How complete is IAFD in terms of 80's and 90's US porn?

[treebee60]

Just wondering if any members here have opinions on how "complete" IAFD is when it comes to cataloguing US porn movies from the 80's and 90's. Do people think that IAFD has more or less catalogued everything there is from this era or are there still rogue titles out there waiting to be rediscovered? Has anyone had a specific experience over the past few years of coming across a title that was not in IAFD from this era? For purposes of discussion I would limit consideration to original pro features (i.e. source material) and not compilation titles or amateur tapes (which by and large are way too numerous to mention and not generally recorded there anyways).

[burpman]

No. For loops alone, it is woefully incomplete. Only recently, have they added much needed loop info from the first half of the 80s.

[Scott T]

There are many films and loops which are not yet on IAFD.

But I also think that they are the most complete resource in a single place that we have.

Over the last 10 years their coverage of both US material and the rest of the World has improved dramatically, but they have a long way to go.

They also need to address the quite appalling and flawed system that they have for users to report errors, additions etc to them.

[Denaniel]

Over the past several years, there have been members posting movies from the 80s and 90s that were new to VEF, and some of those were not listed at any of the online databases, i.e. IAFD, IMDb, EGAFD, BGAFD and ALDB.

This makes sense, if you think about the nature of porn tapes released before DVDs began replacing video tape. There were literally thousands of porn tapes released annually from the mid 80s through the late 90s. Many were low budget productions, had a short shelf life in video rental stores, were produced on cheap tape that would frequently break after being played hundreds of times, and with major color fade and drop outs if and when they survived longer than a decade or two. Also, the cost of tapes was relatively high, so most viewers rented them instead of buying. Only those viewers with a lot of money and tolerant wives/partners managed to buy and keep video tapes in sizable collections. Many titles have probably been lost completely, others are down to a handful of copies, many boxed and forgotten in attics or basements. Some of those turn up sporadically from estate sales, post divorce, or when a lucky porn fan finds a treasure trove that's been mothballed and rediscovered.

[imp44791]

The late Peter Van Aarle was a friend so I know a bit about the method he used to build up his database in the 90s (all done in Microsoft Access!). He was completely open about the areas where it was lacking: loops and non-US films/videos. He used a lot the various trade publications (AFW, AVN etc) to keep up with newer material, plus his own massive collection for the Golden Age/80s stuff. Even though he was Dutch, he was not super interested in European porn, including the classic French stuff, and also quite uninvolved with the developing British scene. Britain was always a separate beast because of its peculiar legal situation, and Peter was not really into the softcore/nearly hardcore/simulated/faked stuff that the British scene was replete with pre-2000. And I'm sure that by the time liberalisation came about the BGAFD was already up and running, but this was around the time when I dropped out of RAME and porn watching altogether; so I can't tell what his policy there was before his death. I don't know who maintains the database after Peter passed away, and I can't imagine how they may be dealing with the huge proliferation of material, especially in websites. But even with Peter on the wheel and just for the 80s and 90s, the IAFD was only meant to do part of the whole job together with other resources (e.g. BGAFD, EGAFD, even Eurobabe Index which I never rated myself).

Imp.

[Scott T]

I've been using IAFD for longer than I can remember, certainly back into the 1990's and the days of Windows 3.1. I also remember well the passing of Peter van Aarle.

There is a page on IAFD, Remembering Peter van Aarle which is worth reading if you are not familiar with his legacy.

If you delve into the depths of IAFD you will still find pages that are in the original format of the site so I wonder if it is still running on Microsoft Access - as are my own databases and purely because back then Access was the most flexible, especially once you'd figured it out.

My understanding is that these days IAFD is run totally on a volunteer basis.

[MasterRible]

I like IAFD a lot and they are trying to do an herculean job. It is difficut to check movies that are too underground or any references. I like the idea to name unknown performers with a number, so you have an idea that was an occacional role and "do not look for more info". Maybe, a cover for a movie will be helpful.

Also, to provide info, no matter how incomplete is. For example, a series movie that is called:

Big breast gone wild 1
Big breast gone wild 2
Big breast gone wild 3
Big breast gone wild 5

There is no info about 4, but it can be posted as pending. It will be helpful to people to contribute to give more info about it.