundred meters among the rubble piles on the beach, until he saw a gravel road three or four meters wide, where a gray van was parked. A group of people got into the car quickly and quickly disappeared into the vast darkness.

The van drove in twists and turns for more than an hour, and finally drove into a village. Because it was the second half of the night, there was almost no light in the village, and every household was immersed in dreamland.

The car was parked in a small courtyard without walls. After getting out of the car, Ah Fei followed Brother Kun into the back room. There were not many decent decorations in the living room. There was a table of the Eight Immortals against the wall in the middle, and there was a Taishi chair on each side.

Brother Kun put the flashlight on the table of the Eight Immortals, then turned his head to stare at Ah Fei. Ah Fei nodded at him, untied the backpack on his shoulders, opened the zipper, and carefully took out the metal plates from the inside.

"The top three schools, Three Worlds, and Royal Senior Sister 3 are all new products. My eldest brother said that we should give priority to guaranteeing shipments, with 30,000 pieces each. He will send a ship to pick them up next week. The seven remaining parts of the regular transaction are also selling well in Southeast Asia, and for the time being, we will press 10,000 pieces of each one, and we will get them done as soon as possible." Ah Fei handed the ten metal plates one by one to this brother Kun for a look.

"The quality of your master disks is getting more and more unreliable. The last few disks you sent were said to be able to hold 30,000 boxes, but in reality they were scrapped after only 26,000 boxes were pressed. The cost has increased a lot in disguise. You go back and tell you Zhutouqi a message. Next time, ask him to come over in person. We have been doing business together for almost half a year. It is time to sit down and talk about the rules of cooperation again." said noncommittally.

"Brother Kun. Our earliest batch of master discs were originals from the Taiwanese side that helped the Asian Film Company press the discs. The quality must be very good, but now the Asian Film Company is getting stricter and stricter. The master disks are all required to be recycled without a single drop, and there is no chance to start. So the last two times we have tried our own way and made master disks from other places.

You have sent 26,000 copies here, but in fact less than 25,000 copies can be shipped in the end. There are more than 1,000 discs that cannot be sold because the quality is too poor, but our seventh brother said that we can't blame you, mainly because the quality of the master discs provided by us is not good enough.

However, this is also impossible. Who asked us to do the pirated business, we can only slowly think of ways to improve in the future. If you want me to bring it, I will definitely help you to bring it to you," Ah Fei explained calmly.

That's right, they are in the business of pirated video discs. Ah Fei's eldest brother, Zhutouqi, is responsible for providing equipment and materials, and this brother Kun is responsible for the production. In the end, Zhutouqi takes it back and sells it.

As for why A Fei's eldest brother didn't produce it himself, because Asian Films and Oriental Commercial Corporation are too strict in their investigations in Hong Kong. They couldn't find a place to put a stabilizer, so they simply moved the factory to the mainland.

With the strong promotion of Dongfang Shoji and Asian Films from the beginning of the year. VCD players quickly opened up sales in the East Asian and Southeast Asian markets, and even in South America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and other places also began to have good sales. After the popularity of vcd players, it brought the best-selling vcd discs.

The emergence of pirated video discs is actually inseparable from the deliberate support of Dongfang Commercial Company. When Dongfang Commercial was looking for a foundry for vcd video discs, it found a company in Taiwan with a corporate background. It is through the underground channels of this company that pirated vcds of Hollywood blockbusters are produced. It was able to quickly cover the entire Asian market. Coupled with the genuine Hong Kong movie vcd sold by Dongfang Commercial, the users have a rich selection of content.

The influence of Hollywood movies is far greater than that of Hong Kong movies. It is precisely driven by pirated discs that vcd video discs can be sold in South America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and other eastern commercial companies, which have not yet had time to do marketing and promotion. It also spontaneously opened up sales, which should be regarded as a surprise.

But as the saying goes, once Pandora's box is opened, it will suffer the consequences sooner or later. Dongfang Shoji had a private tacit agreement with Taiwan's foundries, that is, Taiwan would not make pirated discs of Hong Kong movies by itself in order to obtain orders from Dongfang Shoji.

