"Did you bring anything?"

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

"It's Brother Kun, everything has already been brought, it's in my bag!" As soon as he finished speaking, the other party turned on a flashlight. By the light, he finally saw four or five people in front of him faintly surrounding him. However, he smiled very calmly, as if he didn't care at all.

"Your name is Ah Fei, right, you have a bit of guts, come with me!"

This person named Brother Kun finally spoke up again. So Ah Fei followed Brother Kun and walked two or three hundred meters in the rubble pile of the tidal flat, until he saw a gravel road three or four meters wide, where a gray van was parked. A group of people quickly got into the car and quickly disappeared into the night.

The van drove around for more than an hour before finally entering a village. Because it was the second half of the night, there was hardly any light in the village, and every family was immersed in sleep.

The car was parked in a small courtyard without walls, and Ah Fei got out of the car and followed Brother Kun into the inner room. There weren't many decent furnishings in the living room, and there was a table of eight immortals against the wall in the middle, and a Taishi chair on each side.

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

"The top three "School Storm", "Three-person World", and "Royal Sister 3" are all new, and my eldest brother said that he would give priority to ensuring shipments, and each one pressed 30,000 pieces. He will send a ship to pick him up next week, and he will still trade according to the old rules! The remaining seven parts are also selling very well in Southeast Asia, for the time being, each part will be pressed 10,000 pieces first, and they will all be done as soon as possible!" Ah Fei handed the ten metal plates to this Brother Kun one by one.

"The quality of your master is getting less and less reliable. The last time I sent those plates, I said that I could press 30,000 boxes, but in fact I only pressed 26,000 boxes and they were scrapped! In this way, my cost has increased a lot in disguise, you go back and have a word with you Pig Head Seven! Next time I call him to come over in person, we have been cooperating in business for almost half a year, and it is time to sit down and talk about the articles of cooperation again!"

"Brother Kun. Our earliest batch of master disks were originally made from the factory that helped the Asian Film Company press the plates from Taiwan, and the quality must be very good! However, now the Asian Film Company is grasping more and more strictly, and all the master disks are required to be recycled without a penny, and there is no chance to start at all. So the last two times we have figured out our own way to make the master disk from other places!

You pressed and sent 26,000 copies, but in fact, less than 25,000 copies were shipped. There are more than 1,000 discs, and they can't be sold because the quality is so poor! But our seventh brother said that you can't blame you for this, mainly because the quality of the master disks provided by us is not up to par.

But there's no way around it. Whoever asked us to do the piracy-copy business, we can only slowly think of ways to improve it in the future! If you want me to bring it, I will definitely help you bring it!" Ah Fei explained calmly.

That's right, they are in the pirated DVD business, Ah Fei's eldest brother Zhu Touqi is responsible for providing equipment and materials, this Kun brother is responsible for production, and finally Zhu Touqi will take it back and sell it.

As for why Ah Fei's eldest brother didn't produce it himself, because Asia Pictures and Oriental Commercial Company were too strict in Hong Kong. There was no place to stabilize the discs, so they simply moved the factory to the mainland.

With the strong promotion of Oriental Commercial and Asia Pictures from the beginning of the year. VCD players have quickly opened up sales in East and Southeast Asia, and even in South America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and other places, they have begun to sell well. After the popularity of VCD disc players, it brought about the best-selling of VCD discs.

The emergence of pirated DVDs is actually inseparable from the deliberate support of Oriental Commercial Company itself. When Oriental Commercial was looking for a foundry for VCD DVDs, it found a company with a community background in Taiwan. It is by virtue of this company's underground channels that the pirated VCD of Hollywood blockbusters. to be able to quickly spread the entire Asian market. Coupled with the genuine Hong Kong movie VCD sold by Oriental Commercial Corporation, users have a rich choice of content.

The influence of Hollywood movies is far greater than that of Hong Kong films. It is precisely because of the drive of pirated discs that VCD discs can be used in South America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and other eastern commercial companies, and other regions where they have not had time to do marketing and promotion. It also spontaneously opened up sales, which should be regarded as a surprise.

