8mm Forum: A Laserdisc question ...

This is topic A Laserdisc question ... in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 04, 2008, 12:16 PM:

Hey Kevin, you might be able to answer this one ....

How many "Gold Disc" laserdiscs were manufactured?

Out of all my discs, I only have one, a two disc deluxe set of Orson Welles "The Trial" (1961). All my other laserdiscs are ther standard "silver" discs. Only this one is gold.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 05, 2008, 03:07 AM:

There were two Abba discs that were gold. 'Abba Gold' and 'More Abba Gold'.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 05, 2008, 11:52 AM:

Maybe I'm confusing the question ...

Unless, John, your speaking of an ABBA GOLD laserdisc of thier video's and not just "Gold" albums. A Lot of bands have had "gold" albums, but not actually "Gold discs"

This Laserdisc, "The Trial" (Orson Welles, 1961) was an actual GOLD laserdisc, (or, at least, Gold plated), and not silver. It's the only one I have ever ran into, Laserdisc wise.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on November 05, 2008, 02:10 PM:

Osi....

I have two 007 James Bond: Gold Finger and Golden Eye...

[Big Grin]

(I believe Mr Clancy was also joking with his ABBA)

cheers,

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 05, 2008, 05:50 PM:

I saw one about the 1980 US Winter Olympic Hockey Team.

It was.... "GOALED"!!!!

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 06, 2008, 03:13 AM:

I wasn't joking. There are two gold Abba laserdiscs that have the titles I stated. I have both of them here - they are both GOLD!!!

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on November 06, 2008, 08:40 AM:

In the mid 80's Philips did a relaunch of Laserdisc in the UK when they introduced Digital soundtracks. CDVideo.
These discs were initially all gold and were not back compatible with the earlier all analogue players.

With the UK TV PAL 625 line system there was not room in the frequency spectrum to add a digital soundtrack so the analogue sound was dropped however for the NTSC system room allowed them to keep the analogue sound along with the digitl so I think these could be played on analogue only NTSC machines.

All the new titles produced in Europe by Philips/Dupont were this gold colour but discs produced by Pioneer were still silver.

Once again we had another mini launch in the early 90's another relaunch saw the discs return back to silver.

Kev.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 06, 2008, 09:45 AM:

Thanks Kevin, that helps, I was thinking I wouldn't get an answer.

Sorry John, I thought you were joking.

Posted by John Clancy (Member # 49) on November 07, 2008, 04:19 AM:

My Pioneer CLD-1750 handles PAL analogue and digital soundtrack mastered material. At the time I purchased the player the CLD-1850 had replaced it but couldn't handle PAL analogue tracks so I had to shop around for a 1750. I believe Pioneer corrected this problem on subsequent models.

Posted by Kevin Faulkner (Member # 6) on November 15, 2008, 12:02 PM:

Yes John they did. In the UK you couldn't produce any Digital sound discs with Analogue at the same time so it was Digital only on Pal releases. The US NTSC discs could have both so the players for NTSC had the electronics for both. On some US discs you got a directors commentary or alternative language on the Analogue tracks.

For the UK market Pioneer seemed to forget for a while that a lot of people still had the original LD's with Analogue only tracks which was one of the reasons they had to release players again with both.

My Pioneer CLD-D925 indeed has both along with AC3 and plays both PAL and NTSC.
The NTSC discs still knock spots off the PAL discs for picture quality!

Kev.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 16, 2008, 12:59 PM:

Your right about those commentaries.

I have a number of them with commentaries ...

Macbeth (Orson Welles)
Das Boot (I think)
Air Force One (Directors, Commentary)

In some cases, the extras would be pretty cool, for instance :

The Thing (original 1950's version) It has, by use of the Frame By Frame mode, the complete original short story of the "The Thing" by the author!

The special edition of "Aliens" (James Cameron) The final disc has a very good "making of" documentaries which include both frame by frame reading materials, video interviews with James Cameron, complete blue-prints for the ships, for instance. I felt that it was the most exhaustive specialk edition I ran into.

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