However, pirated discs of Hong Kong movies still appeared on the market very quickly. Some master discs used to suppress genuine discs were stolen and resold due to management loopholes. The major film companies in Hong Kong, including Golden Harvest and Art City, have bought out the video rights of all new films this year at a high price. With the wealth of the Eastern Group, the profits from selling vcd are naturally not worth mentioning at all.

However, due to the Hong Kong films in the 1980s, few films could be released uniformly in the entire Asian market. In particular, many film dealers in Southeast Asia estimate their own income based on the box office of the film after the film is released in Hong Kong, so as to give a price that they can accept.

After the painting was released in the local market, Dongfang Commercial, which obtained the video copyright, naturally had to strike while the iron was hot and quickly release the vcd. According to the agreement between Oriental Commerce and various film companies, the launch of vcd will be postponed in areas where the film has not been released. After first harvesting a round of box office through the theater release, the vcd disc will be put on the shelves.

But pirated vcd manufacturers don't care so much. Naturally, they rush to distribute goods before the movie is released overseas, so as to attract movie fans who are waiting to watch the movie to buy the disc instead of going to the cinema to buy the movie. ticket. When this happens, the pirated vcd will naturally have a huge impact on many small film companies that are procrastinating in overseas distribution.

Because the three major cinema chains in Hong Kong are controlled by Golden Harvest, Art City and Shaw Brothers respectively, the only one that can force the three giants to compromise and give up some high-quality filming time slots is Asia Films. Most of the remaining film companies can only survive in the shadow of these four companies. There is no good film arrangement, which often means that the box office in this port will not be ideal. But in recent years when Hong Kong movies have become more and more prosperous, even if the local box office is not ideal, it does not matter. Because the mere sale of foreign films has enabled most Hong Kong films to successfully recover their costs.

And once the box office in foreign cities is hit, it will be tantamount to pulling wages from the bottom of the bucket for the Hong Kong film industry. From the beginning of the year to the present, in just ten months, many Hong Kong film companies have already felt the chills. Among filmmakers in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, the enthusiasm for purchasing films is declining.

In fact, the three giants, Golden Harvest, Xinyicheng, and Asian Pictures, were not greatly affected. Because under the demonstration of the Asian film industry, the new films of the three giants have basically been able to achieve unified release in the Asian market. Opening times for each region. No more than three days before and after. So even if there is a pirated version of vcd, the box office is nearing its end when it goes on sale.

On the blue sea, a beautiful yacht is splitting the waves and sailing very elegantly. You can hear the dynamic music from the yacht in the distance, and if you bring a telescope and aim at the deck at the rear of the yacht, you can also see the infinite spring, one by one wearing bikini, hot girls or lying on the beach chair, or lean on the railing. Beautiful.

But in a spacious box inside the yacht, the atmosphere is a little depressing.

"Li Sheng, you have to think of a way to survive for our small companies. If this continues, we will have to go bankrupt." A middle-aged man with a broad forehead far behind his hairline broke his silence and said.

"Yeah. Li Sheng, we all take you as our leader. You can do whatever you say." Another person echoed.

Afterwards, there was a lot of talk in the box, and many people expressed their opinions, but the center of everyone was undoubtedly not around the man called "Li Sheng". The "Li Sheng" in these populations is Li Xuan's eldest brother Li Ke. He borrowed his brother's luxury yacht to go out to sea today to hold a party.

Now, the boxes are full of film company bosses, but most of these bosses' companies are not large enough to be compared with big companies like Xinyicheng, Golden Harvest, and Asian Pictures. By comparison. The Family Huan Film Company in Li Ke's hands is already very large in scale. Family Fun Pictures has focused on specific types of films such as gangster films, young and dangerous, and shootout films in recent years, and the annual output is about five or six.

"As far as I know, my brother's Oriental Commercial Company has been very aggressive in combating pirated video discs during this period of time. Those high-quality pirated discs were the negligent management of the Taiwanese foundry. The accident happened that the master disc was lost now. After strengthening management, pirates can no longer get high-quality master discs, so the quality of the pirated discs that have been listed recently has dropped a lot.