But as the so-called Pandora's box is opened, sooner or later it will reap the consequences. At the beginning, Oriental Commercial Company had a private tacit understanding with Taiwan's foundry, that is, in order to obtain orders from Oriental Trading, the Taiwan-Gulf side would not produce pirated CDs of Hong Kong movies on its own.

However, pirated discs of Hong Kong movies soon appeared on the market, and some master discs used to suppress genuine discs were stolen and resold due to management loopholes. Major Hong Kong film companies, including Golden Harvest and New Arts City, have bought out the video rights of all new films this year at a high price by Oriental Merchants. With the deep pockets of the Eastern Group, the profits from the sale of VCDs are naturally not worth mentioning at all.

However, due to the Hong Kong films in the 80s, it is still rare to achieve a unified release in the entire Asian market. In particular, many Southeast Asian film companies estimate their income based on the box office of the film after it is released in Hong Kong, so as to give a purchase offer that they can accept.

After the local market was drawn, Oriental Trading, which obtained the video rights, naturally wanted to quickly release the VCD while the iron was hot. According to the agreements between Oriental Commercial and various film companies, the release of VCDs will be suspended in regions where films have not been released. Wait until a round of box office is harvested through theatrical releases, and then put VCD discs on the shelves.

But pirated VCD manufacturers don't care so much at all, and naturally take advantage of the fact that the movie is not in a hurry to be released overseas, so as to attract fans who are waiting to watch the film to buy discs instead of going to the cinema to buy movie tickets. In this way, pirated VCDs have naturally had a huge impact on many small film companies that are dragging their feet on overseas distribution.

Because Hong Kong's three major cinema chains are controlled by Golden Harvest, New Arts City and Shaw Brothers respectively, and the only one who can force the Big Three to compromise and give up some of the high-quality film schedules is Asia Pictures. Most of the rest of the film companies can only survive in the shadow of these four companies. If there is no good film schedule, it 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 popular, even if the box office in Hong Kong is not ideal, it does not matter. Because just selling foreign films has enabled most Hong Kong films to successfully recover their costs.

And once the box office in other cities is impacted, it will be tantamount to a salary draw for the Hong Kong film industry. From the beginning of the year to now, in just ten months, many Hong Kong film companies have already felt the chill. The enthusiasm of filmmakers in Southeast Asia and Taiwan is declining.

In fact, the impact on the three giants of Golden Harvest, New Art City, and Asia Pictures is not big. Because under the demonstration of Asian Films, the new films of the three giants have basically been released in the Asian market. The opening time of each region. It should not take more than three days before and after. So even if there is a pirated VCD, the box office will be close to the end by the time it goes on the market.

On the blue sea, a beautiful yacht is splitting the waves, sailing very elegantly. You can hear the dynamic music coming from the yacht in the distance, and if you take the binoculars and aim at the deck at the back of the yacht, you can see the infinite spring light, and the hot girls in bikinis are lying on beach chairs or leaning on the railing. Too many beautiful things.

But in a spacious box inside the yacht, it was cloudy and misty at the moment, and the atmosphere was a little depressing.

"Li Sheng, you have to think of a way to survive for our small companies, if we continue like this, we will have to go bankrupt!" A middle-aged man with a very low hairline and a broad forehead broke the silence first.

"yes. Li Sheng, we all look to you as the horse. Whatever you say!" another chimed in.

Then there was a lot of gossip in the box, and many people opened their mouths to express their opinions, but the center of everyone undoubtedly did not revolve around the man known as "Li Sheng". The "Li Sheng" in these mouths is Li Xuan's eldest brother Li Ke. Today, he borrowed his brother's luxury yacht to go to sea for a party.

And now the box is full of film company bosses, but most of these bosses' companies are not large, and they can't be compared with big companies like New Arts City, Golden Harvest, and Asia Pictures. Compared with. The scale of the family carnival film company in Li Ke's hands is already very considerable. Over the years, Hejiahuan Pictures has focused on specific genres such as gangster films, old boys, and gunfight films, and the annual output is about five or six.

