The CBS/Fox Company (Duplicator)

History

This arm was originally established in 1967 as Magnetic Video Corporation. Initially, it was only an audio duplication facility. It became a video duplication facility in 1977, when it was expanded to become a home entertainment distributor. The arm was renamed to The CBS/Fox Company, a joint venture between CBS and 20th Century-Fox, in late 1982, shortly after the home entertainment subsidiaries of the former company and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer were split, alongside Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's acquisition of United Artists from Transamerica.

List of Customers

• CBS/Fox Video (1977-1987)
• CBS Video Library (1982-1987)
• Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment (1981)
• MCA Videocassette, Inc. (1980)
• Paramount Home Video (1979-1981)
• Walt Disney Telecommunications and Non-Theatrical Company (1987)
  • Walt Disney Home Video (1987)
• Worldvision Home Video (1982-1987)

How to Tell

• Tapes that were duplicated at Magnetic Video Corporation would have "MAG1" engraved on the back of the tape.
• 1984-1987 tapes duplicated at CBS/Fox would have engraving on the right side of the tape that says "CBS FOX" and printings on the bottom middle side, including a day-year code that is read in either Day/Y0, Day/Y or Day/YY.
  • For example, if the day-year code reads "16550", that means the tape was printed on the 165th day of 1985.
  • Invisible dark ink printings and white barcode stickers on the side of the tape began in 1986, with the code switched over from "DayY0" to "DayY." VCA/Technicolor continued these printing methods during the next three years, following its acquisition of CBS/Fox's duplication facility and name change to Technicolor Videocassette in 1987.
    • Sometimes, from early 1989 to late 1990, the code would read something like "18789." On some tapes, the code is kind of visible.
    • In addition to the above mentioned printings, SP mode tapes would have a code on the left (prior to 1986) or the right (after 1986) of the vertical-blanking interval that begins with "MV-GARD" (pre-1978), "MAG" (1978-1980), "MAGVID" (1980-1982), "FOXVID" (1982-1984), "CBSFOX" (1984-1986) or "CFV" (1986-1987). VCA/Technicolor continued this code method, rather beginning with "TVC," for the next one decade, following its acquisition of CBS/Fox's duplication facility and name change to Technicolor Videocassette in 1987 and Technicolor Video Services in 1993.
• Most tapes printed after January 30, 1990, more than two years after Technicolor's acquisition of CBS/Fox's duplication facility, would have an engraving on the left or right side that indicates the company that distributed it, identical to the engraving on either side of tapes duplicated at Technicolor in the West and East Coast areas. This never applied to tapes released by CBS/Fox.

Gallery

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  This is what the "MAG 1" etching looks like on the back of tapes duplicated by CBS/Fox Video from 1977 to 1983.

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  This is what the "CBS FOX" etching looks like on the right side of tapes duplicated by CBS/Fox Video from 1984 to 1987.

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  This is an example of what the vertical-blanking interval looked like on tapes duplicated by CBS/Fox Video from 1984 to 1986.

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  Sometimes, the 1984-1986 incarnation of the vertical-blanking interval ended with a letter instead of a dash and a number.

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  This is what the barcode sticker looks like on the left side of tapes duplicated in Livonia, beginning in 1986.

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  This is an example of what the vertical-blanking interval looked like on tapes duplicated in Livonia, beginning in 1986.

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  This is an example of what the vertical-blanking interval looked like on tapes duplicated in Livonia, beginning in 1986, with Macrovision encoding intact.

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  Same example as picture #9, this time ending with 14.

Locations

• Farmington Hills, Michigan (1967-1986) (moved to Livonia)
• Livonia, Michigan (1986-1987)