Don't worry - I'm not talking about laserdisc!

I've always like US rock music and one band in particular I've collected for decades - Heart.
There was one item that was released by the band back in 1994 that I only got round to buying in 2017.
It was Bob Hamiltons's Lifeworks Series - Heart 20 Years of Rock & Roll on CD-ROM.
Most sellers are looking very high prices for this disc today so I waited until a sealed copy turned up that was inexpensive to complete my collection.
I didn't want to pay much for it because I knew it was just a curiosity piece and would be really dated today.







Trying to watch this relic some 23 years after it was first released reminded me of how special laserdisc really is. Many modern laptops don't even come with CD-ROM drives today. Thankfully the one I had did still. First off the main multimedia presentation on the PC CD-ROM was produced using a product called Toolbook for Windows 3.1 so doesn't play at all in any modern PCs. I remember Toolbook well as I got a chance to use it myself on my year out at the Open University in 1993-94. The AVI clips did play in isolation but the quality was awful and the clips really short. The WAV files didn't play either. The only redeeming feature was the hundreds of pictures because most are unique to this disc and unavailable in any other form. Thankfully they can all easily be viewed still.

Hard to believe this CD-ROM were considered cutting edge technology in 1994 as it is barely watchable today, where as laserdisc has existed for almost the twice as long and still looks and sounds incredible today. Better still laserdisc is enjoyable to watch on modern equipment and easy to digitize to another medium (either on file or disc) to continue to watch in the future whereas this CD-ROM nightmare is not. If only they had produced a documentary on laserdisc instead with full length video clips it would have been really cool to look back on today. Instead we are left with this dinosaur. I'm certainly grateful for the Heart laserdiscs that do exist.

I'm just thankful these short lived multimedia formats didn't catch on in the music business because they don't hold up well today. I can think of a few other examples like Billy Idol's Cyber Punk CD + 3.5" floppy disc intended for MacOS 6.0.7 released in 1993 which is considered the first ever music release with multimedia. It contains a Macromedia Director presentation,complete with short loops from the songs on the album, lyrics for the tracks, and information from Billy Idol and others on the man, his music, the album, and the Cyberpunk culture. At least I can still play that one as I have an old Macintosh. There's also Xplora 1 Peter Gabriel's Secret World CD-ROM and CDi for both Mac and PC.

The way things are going these CD-ROMs will soon be more difficult to play than 8 track tapes or even PAL CED discs!!

Yeah...when I got the Gundam Master Grade box a few years ago it took me a while to be able to read the PhotoCD it came with. I was never into PhotoCD (this is the only one I own) but it was pretty popular in the US as a format Kodak would use to digitize your pics a few years before the public internet and home PCs really took off. It was also fairly in popular in Japan, with quite a few "fan discs" coming out featuring pop stars, F1 drivers, or anime stuff. I had no idea the format was so unique and proprietary. I assumed it was gifs on a standard CD-ROM. NOPE.

I couldn't find anything for an Intel Mac that would play them at all. This surprised me. So I fired up my PPC Mac Mini and watched them there. Then I realized I have the PhotoCD Operator for Sega Saturn and that's by far the most convenient way to play them. These are low quality images so when you view them on a computer with 24bit color at 1000x1000 resolution the flaws are obvious. On an SD TV with s-video from the Saturn...they look OK!

I have a few "enhanced" CDs from the 90s that came with music videos that ran at what are now hilariously low resolutions.

Wow blast from the past !

Planetary Traveler (1997) [LD2000]

I have the cd soundtrack for this LD (which is pretty interesting if you are into science fiction - a series of thematic computer videos with a central theme).

I got the cd since it has some extra audio tracks that aren't on the LD. It also has a cd-rom that provides background information on the aliens who built the traveller. I haven't investigated what exactly that entails.

Speaking of Saturn and ancient and obscure video software does anyone know if it's possible to view "Truemotion" video sequences from some games like Last Bronx offboard a Saturn? I still have 2 working Saturns and the sequences for one of my favorite Saturn games, Macross: Do You Remember Love? archived on DVD.

Back in the '90s that FMV was the most impressive you could get on a CD.

OP, I have a James Lavelle tour CD Rom that came out in 2003. I can't even play that back on my Windows 7 PC : (. I used to be able to play it on my Saturn before I sold the video card to a pawn store for peanuts : (

Billy Idol's venture into multi-media and recording the whole Cyber Punk album on a Macintosh at home pretty much finished his career in one fell swoop! It was too radical a change in direction for his music at the time. Looking back he was at least 10 years ahead of everyone else in what he was attempting to do.

