CD/LD Collection

Classification Icons

The CD/LD classification is indicated by icons:

• - Original Soundtrack: albums with original soundtrack musics from movies and TV series.

• - Original Game Sound: albums with original musics from video games and arcades.

• - Arrange Version: albums with versions of musics.

• - Classic Music: albums with the so called "classic musics". Almost all classics are interpretations (versions) of original scores. The classic musics are stored by the authors' family name (Ravel, Strauss, Tchaikovsky etc.).

• - Original Album: albums with "original musics", i.e., musics not originally composed to be part of an O.S.T. or O.G.S.

• - Sound Theater: albums with dramatization sounds (they're called "drama disks" in Japan).

• - Pop Rock: original albums with "pop rock" vocals.

• - Compilation Album: albums with sorted musics from other albums. Generally compilations don't contain all musics from the original release albums, but just some selected tracks. Compilations with low personal rating mean some or all of the original source albums are available.

• - CD Single: a CD Single is an 8cm wide CD and generally is about 15 minutes long ("common CD" are 12cm wide and can have over 77 min of music).

• - Laser Disc: a two side disk that contains image and sound data stored. An LD may have up to 2 hours of playback time, so some movies must be recorded in many disks.

• - CAV: Constant Angular Velocity. CAV disks allow slow motion and on-screen pause. Non-CAV disks are called CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) and cannot be paused (except in buffered equipment), but allow more recording time in each disk. All LD not specified as CAV is CLV.

• - Wide Screen: movies recorded with the original size (generally a 2:1 proportion, like Panavision and Cinemascope). Films not specified as "wide" are recorded in the television format (4:3) with clipped out sides.

• - LD-G: Laser Disc Graphics. Computer data is recorded and allows the LD player to do special tasks, generally graphical effects.

• - Scenario Disc: a specific version of LD-G that allows the user to see the original speeches in electronic legends.

• - THX Laser Disc: a sound system developed by Lucas Arts that tries to reproduce a theater-like sound quality in home systems. THX is told to stand for "Tomlinson Holman eXperience", the developer of the technology, but it is obviously inspired in George Lucas' film "THX 1138".

• - AC-3: a sound system developed by Dolby Laboratories. An extra sound track is recorded in the LD, allowing a 3-dimensional sound reproduction.

• - Digital Theater System: a three-dimensional digital sound system used primarily in movie theaters and then in home theaters.

• - Digital Sound: a digital soundtrack is recorded.

• - 2 Languages Disc: a special digital sound disk. The disk contains two independent soundtracks. The original sound is in the digital channel. The analogue channel generally contains a dubbed version, but some disks contains special commented versions.

• - Digital Video Disc/Digital Versatile Disc: a kind of high-density CD. More details in the Technology Trivia section.

• - Enhanced CD: a CD with both musical and computer data.

CD Title

The CD/LD title as it appears in the booklet cover and/or in the CD/LD case.

Total CD/LD Time

"Total Time" is the total playing time shown in some CD/LD cases and/or booklets, presented in parenthesis. The other value shown is the one reported by a CD player (a Sony Discman D-350). Different players may report slightly different values (my Discman is malfunctioning and doesn't accepts some CD; in such cases I've used a less precise portable Panasonic RX-DT95, remarked by an "*"). Time is presented in minutes:seconds format.
Generally the value reported by a CD player is different (in most cases, greater values) from the ones reported in CD cases. Many CD tracks contain extra play time hidden before the track beginning, generally a few seconds, causing the discrepancy of time values. I have found a CD with two whole musics hidden before the beginning of track 1, but that was made on purpose.

Recording, Mixing and Mastering

CD have digitized data converted from analogue signals. Conversions from analogue signals to digital (and vice-versa) may be made at any time. Generally, the earlier you convert to digital and the least you use analogue media, the better the CD results.
The sound processing is separated in three stages, each one receiving an "A" if that processing was made using analogue signals/media or a "D" if digitally processed. The processing stages are:

1. Recording: this stage includes the recording of all instrumental and vocal sources of the music. Analogue recordings are generally made using tape recorders. Digital recordings are generally made using D.A.T. (Digital Audio Tape).
2. Mixing: this stage includes the mixing and edition of recorded tracks.
3. Mastering: this stage includes the joining of all tracks to create the common two channel stereophonic system.

Japanese CD generally use another notation, based on letters ("L", "X", "Y" etc.). I'm still trying to find their meaning (not all of those letters seem to have something to do with recording/processing methods).

Identification Code

All CD/LD have a specific identification code, made of numbers and/or letters.

Maker information

General information about the manufacturer of the CD/LD (where it was printed, who printed it, when it was printed etc.)

Copyright

General information about the copyright owner.

Description

Notes about the CD/LD, historical information, description of the booklet and "trivia".
Special sound processings are remarked (like "Dolby", "Dolby Surround", "RSS" [Roland Sound Space], "Q Sound" etc.), although no comment about them is made (I'm looking for such data to be put in this informative page).
CD manufactured in Japan generally contain an extra booklet in Japanese, most with comments and lyrics of the vocals (sometimes with a translation to Japanese).

