Thread by @shobz

I remember how Cam prints of Hollywood movies flooded the market in the early 90s. We were able to watch the latest movies but the quality was terrible.

One of the movies I remember is "Jurassic Park", where members of the audience were laughing during the jello scene. Then there was "Death becomes her" where people in the audience were getting up to leave during the movie (which ruined the experience).

Pulse Global was in the market but the window between Theatrical releases and Home Video was quite lengthy. Eventually Pulse Global was unable to compete and pirated movies (albeit in better quality) were able to make a comeback.

I recall how Pulse Global was able to use its influence to get distribution centres for pirated movies raided but that wasn't enough.

There was the shift to VCDs which were easy to mass-produce, followed by DVDs. Loads of great TV series and movies were available on the format so we would buy them by the dozen.

Then came the shift to digital where you could just any torrent client to download movies. One had to be careful and avoid Cam prints as they were in abundance on filesharing services.

I would have mentioned p2p services such as Kazaa and Limewire but they were working in an era when we only had dialup and they were only good for downloading MP3s.

By the time we had access to Broadband in Pakistan, torrenting was the favorite format and p2p services had disappeared. Plus, they were also plagued with loads of problems including Viruses.

I remember how Record Companies would flood p2p networks with fake or incomplete MP3s. Madonna contributed by loading her album with a loop of "What the f... do you think you're doing?"

I had a friend who was so desperate to watch the latest movies that he would download the CAM prints. There was a leak of a Hollywood movie where the visual effects had not been completed. He watched the whole thing and complained how it was terrible.

If I recall, I think it was the first Wolverine movie. hollywoodreporter.com/business/busin…

It's amazing how we have streaming movie services where we can watch TV shows, Movies and Documentaries easily. We have come a long way.