There was even an accompanying Cyber Punk video released on VHS.
Pity it didn't get the laser treatment as the sleeve alone would have looked fantastic on laserdisc!

I can't remember if I ever did this. I know the earlier games used a standard cinepac format you could just copy right off the CD but the "duck" stuff I think is different.

If you want those Macross scenes specifically you can find the DYRL BR, the LE one, which has those scenes on one of the extra discs. They don't looks so impressive these days...but I know what you mean. They also show the destruction of the Promethius, which later in the actual movie Hikaru and Misa see after they fold back to earth without knowing it. All of the stuff in this set that they upconverted from SD doesn't look that great, IMO. For Flashback 2012 they had to use the LD master because they negative is sadly (tragically) lost and IMO the actual LD looks better on my setup so I don't think they were throwing everything they could at the quality control for the bonus stuff. The actual DYRL disc is fantastic.

Similalry, the excellent anime scenes made for the first Gundam game on Saturn are included as bonus material in the Gundam Master Grade Box in significantly higher quality than you see in the Saturn game. In fact these clips are better than the Macross ones IMO because they were made like an OVA, with the terrible Saturn FMV playback holding them back, and LD really brings them alive. For the DYRL clips it feels like they knew how low the resolution was going to be and deliberately didn't waste any money drawing something you'd never see.

I have em on a bootleg of the 20th Anniversary Collection DVD and on the 3 DVD remastered DYRL? Boxset. I don't and never will deal with BR, it's completely unnecessary for old material, which is all I care about.



Yeah, they're really important to me, a really well done (imo) canon prequel to the events of DYRL? The movie version of the battle for South Attaria Island. My views on what is canon does vary to most people as well (my views got me banned from Macrossworld) but I believe in the Big West canon and that Shoji Kawamori hijacked the franchise after Macross II and ruined it. At Macross World Kawamori is their God.



Well just more material that BR is inappropriate for, it looks fine on DVD.



I've got a minty copy of the LD myself, one of my most prized, it sits next to my trashed DYRL Perfect Edition LD box, the first LD I ever bought in 2001 in an Ikebukuro bargain bin, Y1000. I'd sit at one of my Japanese university's LD players in the library with headphones and watch it..back then players were still too much for a poor student like me.

Next to that on my shelf today is my TV Memorial box I finally got in Japan last year (1100yen), the last Macross media I will buy. Btw I can see now how unnatural the recolouring on my original Animeigo Macross TV DVD sets is now..



I've heard mixed reviews and that there is even some cuts and recolouring going on?

The DVD remaster isn't that good, the unremastered original theatrical cut on DVD isn't that good either. The LD beats them both for detail, appropriate grain and correct colours. The only reasons I'm glad I have that set are the bonus disc and the mini Gold Book that's included. I've never had the money spare to buy a real Gold Book and like everything these days and like you say "collectards" ( I like this, I might start using it) are probably inflating the price to stupid levels. At least I have a Perfect Memory book.



The clips do look a little "clean" I admit but I thought very dynamic/well directed, well proportioned mecha and lovingly rendered in general. I love those clips and am very happy with my DVD archives of them.

At the same time I'm trying to burn from my memory the CGI clips that were in the game and for some reason archived on the 20th Anniversary Disc.

Now the one thing on the BR set I might be interested in (and I'm just guessing that it's even on there) would be the pachinko animation? But really not that interested because it doesn't expand the original canon.

Great post.

CD Roms could be fine for photos or information back in the day, but horrible for music vids as they can't be better than vcd for that era. So you ended up with some tiny quicktime movie or windows avi.
But pc roms are for when behind your computer! Not comfortable for watching on your home cinema in the living room that way.
CD Roms and CD-i and many others could only play on certain devices and a certain time when a new device or new OS came available.
At least many vcds are playable on dvd players and even some blu ray players despite horrible quality.
CD extra can be okay as it has at least cd audio and one video you can extract or just copy to your desktop.
I bought one, a house remix of Flash from Queen. It was stated as CDV, but it wasn't, it was a cd extra.
I hate it when people don't give proper descriptions!
That is why i talk about 5"laserdisc when i would mention CDV 5" as CDV 5" is described or mistaken very often as VCD on the internet.

Indeed, and a very serious confusion arises with David Bowie's Sound+Vision : some copies have a CDV-Single, while others have a CD-Extra.