I am in the later stages of amassing a collection of video media formats. Not to watch, just to appreciate all the interesting, oddball, forgotten, or failed video storage formats over the past few decades.

I recently learned about some of the recordable LD formats that I'd never heard of, which in turn made me realize there were some gaps in my run-of-the-mill LD sub-formats that I'd like to fill. So I'm hoping the experts here can help me learn if there's anything I've overlooked.

Guidelines: My basic rule is one sample per "sub-format", meaning something with relatively substantial physical or technical differences in the way data is written to the media. So letterboxing wouldn't count, for example, being just a different presentation with the same video encoding. CAA-type CLV arguably wouldn't either, since it's backward-compatible with original-flavor CLV, but it's technically interesting enough I'm including it. Squeeze video is debatable, since the encoding is identical, but relies on different display hardware.

For physical sizes, I have:

• 5" VSD (no CD audio)
• 5" CD-Video (includes CD tracks)
• 8" disc of some kind
• 12" discs to cover remaining format possibilities

As for the subsets of "regular" LDs, I think I'm looking for (there are overlaps here between audio and video types):

• Analog audio only
• CD Video (anything with just classic PCM digital audio)
• AC-3 encoded audio in one of the analog channels
• DTS audio in the digital tracks
• LD-G
• CAV both sides
• CLV (non-CAA encoding)
• CLV (CAA encoding) both sides
• CLV+CAV on one disc
• Disc with graphics printed on one side

Other formats that use similar discs:

• LV-ROM (arguably LaserActive, MEGA LD, LD-ROM2, and the BBC Domesday project discs all count as separate variants since each requires a separate player)
• MUSE (dang these are expensive!)
• HD-MAC (this one is silly, but prototype discs were produced for use at trade shows for the failed European analog HD format)
• HDVS (I can't seem to find much info about what this format even is)

On the recordable front, I've come up with:

• CRV-Disc (these were surprisingly easy to buy)
• RLV (if I can ever find one)
• VDR-1000 re-writeable media (pricey!)

So... have I missed anything here?

Does anybody know what media the Sony HDVS recorder used?

Easy, most of the drop-down filters will get you what you want by Disc Size, Play Mode, Video and Soundtrack:

https://www.lddb.com/shops.php?global=ALL

You just need to warm up your credit card.

Julien

Thank you for the suggestion, Julien, the search tools are great for once I know what all I want to find, but that doesn't help as much with what I'm trying to figure out--I'm sorry if my question wasn't clear.

I'm trying to identify is if I've got each of the major technical variants of LDs covered in that list. The drop-down selections in the Advanced search point me in the right direction, but for example I'm assuming (and may be wrong) that "Chase Stereo" (which googling seems to turn up almost nothing about) is branding for some particular kind of processing with a standard analog soundtrack, not a unique encoding that required a special player to read. Likewise, Wikipedia describes CAA (really more like zone CLV, based on the description) as sort-of-separate from "true" CLV, although the search combines the two.

There could also, in theory, be something wacky and obscure that isn't in the search menus. I don't know what, but that's why I'm asking.

To keep things practical, since only CAV and CLV were used commercially, we stick to these.

Check the Help section soundtrack and aspect ratio for further details:

https://www.lddb.com/help_sound.php
https://www.lddb.com/help_ratio.php

Julien

Panasonic had their OMDR system and TEAC had their own format as well. Both were recordable, neither were LaserVision.

Looking at your list it doesn’t seem to recognize that 8” LDs came in two versions. One is a normal two sided LD (sometimes with both sides used, sometimes not) and one is thin like a CD and obviously single sided.

The obnoxious Tenchi Muyo in Love box set checks a lot of your boxes. Tenchi Muyo in Love: The Movie (1996) [PILA-1393]

It’s CAV, AC-3 Dolby Digital, Dolby Surround, dual language, closed captioned to translate the Japanese to subtitles, the third disc is gold and has pit art.

It would be interesting to see how few discs one needs to get to represent every feature on the format.