CAA is just CLV quantized in steps. It's basically the same, which is why you never see "CAA" on an actual LD.

With all due respect, don't try to out trivia Publius on matters like LD (or space travel, nuclear energy, and a few other things). He will bury you completely.

I guess it depends if we are talking about the percentage of LDs physically pressed (many millions, of which very very few were 8") or the number of titles that exist (maybe 50,000-60,000 with many hundreds of 8").

I said similar not exactly.

Back to the original question which was Were 8" LDs more expensive to produce? then I would think physically that they would not be more expensive, probably a bit less (but what do I know???).

I may be wrong (& probably am but someone I am sure can correct if that is the case) but was the actual manufacturing process to make the 8" LDs not quite a bit simpler than the 12" LDs, no "glue" required for the 8"discs, less materials needed so from the basic manufacturing processes used would an 8" LD not be less costly - this is not taking into account quantity order discounts or the like, just actual materials & pressing costs.

The majority of 8" LDs are actually similiar in construction to a conventional 12" laserdisc in that they usually comprise two acrylic discs stuck together or 1 disc stuck to a dead side. That's why some of them also suffer from laser rot because they use the same basic construction which was sometimes flawed.

A smaller quantity of 8" LDs are made like CDs from polycarbonate material with only one play side and no glue.
Those are never rotted (to my knowledge).

Certainly the smaller form factor than a 12" LD means less raw material was needed to produce them whether they are made from acrylic or polycarbonate so I suspect they were far cheaper to produce. The format simply wasn't suitable for anything other than short clips or music videos so would not have been used as extensively for laserdisc releases.

The biggest difference in production cost was probably owing to the reduced time required for mastering, at least as regards double-sided discs. The single-sided discs had their own economies. But then, I have never understood why essentially all LDs are mastered all the way to the outer circumference, even when the video ends much short of it. Time on the mastering machines was expensive!

Because if the video on one side was 45 minutes they would use CAA50 which would fill up the whole disc surface.

You'd think that, but it's fairly straightforward to inspect the disc visually & find the end of playback. The wasted area is very usually much larger than one would see if the "faster" CAA modes had been used.

The LD Singles were only produced by Nippon, Kuraray and Pioneer Japan. I have no reason to believe any 8 inch disc would cost more than a 12" variant, except perhaps when taken into account the price breaks due to pressing quantity.

Let's take a look at "Whitney Houston: The #1 Video Hits". It has the rare distinction as being pressed as a CAV 12" disc, a 2-sided 8" disc (in CLV) and an LD Single (1 sided 8" disc) - twice.

12" CAV = 4800 Yen
8" CLV = 3000 Yen
8" LD Single = 2500 Yen (both times)

I'm really clearing out the cob-webs here, but I seem to recall LDs were $10 per side CLV and $8 CAV when pressed in quantity (for movie distribution). MCA/Universal always would try to make a short-side CAV title when possible. Filmmakers had approval on side breaks, so some films (like Waterworld) didn't get a CAV side.

Pioneer took a bath on "The Frighteners" Signature Collection. The price had already been set and orders taken before the final product had been produced. So when it came in at 8 sides (!), the actual replication costs alone were $80. That's why it was such a steal at $49.98. Pioneer had told me that demand for a second pressing was non existent because they were going to have to raise the price to at least $99.98.

One disc which seems as though it could have been issued in 20 cm format is the seven-minute Clamp in Wonderland, but in this case, it's obvious why not : the disc was pretty much an excuse to issue ten "LD-size" art prints, which would have been much less impressive with less than half the printable area.

A bit of trivia then: lists of 12" LDs with less than 10mn contents

https://www.lddb.com/search.php?adv_search=*&adv_reference=&length=10&length_op=less&size=1&format=ld

And check this recent post for 2000's 12" LD manufacturing price lists!

FOUND THE SITE Old Maker list


Julien