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Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6489		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  Guest [ 11 Aug 2016, 23:45 ]
Post subject:  Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Hello LDDB!
For all those who are fans of the popular, longest running, original animated series,"Regular Show" on Cartoon Network, you'll be quite aware of the show's constant referencing to antiquated technologies (especially that of the Laser Disc). It was this show that pushed me to begin my collection of Laser Discs. Recently, I learned of there being home recording hardware for the Laser Disc produced sometime before the technology was discounted.

In honor of Regular Show's upcoming 8th Season, I wanted to investigate into purchasing a recorder and a blank RLV to put a few episodes of the show on Laser Disc and gift them to Quintel as a sort of "Thank You" from the fans. I messaged the creator of the show, J.G. Quintel, and he showed his enthusiasm on making this project happen. When I posted my plans to find a recorder on Twitter, he replied with,"duuude. I want a copy." haha! Here's a link to the tweet: https://twitter.com/JGQuintel/status/763587065757900800
He joked around before with the idea to release his show on the format before, but was unable to due to obvious reasons. I've been on LDDB and have poke around on these forums before, and I know that finding recordable Laser Discs are next to impossible. So naturally, I started digging!

I've first sourced help from the YouTube community and got in contact with two LD owners/enthusiasts: Sam (Culturedog) and Mat (Techmoan). In an email with Sam, he stated that there was someone in the community looking to start their own LD stamping service awhile back. He's looking for information on the matter and if you yourself have any knowledge on it, I'd love to hear it! Mat referred me to some "lost websites" and gave me some old contact info. http://www.djdesign.com/tutorial/makers.html
I struck gold when contacting Magno Corp. as they gave me a list of companies whom used the format in the past and may have guidance on finding recorders. After references from several companies, I was left with Vito of DoArt Corp. (whom has worked at Magno for the pass 20 years). And Orozco, (Senior Account Executive of Media Distributors). I am awaiting a callback from Vito as he is making calls to see whom would still be in possession of any recorders and I was unable to get in contact with Orozco as he was out of the office today. I'll be making more calls tomarow, but I think its safe to save I've rapped myself into this quite well...

Although I have these leads, I fear that these maybe industrial Laser Disc recorders and something far too overkill for this small project. I was searching for much smaller recorders like those from Pioneer and Panasonic. I'm well aware that finding recordable Laser Discs in 2016 is outrageous, especially the RLVs and not he caddy-based CRVs (not including finding the hardware). But if you have ANY helpful information AT ALL to give to this project, I'd really appreciate it! If anyone is will do do a recording with what equipment they own, I can gladly pay a service fee to have it done. In the meantime, I'll be working on anything I can do to help the process along such as designing a sleeve and smaller aesthetics. I'll be posting updates to this thread and the /r/RegularShow subreddit as it develops (hopefully). Yes, this is my first post on this site and you may think of me as a "normie" or a "noob", but I'd like to think that a project like this could inspire a new generation of future Laser Disc owners as well as shine the Laser Disc community into a more public spotlight for mainstream consumers. Again, I know that this is all next to impossible, but I think for a creator of a widely popular TV Show to pay respect to a beloved format so much that he wants to have it on Laser Disc, I think he deserves it!

Just to sum it up, this whole thing is a non-profit, one-off, fan made gift to J.G. Quintel to celebrate on an 8th Season of Regular Show. I hope you guys will pickup this story and share this with anyone you may know whom could help and if you have any questions for me, please leave a comment.
Thanks again for reading! :clap: :thumbup:

UPDATE: 8/12/16 About to start calling back yesterday's contacts to see what there is. In the meantime, I've finished my first concept design for the LaserDisc sleeve and the LD itself. Heres a post on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/iOutatime/status/764164502036164609
I think I will continue to post smaller updates on the /r/RegularShow and /r/LaserDisc subreddits. They will both be the same post.
Here's my cover post on the /r/RegualrShow subreddit: https://redd.it/4xfl3e
PS: I think today is my birthday or something...
Author:  je280 [ 12 Aug 2016, 11:06 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLVs and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Hi & the very best of luck with this, I really hope you can get somewhere with it.

I have seen a Sony Laser Recorder & it was quite a large unit, footprint around the average player size but it was a bit taller.

Never saw it working as it apparently did not power up & was being stored (& had been for quite a while) in the boot of a car, not ideal.

I do remember one of the (factory) stickers on the rear had PAL among the details & as I am in the UK that is likely to have been the case, quite a few years ago now but I do recall that it was rather heavy - no idea where it came from originally.

As you have already alluded to the disc acquisition thing does appear to be a bit of a mission.

Sorry that I cannot help in any way but hope that you can get past the chasing stage & actually get to do something with some hardware & discs.

Cheers.
Author:  forper [ 12 Aug 2016, 11:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLVs and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
As much as I hate the ironic hipsterism of liking laserdisc in 2016 as I assume (never seen it) is displayed in a hipster cartoon like Regular Show , good luck.
Author:  signofzeta [ 12 Aug 2016, 17:52 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLVs and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
I love LD, Regular Show, and your enthusiasm, but I have to say this is %99 likely to be a doomed effort.

