After having a laserdisc player a little bit, I decided I would get just 1 of the 5" CDV to see what they were like. (and you know how that goes lol)

So far I have these NTSC now.
The Police Every Breath You Take (Japan)
Paul Mauriat Nagekidori (Japan promo)
2001 Night Story (Japan Sci-Fi anime)
Mr Mister Kyrie promo (USA I think)
Level 42 Something About You (USA)
Men Without Hats Pop Goes The World (USA)
Anita Baker Sweet Love (USA)
The Kane Gang Motortown (USA I think)

And PAL 5" CDV I have
Ray Charles & Dee Dee Bridgewater Precious Thing
Big Country In A Big Country
Level 42 It's Over

Ones I use to have but since sold
John Cougar Mellencamp Pop Singer (PAL)
Cutting Crew I just Died In Your Arms Tonight (NTSC)
Kimagure Orange Road (Japan anime)

I'm still looking for the Basia Japan Cruising For Bruising VSD. The last one I seen was about 3 years ago (@75.00) and thought I'd find one cheaper but haven't seen one since.

The first one I ever bought, just to have one of these odd-format LDs, was the CDV out of the David Bowie Sound+Vision boxset, from a fellow in Canada who was (I have no idea why) selling it by itself for $10. There's just something unbearably cool about popping what appears to be a CD into my LD player & having it reproduce video.

Since then, as an anime fan, I imported the two Kimagure Orange Road CDVs (KOR being one of my favourite series), then picked up two VSDs (Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu & Mainichi ga Sunday) from a bin of CDs at an anime convention, partly because there was a danger someone else would buy them thinking they were regular CDs, & be bitterly disappointed when he was never able to play back more than four seconds of silence, & then a couple of others off Yahoo Japan. I'm looking for the Bubblegum Crisis ones at a reasonable price, & naturally I would like to have the Test Disc.

It ought to be possible to burn CDVs onto ordinary CD blanks, but I haven't worked out how yet. It would certainly be the most straightforward way to make your own LaserDiscs available today.

I've not that many of the 5" discs myself as the PAL ones tended to be very prone to rot and expensive so I stopped buying them!

This is what I have currently:

US CDV NTSC

9 64001-2;Anita Baker: Sweet Love (1986);;NTSC;5";USA;
870 725-2;Cinderella: Gypsy Road (1988);;NTSC;5";USA;
870 730-2;Dan Reed Network: Get To You (1988);;NTSC;5";USA;
870 740-2;New Frontier: Under Fire (1988);;NTSC;5";USA;

European CDV PAL

080 552-2;Annabel Lamb: The Ghost of You;1989-09;PAL;5";Germany;
080 698-2;Cinderella: Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone) (1988);;PAL;5";United Kingdom;
080 402-2;Cinderella: Gypsy Road (1988);;PAL;5";United Kingdom;
080 626-2;Def Leppard: Animal (1989);;PAL;5";United Kingdom;
080 626-2;Def Leppard: Animal (1989);;PAL;5";United Kingdom;
080 458-2;Def Leppard: Love Bites (1988);;PAL;5";United Kingdom;
080 834-2;Doro: A whiter Shade of Pale (1989);;PAL;5";Germany;
???;Go West: Don't Look Down;;PAL;5";United Kingdom;
080 430-2;James Brown: The Payback Mix - Part One (1988);;PAL;5";United Kingdom;

Japanese VSD NTSC

VIFL-12006; Mari Hamada: Heaven Knows (1990);1990-10-21;NTSC;5";Japan;
CSFM 7025;Princess Princess: Oh Yeah! (1990);1990-09-21;NTSC;5";Japan;

The Japanese ones are fantastic quality and never rotted but only have 1 video track hence the name Video Single Disc (VSD).
Second best are the US discs which tend to stand the test of time. My two favourites (Dan Reed Network and New Frontier) came from the US.
Last are the European discs which there are loads to collect but virtually all of them have rot

My Pal ones I can't play the video(and most likley rotted as you say) but I got them because the audio sound is really good on CDV's and so far those tracks are ok.

