Video CD

Yeah.

I've got a bunch of the VCDs where it's, I basically... it's separated and it's in two dat files, but the audio is already separated.

And

I pretty much roll with the Cantonese most of the times.

I didn't like the LCDs.

VCDs, Laserdiscs.

Yes, LCDs are Laserdiscs, right?

Yes, LCDs are laser distanced.

What was the old format that would play on old PCs and Sega Saturn's VCD, I think, with really low quality videos on the disc?

Yep, the VCDs or even just a CD with QuickTime movies sometimes.

Yeah, that definitely brings me back.

I've been wanting to, I've been in the market for a new TV and I'm just trolling Craigslist.

At what point, I mean, did you guys ever break through and go, okay, we're going to be able to

press DVDs and VCDs? So there was a couple of, because Vietnam, we didn't have any licensee or distributor in place, right? So typically what you would do is that you would partner for help uh identify a licensee in market so again a third party you would contract with they would be responsible for delivering you know uh you know uh you know your ip across across the country so they would then have to go and find you know their own manufacturer their own distributor they would trust right you know we would come in sometimes and qualify those respective uh manufacturers because it's again a very very nuanced technology right in engineering and manufacturing line that you need to be able to to understand But more importantly though, I think was the fact that by going with the licensee model initially, you get to learn with licensee, right? So you take some risk off, right? It's like, you know what? I think I've done all my homework.

Before I go and invest a lot of money in building up a market, I'm going to go and do, you know, I'm going to have a third party in there, you know, see what's there, what's not there.

And if it works out well, maybe we will acquire the licensee.

You know, from somebody who is not, you know, I don't have a whole lot of depth and understanding of the business today, nor have I ever had that much, but just sort of like a basic understanding of streaming in Vietnam versus theatrical, it just seems like a very different ecosystem.

But I have a feeling that when streaming is fully blowing up in Vietnam, it's going to kill the theatrical business like it is here.

Well, I will tell you that, you know, Back in 2006, like I mentioned earlier, it was all about home entertainment, right? DVDs, VCDs, and then you have Blu-ray, right? All these different formats coming out, and everyone else was sort of drafting off of home entertainment.

I think today, the way it works is you still need cinemas, but you're going to skip over to streaming.

So many boys at the Tripey High School.

it changed a lot of lives because, I mean, you know that DVD player, VCD, you know? Because at that point, I don't know, we were so behind as a school.

So the school, for entertainment, we used to get together we used to ask a teacher to bring a radio to and people would dance and what and then people complained and finally they bought a tv

you

I found these comedies, um, that seemed to be all the rage.

I mean, they were-- I was, I was doing a homestay at a friend's house, and all of a sudden, you know, despite every, every other day everything is sort of hustle and bustle, but then when these-- then somebody puts on a, a, at this time it was VCDs, um, a VCD of these comedies, everything ground to a halt, and everybody just watched.

It was really distinct from everything else I was seeing.

So I pivoted.

Absolutely.

Um, and, and I mean, it's just trying to be as faithful as you can to people and, and to a lesser degree, texts, right? So...

Your research tracks a diachronic progression across four decades from post-Mao printed scripts and 1990s audio cassettes, radio broadcasts, to 2000s VCDs, televised skits like Garzung, and modern digital hip hop.

So how did you go about assembling this primary corpus of over 100 hours of interviews and 90 plus comedic scripts? And did you face any challenges in archiving the sound media in the regional teahouses and public markets that you mention in your book?

It was a behemoth.

I remember vividly buying all the VCDs to send back to my little brother in the UK because they came out quicker here.

So I'd go to all the shops in Toa Payoh, VCDs, I'd get the Royal Rumbles, the WrestleManias, all of that stuff.

You would go into any VCD shop or DVD shop in the late '90s, early 2000s, you would see wrestling posters in their shops.

That felt like the peak to me.