There were several recordable LD formats, I think only one of them will produce a disc that will play in a standard player. Several people have visited here with blanks, blanks with programs on them, selling recorders, looking for recorders, but off the top of my head I can't think of one single instance of anyone actually recording with one of these machines since the 80s. Even when these things were brand new equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars it doesn't seem like they got a lot of use, I assume because some kind of tape was usually more practice.

And as for producing LDs in the traditional way...really hard. It took years even for the people who invented it to get it working right. Doing it now without at least the budget of two entire seasons of Regular Show very is unlikely.

Some people have hypothesized that by *heavily* hacking a 5" drive that a CDV could be burned into a CD-R. This would require a huge level of understanding if its even possible at all.
Author:  happycube [ 13 Aug 2016, 09:11 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
The search for "The Last LaserDisc Recorder" ;)

I'd say recordable LD's were a thing at least through the mid-90's, my UCSB RLV's are from 1992 and 1994 IIRC. I doubt (m)any were made after 1999, especially after set-top DVD-R boxes came out.

Some say Panasonic had 8" LD-R drives using RLV tech that produced compliant disks. As for CD-V-R's, Pioneer had patents on it, with special CD-V-R disks - so it at least existed in the labs in Japan, but who knows if they made it out.

In the very unlikely event LD's were ever going to pressed again, LD single type disks would be easier. Most were 8" but Sonopress made some 12"s. But no operational plant (even for 8's) has existed for almost 10 years.

But in a world where you can buy 256GB USB sticks for $30 at Costco (even if, as I imagine, their long term retention is horrible), even BD-R is going to be under pressure...
Author:  dehaanav [ 15 Aug 2016, 07:18 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
i've thrown lots away and sold lots on ebay..I know a friend still has the recorders
Author:  daro2096 [ 15 Aug 2016, 23:31 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Good luck in finding unused LD blanks that still are usable.
Author:  harlock [ 16 Aug 2016, 20:35 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
The thing is that the machine that records LDs playable on ordinary players is fairly exotic. The machines used in pro video with the special disks, not much bigger than an ordinary LD deck, are fairly common and what most think of when they hear "LD recorder". This behemoth, the ODC LVDR-610, was what was used to record real laserdiscs. Finding one of these is tough-I don't think I've seen even a color picture of one and Disclord said there were probably less than 10 ever made. A working one? A 19 inch rack full of card-cages packed with boards, plus stuff like air cushion supported optics in what looks like a 1000 pound package (the optics sit on a granite block :shock:)...If an LVDR-610 still exists, the chance of that many subsystems still working is nil, so there's fixing optics/mechanics with unobtanium parts and much electronic troubleshooting to resurrect.

The ODC LVDR-610:
Image
Author:  signofzeta [ 16 Aug 2016, 21:45 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Lately I've been thinking about obsolete electronics and how to repair them a lot. I have a pro monitor that needs a flyback transformer I have yet to source. After seeing a guy make triode tubes from scratch with a soldering iron, a blowtorch, and a lathe it occurred to me that maybe lateral thinking could be useful.

As in, maybe here is a way to make new LDs that is way different from the old methods.

At the moment I'm imaging an optical process where a disc is written everywhere at once with an optical method, like how you make photographic prints. One exposure, perfect aligned obviously, would be all you need. Most of the military grade gear you're seeing here is to control tracking. With the photographic method you need none of that.

One of the fun things about LD is that it's super low density. You can *see* stuff on the disc. You can see every frame, the headers, etc. With a CAV disc you can pick out each field with the naked eye even. This is a good thing since it means less precision is needed to make a disc than say, a BR, or even a 3.5" floppy.

An projected image of the pits and lands onto a photosensitive substance could work as far down the line as I can envision this.

A reversal of this process, which I've theorized before, could be used to read an LD. Happycube's decoding process works for sure. The disc can be scanned at high enough resolution for sure. Therefore the big challenge would be to make software that could track the spiral, unwind it, and use it to construct the high resolution waveform that Happycube's software needs.
Author:  happycube [ 16 Aug 2016, 23:58 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
A photographic method was done in the 80's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laserfilm. Disclord IIRC said that a prototype of this did play on a regular LD player with a reflective disk on top. With enough resolution and a lot of effort it could be made to work.

It would probably be easier to fake it though - with the right hardware (one high speed DAC, a couple to make it look like tracking signals etc) - and far more effort than I'm interested in putting in - one could make an ld-encode system which would make an LD player think it was playing a new disk, while spinning an old one to make it sound like it actually was playing an LD.

More realistically, a single precisely-timed composite ADC could produce an LD-style image, and I could probably be persuaded to eventually make the software for that (complete with at least some serial protocol support) if someone points me to very cheap hardware to use for it...

(It'd be nice if I could get precise control of a Raspberry Pi's composite port, but that's hidden under a binary blob...)
Author:  signofzeta [ 18 Aug 2016, 03:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Oooooooohhhhhh...

That probably explains why Laserfilm was made in the first place. Because it would be easier to make one off discs.

