From The Archives of Rex Saigon: The Age of Video (1988)

Another journey back in time, to the halcyon days of 1988 with this 10th Anniversary of Home Video feature from the pages of the now-defunct home tech magazine VIDEO. What was hot, what was not, and what (they thought) was to come . . .

(turn pages included at the end)

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: State of the Art (1989)

An article from the dead magazine Video Review, comparing then-cutting edge television sets to their predecessors.

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: RPM Weekly cover story - THE BLACK HOLE (1979)

Digging real deep today for a musty old copy of RPM Weekly Magazine (Vol. 32, No. 12, Dec. 15, 1979), a trade-only rag for the Canadian radio and recording industries that followed the trends, interviewed the movers and shakers, posted weekly charts in the top music categories, handed out the RPM Gold Leaf Awards (which evolved into Canada's prestigious Juno Awards) and, once in a while, pimped a movie they believed was destined to be the Next Big Thing, in this case Walt Disney Pictures' THE BLACK HOLE (a guilty pleasure of Rex's from way back), which opened worldwide just six days after the publication of the magazine, then promptly became one of those movies that contributed to the studio's lean years in the early 80's. Sure, it's basically a puff piece, written mostly from the press kit, just as such "features" are today, but it provides a sizeable preamble chronicling the history of the studio, and an interview with then VP and GM of Walt Disney Music of Canada Jim Rayburn, who was convinced the various record products would take off concurrently with the success of the film.

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: Lost In Video Limbo (1990)

From the 1990 "Tape & Disc Annual" edition of Video Review's Movie Guide comes Bruce Eder's special report about popular movies that were still unavailable on VHS or laserdisc. DVD has become home to most of the titles Eder investigates, but there may yet be holdouts. Read on:

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: Buy Now Play Later - Warner Laserdisc (1990)

Found this in an old Video Review Magazine from 1990, back when you could build a library of your favourite movies on disc from only $24.98. SUPERMAN IV? Sign me up!

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: Home Entertainment Technology: The Next 50 Years (1989)

A look at the future of home entertainment technology, based on then-current trends and predicted by futurist Gary Arlen, in the April 1989 edition of the now-defunct Video Review magazine.

His ETAs may not have been precise, but much of what he predicted has come to pass. Take a look:

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: Double Your Discs (1993)

From the March-May 1993 edition of Britain's Home Entertainment magazine: disc-maker Nimbus demonstrates feature-length, full motion video from a double-density compact disc at the ever popular MIDEM music industry booze 'n schmooze at Cannes in January, 1993. But could something like this ever catch on? The magazine, much like every Home Theatre/Video magazine of the day, assumes that laserdisc can't be dethroned.

From The Archives of Rex Saigon: Gump goes video CD (1994)

Few among today's digital cognoscenti may remember that the Video CD format—still popular today in Hong Kong and parts of Asia, where few households circa 1993 had VCRs when this low-priced, climate-friendly format made its debut—almost became the successor to VHS. Almost. This ad from Philips appeared in the November 1994 issue of Premiere Magazine, touting the "CD-quality audio" and "digital picture quality" of the then-nascent format. Notice they don't say "VHS-quality" or "laserdisc-quality", since the VCD generally landed somewhere in between those formats—or, just as often, beneath both of them—on the home theatre presentation scale. It may have died a quick and quiet death in North America, but the format's resilience in Hong Kong, in particular, means any fan of the city's cinema who truly wants to wear the badge must indulge the format on a regular basis or risk leaving a considerable segment of Hong Kong's diverse film offerings undiscovered due to its lack of availability on DVD or any other format.

From the Archives of Rex Saigon: LASER DAZE (1991)

From an issue of Entertainment Weekly, dated 1991, an era when optical home entertainment discs were incredibly large, not unlike the egos of people who owned and collected them.