"As far as I know, my brother's Oriental Trading Company has been very strong in cracking down on pirated DVDs during this time! Now after strengthening management, pirates can no longer get high-quality master discs, so the recently launched pirated discs, the picture quality has dropped a lot!

As for the piracy of VCDs, there are still repeated bans, and the only remaining possibility is that after the release of the film, the copies were secretly copied! The management of theaters in ASEAN countries is generally relatively backward, and it is easy for people with good intentions to get their hands on it! Therefore, Golden Harvest, New Arts City, and Asia Pictures are very tough this time, forming a united front to put pressure on Southeast Asian film companies and theaters. If a copy is lost in a theater, it will be immediately excluded from the list of new films in the future!

As for the phenomenon of the loss of copies in Taiwan-Bay theaters, although it is rare, the practice of stealing the box office has been repeatedly banned! As the saying goes, a long pain is better than a short pain, and taking advantage of the industry crisis caused by this VCD piracy, it is better to simply carry out a self-nirvana and squeeze out all the pus that has rotted in the industry!

Although this time seems to be a struggle between the three giants of the Hong Kong film industry and Southeast Asian and Taiwanese film companies, it seems to have little to do with you. But if the actions of the three major companies are successful, the entire Asian film market will be much more regulated. Only when the industry is standardized, can pirates have no loopholes to exploit, and the piracy problem that everyone is worried about can be fundamentally solved!" Li Ke took a sip of champagne and said unhurriedly.

Not long ago, Golden Harvest, New Arts City and Asia Pictures suddenly joined forces to start a war with foreign film companies. If you want to be qualified to screen Hong Kong films, you must first join a cinema chain that is recognized by the Hong Kong Film Society. If the cinema chain wants to be recognized by the association, it must reach a certain level of management and operation. Secondly, the cinema must install a computer ticketing system and uniformly use the computer to issue tickets, so that the difficulty of the cinema stealing the box office will undoubtedly be greatly increased!

Naturally, this has caused a backlash from Southeast Asian and Taiwanese studios, as well as cinemas. The first counter-card played by the other party was to refuse to show all Hong Kong movies and arrange for other movies to be shown instead. In this way, other Hong Kong film companies have undoubtedly been affected by the pond fish, and they have completely lost the opportunity to sell films in other cities.

However, the three giants are not afraid of slowly consuming each other, because Hong Kong films have been at least curbed to a certain extent under the strong suppression of Oriental Commerce. For example, as long as the simultaneous release is in place, the movie release cycle is basically nearing the end when the pirated VCD is listed.

And no one has suppressed other films, and companies such as Oriental Commercial have even secretly supported piracy, resulting in the pirated discs flying all over the sky as soon as the film is released, directly impacting the box office.

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

The first step of master production is to press the video data in the form of a data pit on a metal disk. The second step is to copy the dense data grooves on the master disk to the transparent base plate accurately by compression. If the data pit on the transparent disc wants to reflect the laser light and be read by the optical head of the DVD player, it needs to be coated with a layer of reflective film, which is the third step of sputtering. Finally, in order to prevent this reflective film from oxidizing in the air very quickly, it is also necessary to apply a protective glue to it.

The genuine master disk currently used by Oriental Commercial Company can press at least 50,000 VCD discs, and the next generation master disc under development is estimated to be able to press at least 100,000 video discs. However, due to technical and technological reasons, the master disc made by the pirate is far more likely to be damaged than the genuine master disc. What's more, the data pits in it are not necessarily fine, which directly leads to the decline in the clarity and smoothness of the film.

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

As a result, there is an obvious gap between the quality of pirated VCDs and genuine VCDs, and Oriental Commercial has deliberately chosen a range that is more acceptable to consumers when pricing genuine discs. As a result, although there are still many people who are greedy for urine, many customers prefer to choose the genuine version. Another major customer of VCD, the DVD rental shops, also prefer genuine DVDs that have a long service life. This allows genuine VCDs to still have considerable sales under the impact of piracy. (To be continued.) )