I invented something already invented. :)

I do hope someone does it though.
Author:  Guest [ 18 Aug 2016, 19:20 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
dehaanav wrote:
i've thrown lots away and sold lots on ebay..I know a friend still has the recorders

I BELIEVE I'VE FOUND A RECORDER SUPPLIER! https://twitter.com/dringuelle/status/7 ... 7557980164
In case this falls through, I would like to know if dehaanav would still be willing to help. Now all I need is one blank RLV disc. Just one-sided, 30 minutes is all!..
Author:  happycube [ 18 Aug 2016, 20:08 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Wow, an RLV recorder still exists! Awesome :)

Here's more on Laserfilm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVHUZ8YJp-U - I actually saw a player at a thrift store in Ventura a couple of years ago, but passed becuase I knew the disks were unobtanium.
Author:  Guest [ 18 Aug 2016, 22:32 ]
Post subject:  *UPDATE* Operation: Regular Show on LaserDisc
Great news! I have found someone who is willing to press the two episodes of Regular Show to a LaserDisc. All thats left now is a blank RLV and a means of fabricating a sleeve for the disc. If you have any information on where I could find a disc or sleeve manufacturer, PLEASE let me know or PM on my Twitter for a quicker response: https://twitter.com/iOutatime

Here's a link to the full update on Reddit: https://redd.it/4yej90
I also made this post available on the LaserDisc subreddit: https://redd.it/4yejus

Lets make this thing happen! :clap: :D
Author:  harlock [ 19 Aug 2016, 03:04 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
Pretty amazing to consider one of those ODC/Nimbus machines, the only RLV recorder, still out there in working order. OP should buy a lottery ticket with that kind of luck.
Author:  dehaanav [ 13 Sep 2016, 12:30 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
if there's anywhere you should find a disc ,it's here in holland ,laserdisc was produced here and there were here recorders:

I had the pioneer machine (crv alike) which has a friend now ,I had the sony crv's and Philips/ODC owned recorders for sure...Not sure what's left at people's homes ,I can advertise in holland for empty laserdiscs.

I have myself also several one off written laserdiscs produced by philips (which I think are one offs)
Author:  dehaanav [ 13 Sep 2016, 12:32 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
I bought a lot on the close out sale of the mastering company for laserdiscs ,the still exist ,but don't have any equipment left ,I think....

I'll look up the name ,they're still based in Eindhoven NL
Author:  harlock [ 01 Oct 2016, 23:17 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
I'm guessing this didn't pan out. The chances of one of those gigantic, complex RLV burners still being working, or even taking up space and not scrapped, at a current production house are nil. The guy who offered to burn it online probably had a machine to burn caddied discs, like a Pioneer or similar machines incompatible with standard LD playback, and misinterpreted the request. I would have loved to been proven wrong on this, as that ODC machine was a cool piece of LD history, but it ain't happening.
Author:  dehaanav [ 11 Nov 2016, 23:29 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
I think it's quite difficult ,I also put some time in it ,some years ago
Author:  allgaeuer [ 08 Jul 2017, 04:17 ]
Post subject:  Re: Blank RLV and LD Recorder *WANTED* 'Regular Show Gift'
In this thread I have seen some very optimistic postings like
dehaanav wrote:
..I know a friend still has the recorders

ioutatime wrote:
I BELIEVE I'VE FOUND A RECORDER SUPPLIER! https://twitter.com/dringuelle/status/7 ... 7557980164 ...
I have found someone who is willing to press the two episodes of Regular Show to a LaserDisc.

However the type of equipment that was "found" to actually burn a RLV disc was never mentioned - does anybody know which "RLV recorder" was actually available to "Karl Dringuelle"?

By looking through a lot of material I came now to the conclusion that there existed at least three different types of 1x writeable disc media where the corresponding recorders were ALL identically labeled "Laser Videodisc Recorder" !! It is the RLV recorder from ODC Nimbus, the Laser Video Disc Recorder ODC LVDR 610, of which thanks to Harlock we can see a picture in this thread, it is also the recorders from Sony that are recording "CRVdisc" media in cartridges, e.g. the Laser Videodisc Recorder Sony LVR-5000, and it is also the recorders of TEAC recording on "Color Videodiscs" (I am not sure whether this was the name actually used for the discs) from Sumitomo Chemical, e.g. the Laser Videodisc Recorder TEAC LV-210A. And I am not sure whether there existed even more incompatible systems using the same wording. Out of all these "Laser Videodisc Recorders" incompatible one with each other, only the ODC LVDR 610 can write a RLV disc that is compatible with LD players ...

PS: About the other one-time writeable "laserdisc" systems: The HDVS Videodisc recorder from Sony was just labeled "Videodisc Recorder" (Sony HDL-5800), the OMD Recorders from National/Panasonic were labeled "Optical Disc Recorder" (e.g. National TQ-2700F). And the only rewriteable "LaserRecorder" videodisc recorders from Pioneer were labeled "Rewriteable Videodisc Recorder" (Pioneer VDR-V1000). If someone does not look closely to the names, even these recorders eventually could get mixed up with something that has to do with Laserdiscs.
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