Exact!

I suppose sometimes DADC Austria would use as a 2nd source for NTSC titles.

One good example is Philadelphia (1993) [52616] carrying LDVS-002160/LDVS002160 for both masters.

Julien

And for Pioneer Japan... we won't get to know what happens when you go beyond side #26 (== Z):

Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Perfect Collection (1983) [ATX-1]



Julien

Technidisc was the company that pressed laserdiscs for Indonesian company Soraya Intercine Films ( which is kind of an odd choice because it would make more sense to have them produced in Japan
due to its geographical proximity ).

One of the discs I have has the following mintmarks:

1119-054-008A 06/09/94E
1119-054-007A 06/07/94L

Which clearly show that the disc was mastered in 1994.

I never understood those DADC Austria mintmarks but now they make more sense thanks to this thread.

Mitsubishi:

SYMM01234

A90A00704 = Side 1, January 1999
B70E08890 = Side 2, May 1997

After October (J), it rolls over to 1A and 1B for November and December?

I was a little too strict on the Pioneer marking filter.

Relaxed some conditions for partial mint marks and the total jumped from 3,304 to 5,096.

Julien

Made another round of improvements to cope with variations in the Pioneer USA mint markings.
And while I was having fun coding array parsing, I added BOLD for continuous master serials and BOLD RED when I detect the longest continuous sequence.

https://www.lddb.com/mint/pioneer-usa

As of today:

Total = 5891
The longest continuous sequence is 21 starting from 58-330.

Improved again:

Total = 6382
The longest continuous sequence is 28 starting from 59-243.


Made the same modifications to SONY DADC:

https://www.lddb.com/mint/dadc-usa

Total = 1246
The longest continuous sequence is 10 starting from 001198.

Help us fill the gaps

Julien

Decided to check my Technidiscs:
Canyon Dreams: Tangerine Dream (1987) [ID5171]:024-052-413F 5K21Z# also lacking the technidisc name and logo as well as A/B side indication, instead saying WRONG SIDE

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The (1981) [5799-80]: 433-013-234P 01/13/94K 11/16/93P

King Tut: The Face of Tutankhamun (1992) [LVD9401]: #1028-034-042A 03/21/94K

Nadia #1: Secret of the Blue Water (1989) [LVD9350]: #1028-034-054A 04/10/94L

Glenco Science & Technology: #3 - Earth & Space [G82617.02]: #802-032-005B 04/15/94E

Glenco Science & Technology: #4 - Plants & Simple Organisms [G82618.02]: #802-032-007B 04/09/94D

Glenco Science & Technology: #5 - Animals [G82619.02]: #802-032-009B 04/09/94G

Glenco Science & Technology: #6 - Ecology [G82614.02]: 802-032-012A 03192H different style of markings on this one.

Pioneer USA never went above Side "F". Titles which required more than 6 sides would have the internal reference number advance. For example, "Gone with the Wind (CAV)" is:
51-989A1-07
51-989B1-01
51-989C1-06
51-989D1-05
51-989E1-01
51-989F1-02
51-990A1-04
51-990B1-01
51-990C1-02

We could maybe extend the same reverse engineering to PRINCO:

Few examples:



Except for KB406HG (typo in Amelia, Volume 1 (1993) [AMI-001]?), it looks like was have a master serial ID embedded:

KA22132
A2637-0Q
A36955D
A29864F
KA7984P
A379888
KA1661Q
KA1040NO
A38098P
A2723-NF
A3967BP
A2704-NL
KA0079-D6
A292936

Would that make sense?

Julien

Hexadecimal uses digits 0–9 and characters ‘A’ through ‘F’. Although it does not look like Pioneer USA were using hexadecimal logic, perhaps they were limited to the hexadecimal character set in order to comply with some internal database.

To help locate titles that still lack the Mint Markings information, I slightly modified the Collection list colors for LDs (that are not graded 9 or 10 -- don't want you to open a sealed disc just to check the mint marks!):

=> https://www.lddb.com/collection.php?action=list&format=ld

If you see some red-ish lines... there's some updates needed

Julien

Well, you can take a look and see what you think!

PRINCO => https://www.lddb.com/mint/princo

And while I was working on this:

3M/IMATION => https://www.lddb.com/mint/imation

Julien

After a few more weeks of tweaking (and also getting more mint marks updates, maybe thanks to the LDs missing this information showing with a RED background in your collection display):

https://www.lddb.com/mint/pioneer-usa
Total = 6487
The longest continuous sequence is still 28 starting from 59-243.
The last (known) master manufactured by Pioneer USA was Babylon 5 #2.4: A Race Through Dark Places/Soul Mates [17631].

https://www.lddb.com/mint/dadc-usa
Total = 1257
The longest continuous sequence is still 10 starting from 001198.
The last (known) master manufactured by SONY DADC USA was Homegrown (1998) [25326].

Julien

Great thread!

The early discs are numbered as well but by job number not by date. Discovision/Pioneer used a 95-xxx number for titles, continuing into 96 and 97. Digital Sound titles used a 50 prefix and then 51. The earliest 95 I have found is 95-003 "Liza Mannelli In Concert" PA-81-002. From what I can tell, Pinoeer USA would number the titles and then send to Japan for pressing. Early Japan discs would only put the catalog number for the title on the inner circle of the disc and USA pressings would put the 95 number on the outer ring. I have a list that goes up to the 96 numbers but there are a lot of gaps since titles only made in Japan for US do not have the 95 job number. I am certain quite a few titles were given a number but never released since many of the early publisher catalogs listed titles that never made it to market.

If not already so, would it be worth a try to match DADC USA just on "LDVS"? I noticed that the early mint marks might be quite different. Attached is a photo of Warrant: Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich: Live (1990) [ID6971CB]

DADC USA replication began in March 1990 and the oldest DADC USA mint mark currently in the list is Kickboxer (1989) [ID7320HB] which lines up quite nicely with its September 1989 theatrical release.

I never noticed these different LDVS mint marks before.
Not sure why DADC USA had 2 different master naming schemes...

Slightly modified the parsing and now we have a few more!

Now the trick is to NOT match DADC Austria for multiple sources of the same title.
I'm padding the different ones with 0 to merge with DADC Austria when a title was manufactured at both sites.

Julien

Excellent!


Yes this is puzzling to me as well. I noticed how Technidisc changed theirs in a much more subtle manner three or so times.

Right after the Terre Haute plant started LD replication, they declared they were scaling up from 100k to 300k monthly within a year (source: a Telecommunications Update article from 1990). My guess is they underestimated demand and then threw a massive amount of money at the factory, casually scrapping the new "old" equipment. Warrant: Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich: Live (1990) [ID6971CB] has sharp edges that are uncharacteristic of all the other DADC USA discs I've handled. Even though it does show LDVS034 in the mint marks, LDVS 000034 is on the label.