True they're not the same, but it's still the closest thing to recording to laserdisc we'll ever see. (Of course, using the term Laserdisc loosely, VDM V130 doesn't have the same ring to it.) They're virtually identical discs if they were taken out of the caddy. But not the same recording method, so it's going to be limited to playing back on the same machine it was recorded on.

But since the discs only record up to 32 mins. and single side, it isn't really an issue anyway. From what I've seen in the past year there's probably more players out there than discs, so even if you could play them in standard players it wouldn't matter over a few discs anyway.

The real interest would just be recording something to it and playing around with it and since the discs are rewritable it would at least be worth trying it out. If we're talking the worm discs then it isn't even worth it, just junk them and make room for something else in your collection.

I wonder if anyone still has a 610 or if they were recycled by now? I doubt the discs are still recordable, mine have a few red flakes falling off. Still they look pristine besides that.

Yes, NTSC is only 440 lines of luma resolution at best on LaserDisc and depending on how the color is encoded its 120 lines of color for orange and cyan and only 30 lines for all other colors. You'd need a Faroudja Super NTSC encoder to get any higher color bandwidth and the max then is 160 lines. Because its an FM signal, noise will always be a problem so it would be a big come down from the original master. just look at an LD compared to a BD or DVD. The ODC RLV writer is a huge machine, about the size of one of those old Xerox machines like in the movie 9 to 5. I doubt many were made and that any are in working condition now. And they needed air cooling and the disc was spun via pnumatic air pressure to eliminate vibrations and such getting to the disc. I wasn't a simple stand alone system like the component recordable system.

Drop the idea of making new LaserDisc's - its not like making LP's and it ain't gonna happen.

Pioneer was probably glad to see it go as well.

There were two Laserdisc recorders that were small... one was a data drive from Teac.
The other was the only one that recorded the audio and video in laserdisc standard that I know of, but only 20cm/8inch disc.
That Panasonic is small, about the size of a normal laserdisc player.

Then why would Pioneer be so generous to continue to manufacture the odd combo and individual player right up until 2009? I always got the feeling that Pioneer loved LD hence the long commitment to it even years and years after it died out.

Even if new Laserdiscs could be made the fact that they wouldn't play back on current players and would require newly manufactured players to be backward capable with the new recordings just further emphasizes that Laserdisc will not be EVER making a come back in any shape, way or form, not even in a MUSE Hi-Vision niche form. Its just not sustainable and cost efficient for people to have to buy new LD players that would be expensive and time consuming to make.

I would love to buy new stuff on LD just for the kick of it, but not at the expensive of having to get a third player when I have spent enough money on my CLD-D925 and Elite CLD-59.

Are we sure they actually made those players that long? I know it says that on their website and some have the sticker on the back but I've also read they were made pre 2001 and just shelved and they were likely just selling old stock for years after until they were gone. I don't know for sure, just saying. Also with only one model available between 2000-2009 and probably very low stock and only to Japan was it? --I wouldn't consider it much of a commitment, at least not when you throw DVD in...and Blu ray.

I can't confirm it one way or another I am just going on the articles/news sources I have read and things I've heard. One person I know said that his DVL-919 was manufactured in July 2004 and when you think about it Japan being a saturated market where older technology generally lives longer in a niche form then it does in most other countries, then certain models like the DVL-919, DVK-900, DVL-K88 and CLD-R5 living on and being produced in limited quantity by Pioneer (who were clearly still banking in small profits from these sales) all of a sudden doesn't feel so unbelievable. So yes it was Japan-only and yes the stock probably wasn't large especially in the latter couple of years, but there were more models then just one being sold it seems (though only one individual standalone LD player, the rest being DVD/LD combos.)

Of course the commitment was nothing compared to DVD and Blu-Ray, but nor should it have been considering the vast majority of people in the general public no longer own LD players or even know what they are, and the last tittles were pressed in the early 2000's. Although with that said many other companies long abandoned Laserdisc unlike Pioneer, so it is a commitment to a degree.