real interesting stuff here;

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/00/wideo/rus_wp201.html

http://forum.auto.ru/audiovideo/176849/

http://formeleins.ucoz.ru/forum/50-150-45

http://formeleins.ucoz.ru/forum/50-150-46

great find! would a Russian one be a clone of something or would it be original?

A little bit of both I guess. At least what I've seen on other computer/video game related electronics from the Soviet Union. They made a lot of stuff back in those days.

My word. This is news to me. Thanks for the links. Very cool stuff.

The (American) movies must be from the mid to late 90s. My roommate back in college was Russian, he said the first American movie he saw in the theaters was inner space in 1994. He said they didn't have any American movies showing before that. I don't think USSR allowed any foreign (none Warsaw pact) films.

Note this player was made in 1990 and has a tube laser(!)

From http://formeleins.ucoz.ru/forum/50-150-46:

"And a little more about the domestic LD and LD Soviet-Russian players. Alas, unlike Pioneer's long-term development, the domestic players were initially very primitive, broke or started to destroy itself LD drive, because they are skewed . Video "Rus-501 video." Ryazan Instrument Plant. Model 1989. Roughly one copy of the first Pioneer in 1981, the company's models (there are in this thread). [...] Were produced in the USSR and then Russia in two models LD player. Above presented by the player - sided, sold almost done. The following model has already been seriously modified, but still inferior to the player from Pioneer's."

Don't forget it is probably powered by a nuclear reactor.

More info: http://red-innovations.su/index/photos_v/rus501.html

And LOL... but seriously these players are probably actually worse/less reliable than Magnavisions...

(necro-edit 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx_kF1z0Sdg with a later 201 actually playing. so that one's better than the magnavision at least )

To me, they look like reverse-engineered Philips players. Braking mechanism is the same, the disc clamp is the same and the russian made discs actually look like PDO UK discs.

Making an LD behind the iron curtain must have been mega hard, I'd be tempted to think those actually were PDO UK, black market. Anyone who could afford something like this would have a multi-standard TV, right?

I don't have a good understanding of these things but I'm very interested in them. Bootleg commie stuff. It's fascinating.

The picture of the laserdisc labelled as "Made in Russia" has, unless my eyes are mistaken, what looks like the PDO dashes on the rim with the PDO larger style label applied to the disc.

Really interesting stuff this.

The lid looks really flimsy and looks bent already in one picture; i don't know what to expect from the rest inside of it except that awesome laser.
Though Russian Photo and Film equipment was always very sturdy.

Took advantage of this thread to update the (few) Russian LDs listed here:

Russian LDs

Julien

I found out too that they made discs and there where 2 version of machine.
Intresting to find out there where more then 3 titles (Icons by Rublev, somthing with Leningrad/Sankt Petersburg and "Nu zaieţ, pagadi") released.

From a Russian forum: http://formeleins.ucoz.ru/forum/50-150-61
These models were really created in Russia. They were a copy of the early LD Pioneer's players. I have not seen them. All models were original, not for sale. Unfortunately, they had too bad vision and sound.
I recommend you to purchase Pioneer CLD-925 – NTSC/PAL LD player.
As to LD "Nu, pogodi", it produced in limited edition, not fot sale.

We got both now



Someone sent me this link with a lot of Russian LDs:

http://rt20.getbb.ru/viewtopic.php?t=104359 (Wayback link because the site blocks some countries)

Posts seem to imply there was a LD pressing factory in Russia (well, USSR at the time) and that some discs were initially SECAM, not PAL.

Could someone who can understand Russian language take a look?

Julien

Well I don't speak Russian, but at least some of those are clearly Philips branded discs.