Vinyl Video

[roxics]

So I was doing a little internet research and discovered a couple video formats I have never heard of. CED and VHD. Some of you that are older than me may have heard of these formats, but seeing that I was born in 1979 I grew up in the era of Betamax, VHS and Video 8.

I had never before today heard of these vinyl video formats and I have to admit I'm super geeked about them. I've recently started getting back into vinyl audio and the idea of a vinyl video format just seems really cool to me.

With everything today being digital and downloadable (which is great) I think there is this missing sensation of a super tactile physical format. Sure we have DVD/Blu-ray and those are great. But you can't feel the grooves and you can't often watch it spin. Once it goes in the player it disappears. So the same way that people are lured back to vinyl records because of their "qualities" it would be really cool to have a turntable you could drop a video disc on, place the needle and watch it spin, unlike the CED and VHD formats that came in caddies. The ability of it to degrade and pop and crackle over time like audio vinyl would be fun and add to that whole tactile experince.

I wonder if we developed a new niche vinyl video format today, what our limitations would be. Could we push out something like HD video on it or even 4K? Or would the format just be far too limited because of the disc and needle size?

 

[David Jimerson]

Or would the format just be far too limited because of the disc and needle size?

Yes.

Of some note, the gold record included on the sides of the Voyager spacecraft included photographs.

 

[roxics]

That is cool about the Voyager record.

I figured as much when it came to vinyl and resolution. Sort of a pipe dream to think we could get HD video quality off a grooved disc read by a needle. But if it were possible and worked much the same way a vinyl audio record worked, that wold be a very interesting format. I can image that with todays technology we could have some really interesting transparent discs or full artwork across the entire surface of the disc. It would also make scratching a video record an interesting experience.

 

[Justin Kuhn]

Zoetrope Discs! What if you had a DVD/Blur-ray player with a little square window on on top, about the size of a computer key. The disc would have a looped animation printed around the edge to line up with the window. When you look through the window at the disc spinning, you'd get a zoetrope effect.

Kind of like the different loading animations you'll see sometimes on Blu-Ray discs...I look for those. Someone put in time.