As for pirated VCDs, there are still repeated prohibitions. The only possibility is that after the film is released, the copy is secretly copied, which often happens in the Southeast Asian market. The theater management of ASEAN countries is generally relatively backward, and it is easy to be successful. Therefore, the three companies, Golden Harvest, Art City and Asian Films, are very tough this time, forming a united front to put pressure on Southeast Asian filmmakers and theaters. Once a cinema has lost copies, it will be immediately excluded from the future new film supply list

As for the phenomenon of lost copies in Taiwan's cinema chains, it is rare, but the practice of stealing the box office is not only prohibited. All the rotted pustules were squeezed out

Although this time on the surface it seems to be a struggle between the three giants of the Hong Kong film industry and Southeast Asian and Taiwanese filmmakers, it seems that it has little to do with you. But if the actions of the three major companies are successful, the entire Asian film market can be much more regulated. And only when the industry is regulated, there will be no room for pirates to exploit, and the problem of piracy that everyone worries about can be fundamentally solved." Li Ke sipped his champagne and said calmly.

Not long ago, Golden Harvest, Art City and Asia Films suddenly joined forces to fight foreign filmmakers. Cinemas that want to qualify for the screening of Hong Kong films must first join a cinema chain recognized by the Hong Kong Film Association. To be recognized by the association, a theater chain must reach a certain level of management and operation. Secondly, movie theaters must install a computerized ticketing system and use computers to issue tickets uniformly, which will undoubtedly greatly increase the difficulty of movie theaters stealing the box office.

And this naturally caused a strong backlash from Southeast Asian and Taiwanese filmmakers, as well as movie theaters. The first counter-card played by the other party was to refuse to show all Hong Kong movies and arrange to show other movies instead. In this way, other Hong Kong film companies will undoubtedly be affected by Chiyu, and they will completely lose the opportunity to sell movies outside the city.

However, the three giants are not afraid of spending time with each other, because under the strong suppression of Oriental Commercial, the piracy of Hong Kong films has at least been curbed to a certain extent. For example, as long as the simultaneous release is in place, the film release cycle is basically nearing the end when the pirated vcd is listed.

While other films were not suppressed, companies such as Dongfang Commercial even secretly supported piracy. As a result, as soon as the film was released, pirated DVDs were already flying all over the sky, directly impacting the box office.

The quality of pirated vcd is obviously much worse than that of genuine vcd. The production process of vcd disc can be roughly divided into mastering, stamping, sputtering, adding protective layer, printing and other processes.

The first step of mastering ~www.readwn.com~ is to press the video data on a metal disk in the form of data pits. The second step of stamping is to accurately copy the dense data pits on the master disk to the transparent base disk through counter-pressing. If the data pits on the transparent disc want to reflect the laser and be read by the optical head of the DVD player, a layer of reflective film needs to be coated on it, which is the third step of sputtering. Finally, in order to prevent this layer of reflective film from quickly oxidizing in the air, it is also necessary to apply a layer of protective glue on it.

The genuine master disc currently used by Dongfang Commercial Co., Ltd. can hold at least 50,000 vcd discs, and the next-generation master disc under development is estimated to be able to hold at least 100,000 video discs. However, due to technical and technological reasons, master discs made by pirates are far more easily damaged than genuine master discs. More importantly, the data pits are not necessarily fine, which directly leads to a decrease in the clarity and fluency of the movie picture.

In order to keep costs as low as possible, most pirates also cut corners on the materials used to make CDs. In the vcd technical standard formulated by the Oriental Research Institute, a qualified genuine disc has a service life of at least 10 years, and many shoddy discs are almost scrapped after playing a few times.

All these have led to a clear gap between the quality of pirated vcds and genuine vcds, and when pricing genuine discs, Dongfang Commercial deliberately chose a range that is more acceptable to consumers. In this way, although there are still many people who are greedy for urination, many customers are more willing to choose genuine products. And VCD's other major customers, most of the video disc rental shops, are also more willing to have genuine video discs with many times longer service life. This allows genuine vcd to still have considerable sales under the impact of piracy. To be continued.