Videx (Mike Freeman & Lindsay Honey/Ben Dover)

[thisnewday]

Anyone know why the Videx videos have never been released on DVD? I found a post from Mike Freeman in 2005, with him stating that he had the U-Matic video masters - yet nothing has ever come out. You'd think with Dover's involvement, these would have been released on DVD years ago!

[m100]

i'd guess the cost of certification is enough to put them off given that any releases would have to sell a substantial amount to recoup that money and make a profit and they are not going to have any appeal to the younger end of the market at all.

[thisnewday]

Do you need certification if you are outside the UK? I can't imagine that's an issue - the world is a small place now and do you really need to be able to sell DVD's in licensed sex shops in the UK any more?

[m100]

no you only need certifying to sell in shops within the uk but i would think the potential non-uk audience is limited and a lot of people certainly won't want to order from outside the uk and have them coming through the post. The cost of certifying according to the bbfc website is ?75 basic plus ?6 per minute running time. so one hour would set you back over ?400.

[thisnewday]

Surely there are more DVD sales to be had via mail order than sex shops and will have been for the past ten years or so? Do people really still go into sex shops in the UK and buy DVDs? I'd have thought that was a long dead market. It's perfectly safe to buy hardcore via mail order from the continent.

I'm surprised there's so little interest in Videx and that none of the videos have ever been re-released. Just the Ben Dover/Linday Honey involvement would guarantee sales.

[m100]

i can only speak for myself, i would buy them in a shop but wouldn't buy them mail order from europe etc. why should sex shop dvd sales be a dead market. compared to the ones i see being sold by major retailers online the prices are similar, cheaper if you buy in bulk. I only go 2-3 times a year as the nearest one is some distance away but the most i end up paying per dvd is ?12.50 - the last ones i got worked out at ?10 each and yes they were all recently released stuff not ones that had been hanging around on the shelves for years.

[thisnewday]

I would honestly believe you are a very minority in continuing to frequent sex shops and not buy mail order. The majority of people willing to buy DVDs mail order wouldn't dream of going to buy from a sex shop, which most people would just find too seedy. Hey, maybe I'm wrong - but I'd imagine UK releases do not gather the majority of their sales via sex shops. Back to Videx - I'd be surprised if getting an R18 rating from BFFC was what was holding anything back. It seems either people are either not interested in the Videx stuff getting releases or keeping schtum anyway....

[m100]

i've been reading up, particularly on the vintage erotica forum where a couple of the tapes appear. Someone on there claimed to have emailed mike who said he had very few of the masters. I've only seen screen shots but i can't see the problem in releasing them with a disclaimer along the lines of 'picture quality is not up to modern standards'. the thing that may be preventing online release is having to potentially deal with atvod.