Out of my other ones, the only rot I have is Anita Baker about the last 30 seconds of the video, and The Kane Gang....picture still partly visible, but sound major distorted. The audio tracks still play fine on both of these.

And no rot on any of my Japan made ones

Does anyone know what was the very last CDV/VSD that was pressed?

The C+C Music Factory from reference was Dec 12th 1991

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/34709/SRF ... weat-(1991)

But could have been others after that.

Japanese releases seem to have continued for a long time afterwards. Here's one with a 1995 copyright date silk-screend on the disc.

I have one CDV in my collection: Star Wars Episode 1. I bought it off a guy on E-Bay back when the movie came out. The CDV has a copyright warning at the beginning that it is illegal to reproduce or view this CDV outside of Malaysia(?). Well, the CDV is actually 2 discs, parts 1 and 2. I inserted the 2 CDV's in my Sony DVD changer into 2 slots side by side. The player recognized the first disc and played it with no problem. What was funny is that when the first disc ended, the player went ahead and loaded the second disc without my intervention. The video was not too bad either. The player thinks that both discs are CD's and put them into its CD listing!

The only other not 12" LD I have is an 8 inch David Bowie LD. Unfortunately, the LD is in fair condition due to a large number of surface scratches. I tried a polishing compound and cloth on it; but, it did not improve it much.

I think you're thinking about VCD in regards to that Star Wars disc, not CDV. VCD/VideoCD is based on MPEG-1 digital video compression.

CDV has some video stored in the same analog format as Laserdisc, with a portion that is digital audio only. This wikipedia article explains it well . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_video

Thanks for clearing that up for me. So, I have VCD copies of Star Wars I? Oh well, at the time I wanted a copy of SWI and these VCD's filled the bill.

How prevalent are the CDV discs? I would like to buy one just to have it in my collection as an oddball.

There are about 360 CDVs (PAL&NTSC) and about 100 VSD (Japan NTSC only)

5" CDVs were released from 1988 till 1990 onwards (have only the "CD Video" logo, never a "LaserDisc" logo, in fact they died when the format was renamed, the last and only CDV released after the LaserDisc rebranding (Niagara - J'ai vu) was still labeled CD Video)

5" VSD were released from late 1989 till 1991.

What I always thought was weird though in regards to CDV, was that some full sized/12" LDs have the CDV logo on them. Like this Les Miserables LD that I have . . .



A few anime titles from AnimEigo also have the CDVideo logo on the discs themselves! I never got why they did that.

Actually, at least as far as Japan is concerned, CDVs & VSDs were being released well into the mid-1990s. Here is one with a copyright date of 1995 which you can see on the disc, as well as the LaserDisc logo. This claims to be a PAL CDV with a 1995 street date, but I don't know anything about it.



"CD Video LD" was an allowed mark for discs with the TOC (digital audio "table of contents"), which support program & random play, "time remaining" display, &c. Here's an ADVision anime disc which has the mark, but no TOC!

Random play? On a movie or OAV? Why would anyone want that? I can understand if it was a music video LD, but why would you want to randomize a linear program?

I have quite a few 12" LD with the CDV logo. And one of them I have starts the video with a full sized CDV logo on the screen.

I don't really know, but I've got the occasional anime disc with a ridiculously large number of chapter stops (by which I mean something like 45 for a 30-minute episode), & that's the only thing I can think they would be useful for!

All PDO UK Blackburn pressed discs (5"; 8" & 12") prior to end of 1990 have the CDV logo

This is not a 5" CDV but a VIDEO CD (like the Stevie Nicks entery CMM-CD-113)

The only 12" CDV in my collection has the CDV logo on the box, disc labels, and sleeves:

My avatar is the only 12" CDV I own; Queen Live in Budapest. I really want to get a 5" and 8" for my collection too.

Does anyone have "The Eyes Of The Wind" CDV?

Grunstein/Srole/Hoppe: Eyes of the Wind (1987) [080 016-2]

I have one comming but don't know much about it. Looks like I will only be able to play the audio tracks though, which is still ok.