Question Concerning Star Wars Laserdiscs

I know this is now outdated technology, but remember, the laserdisc pressings were the best STAR WARS available for many, many years until just recently

Anyway, here is my question: It seems there are STEREO, STANDARD STEREO and EXTENDED STEREO laserdisc pressings (original non-widescreen issues) of at least Episode #3 (not sure of Empire or Return). What is the difference between them? Just curious...

 

I'm not purr-fectly clear what the question is. I should be able to answer it. I've had most of the editions over the years except The Definititive Collection and the 80's CAV, P & S releases.

 

Okay... On the lower right-hand corner of the laserdisc jacket it reads one of three things (I've seen all three on ebay). Either STEREO, STANDARD STEREO or EXTENDED STEREO.

I was wondering if there are any significant differences between the three?

This one is the EXTENDED STEREO:

 

The first laserdiscs were P&S and the newer ones Widescreen (the regular covers and the "faces" covers). Those in the picture above look like the P&S versions. Widescreen versions were labeled as widescreen. This is not counting the Spec Ed. Laserdiscs.

 

I think what you're asking about is the term "Extended Play", which refers to the "speed" of the program on the LaserDisc. Extended Play was a format that allowed one hour per side of a disc. Standard Play allowed only a half-hour of playing time per side. The trade-off was that Standard Play allowed early LaserDisc players to pause and use slow motion and frame advance. Extended Play did not (until technology allowed later models of players to do some of these "tricks").

As for sound on LaserDiscs, it usually came in a few flavors. Early on there was just analog sound. Then a "CX" technology came along to improve the analog sound. Next came digital sound, which allowed for a PCM digital format for soundtracks which was encoded along with the analog sountracks on many discs. Then they developed Dolby Digital (calling it AC-3), which utilized one of the now underused analog channels for encoding the AC-3 tracks. Finally, just as LaserDisc was fading as a format, DTS encoding was used.

Harry

 

This one just says STEREO:

 

Thanks, Harry... It makes sense now!

 

Yes you are right about extended play. I thought that standard play discs were CAV (only 30 mins per side) while Extended Play discs were CLV (60 minutes per side).

 

That's an RCA CED - not a laserdisc. They had the color coding right - a white plastic
shell was mono, a blue shell was stereo.

Do any of those laserdiscs not have "Episode IV" on the opening crawl? I'm guessing
they do, but don't know what masters were made back then.

Mark

 

Those discs even edited the film a few minutes to make them fit on 2 sides.

An important distnction between CAV (standard play) and CLV (extended play) is that CAV let's you actually view the film's frames, the actual frames! CLV with digital freezes just let's you freeze an image. To freeze CLV images, your player has to have Digtal Field Memory and not all players do.

 

Yes, now that I look at the radius corners I see what you mean!

I have the STEREO EXTENDED PLAY laserdisc, and it DOES have EPISODE IV on the opening crawl. I think the date on the back of the jacket is 1983. Was there one made previous to that?

 

They had LD's with that same cover too. I had them back in the 80's.

 

Every laserdisc issue has the "Episode IV" subtitle.

But I seem to remember that maybe at least one CED (or maybe some other video format) issue made it out without the subtitle.

 

What you have is the first, and worst, laserdisc version released. A total frisbee.

 

I had those and gave them to my sister for her boys to watch. Then I had the WS ones with grey covers and gave them to my brother for his boys to watch when I got the 1993 THX discs. Kids didn't care that they were suck-y editions.