MUSE H-Vision I believe was pretty much the first HD format out on the market (even if it was just in Japan and even if it was extremely expensive and rare), but anyway does anyone know if MUSE was the first and only analog HD format? When I say ANALOG I mean in terms of picture quality.

There was W-VHS....

And on the professional market there were some HDVS systems

Hi,

In fact it is not ...

On disc format there is also HD-MAC, a 1280 lines analogue video / digital audio format...



Also (but only for info as it has nothing to do with LD) there was a 819 line format analogue video format used in France, however replaced because of its high bandwith consumption ...

HD-MAC? Was that on the market or just a proto?

Only professional usage, never released for consumers unfortunately... (only D and D2-MAC were available on consumer market , however not on LD)
This HD-MAC LD format became available around 1992

Strangely nothing is to be found about that format.... Only one article that mention it as a prototype....

HD-MAC was sponsored by the European Union and first used at the 1992 Olympic Winter games, for the public it was available downscaled as a D2-MAC (=625 lines lum/crom separately) broadcast via satellite, must have some more info laying around as I used to own such a decoder. It became obsolete when digital tv was introduced.

When working for the Dutch Telecom Research center (Neher Lab in Leidschendam) at that time I remember having read a number of articles on this disc format....

BTW maybe laserdisc.ws can help us as he has a HD-MAC LD player...

HD-MAC wasn't only laserdisc.... the laserdisc was a prototype. HD-MAC was the signal.
HD-MAC was recorded on a special BCN machine, or a couple of D1 machines in master/slave setup (1 for odd and 1 for even fields)
It was ment for broadcast...

So HD-MAC laserdisc was actually never officially on the market.

Sony had HDVS systems in 1981

When you say "format", what do you mean?
If you mean "home video delivery system", then Hi-Vision LD was the only one which ever became available to the public. If you mean "a standard for transmission of moving images and sounds", again, MUSE in the form of satellite broadcasts (from 1991 to 2007) and Hi-Vision LD was the only one which ever made it into the hands of the consumer.

A wide variety of equipment was developed in Japan for use with the 1125/60/2:1 "HiVision" production standard. This includes analog and digital 1" tape VTRs (open-reel), an analog 3/4" tape (cassette) format for industrial uses known as "Uni-Hi", and analog uncompressed videodiscs for industrial uses. But these were never consumer products.

In addition, in Europe the 1250/50/2:1 "Eureka" production standard was developed, although the desultory pace of progress suggests that it was mostly intended to discourage European broadcasters from adopting the Japanese standard, which several were prepared to do after the 1988 WARC in Italy. At that conference, after European experts said that HDTV was impracticable, the Japanese demonstrated a working system suitable for the home user, in the form of MUSE. The BBC developed a system for breaking the video signal into 4 channels, each of which was a standard 625/50/2:1 component signal, and recording them in synchronism on four D1 VCRs. The MAC system, originally proposed for satellite broadcasting by the IBA in Britain, had a subsampling scheme added to it, in order to obtain HDTV resolution in a similar way to MUSE, but with backward compatibility to European SD standards. In the event, European satellite broadcasters and viewers didn't adopt MAC, so HD-MAC was not only years behind MUSE in development, but had nobody to watch it. It was used for demonstration experimental broadcasts, but that's all.

Actually, my HD-MAC laserdisc player (Philips CSA-300) is only a prototype; I contacted one of the engineer that made it (in Italy!) some years ago, and at that time he barely remember about it... (^^,)

Sadly, few months ago it stopped to work; now it switch on, with some green lights, but display is dead and tray doesn't open... if only someone could fix it here in Italy or Europe... I think it's the most valuable laserdisc player available in the world, because, as far as I know, it's the only one still around...

some pictures found here

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/114-hdtv- ... dm-13.html