Tracks Description

Titles of the CD/LD tracks and their playing time (always in the minutes:seconds format). The sum of all tracks' times may not be equal the total time and the time reported in some CD/LD (shown in parenthesis) may be different of that reported by a CD/LD player.
Some CD have sub-tracks (indexes), which are shown in sub-lists. Not all players can show the index number.
CD manufactured in Brazil generally include a number attached to each track, which meaning I couldn't find out (it looks like a kind of registration number for the music, but some tracks have the same numbers assigned).
Japanese musics generally have their titles written in kanji (Chinese/Japanese ideograms). When I manage enough time, I try to transcript their sound and translate their meaning, which can generate errors (I'm not proficient in Japanese). Please, be patient and feel free to send me any comment or help. Thank you.
Some CD/LD, mainly the ones from non-English language countries, occasionally have errors in track titles and sub-titles. It's not my duty to correct them (and risking to err again), so I copy the titles straight from the CD booklet and covers. Only a few obvious typing errors were corrected.

Personal Rating

I rate every album in three to five different items:

1. - this icon represents the musical quality (both melody and instrumental fidelity). It also represents the audio quality of LD.
2. - this icon represents the video quality of an LD.
3. - this icon represents the booklet, i.e., the small book that comes within the CD case. Some special albums come with larger books and a box to hold it and the CD. Both the booklet and the CD case are rated.
4. - some CD have a picture printed on the non-recorded side and this icon presents its rating. I could find three different types of printing. The most common of printing, which uses a lot of ink, is similar to the kind used for the common CD cover and results a solid picture (like in Chronologie), denoted by an S. Another kind of printing results a newspaper-like doted picture (like in "Balto" O.S.T.), denoted by a D. The most rare uses a very thin ink surface, which allows the rainbow-like stripes of the CD to show up and mix with the picture (used in Perfect Collection Ys III), denoted by an R. Some CD covers use two methods of printing, most commonly a dotted base image with solid printings (like in ImageFight).
5. - this icon presents my personal rating for the album.

The rating of each item may be:

- this means the item is not yet rated (I didn't have the time neither the means).
- this means the item is not available in the album. For example, a zero for booklet would mean the album comes with no booklet.
- one point or, in other words, the item is just available, but not remarkable. If referring to the cover art, it means the CD is covered with a single color and generally has the stylized title printed.
- two points.
- three points.
- four points. This means the item is almost perfect. In case of personal rating, this means the album is worth purchasing.
- five points. In case of personal rating, this means the album is one of my favourites.

Country information

Manufacturing countries:

• BR - Brazil

• CA - Canada

• DE - Germany (Deutsch)

• EE - E.E.C. (European Economic Community)

• EN - England

• FR - France

• HO - Holland

• IT - Italy

• JP - Japan

• US - U.S.A.

Date Format

All date information are represented in the basic format: "Year/Month/Day". When some information is not available, it's omitted.

Reprinted Japanese CD commonly have a letter to indicate the original release date:

• N = 1984
• I = 1985
• H = 1986
• O = 1987
• R = 1988
• E = 1989
• C = 1990
• D = 1991
• K = 1992

Abbreviations

• 3D (Three-Dimensional)
• AD-PCM (Adjustable Differential P.C.M.)
• AV (Audio and Video)
• BGM (BackGround Music): generally an instrumental music, used to follow, theorically, a movie act or video game stage, but may sometimes take the lead.
• CD (Compact Disc)
• CG (Computer Graphic): computer rendered and/or processed image.
• CM (CoMmercial [advertising])
• DAT (Digital Audio Tape)
• D.J. (Disk Jockey): a CD with narrative tracks.
• DSP (Digital Signal/Sound Processor/Processing)
• DV (Digital Video)
• LD (Laser Disc video)
• MD (Mini Disc)
• OGS (Original Game Sound [track])
• OS (Original Score)
• OST (Original [motion picture] SoundTrack)
• OVA (Original Video Animation, Original Video Anime)
• PCM (Pulse Code Modulation)
• Vol. (Volume).

CD Trivia

• Tron (O.S.T. CD): this album is not available. The music is synthesized, composed and performed by Wendy Carlo. There's an amazingly "dummy" pop music, which is deafening the players at the game center in the beginning of the movie. When (or if) the album is released, I expect the maker would "forget" to put it in. I also expect they wouldn't make the same they did with The Goonies O.S.T., recording only a few musics from the movie and inserting many "void headed" pops in.
• The Last Unicorn (animation movie): this album is available only in VHS, which is not a reliable medium for collection. It's also in the TV size format (4:3). I expect it to be released in LD, wide screen version.
• Ladyhawke (movie): this album is available in LD, but it's in TV size format (4:3). I'm still waiting for a wide screen version.

Technology Trivia

• 8mm Video/Hi8 Video: generally used only in video cameras out of Japan, it's also available as common home VCR (Video Cassette Recorders). Advantages: the tapes are small and very light; the magnetic medium is protected by a well designed case; high precision frame positioning enables perfect tape edition; good image and sound quality. Problems: some times the tape is misfitted (generally after rewinding operations), what causes the image to "shake". This "misfitting" can occur during recording, resulting the loss of the recorded material.
• MD (Mini Disc): this is actually a 7cm MO (Magneto-Optical) disc, similar to those used in some computers, connected to AD/DA (Analogic to Digital/Digital to Analogic) converters to record and playback sound. It's operation is very similar to a computer's disk. The disks can be named, as can be the tracks. Tracks can be split, joined, moved and erased easily. It's performance is similar to a CD (16 bits data, 44.1 kHz sampling rate, up to 74 minutes of stereo recording), but unlike CD, they're recordable and reusable. New equipment can also perform monaural recordings, enabling more than twice the stereo recording time. Almost all new equipment, including the portable ones, have an optical digital input, what enables perfect copy and edition of CD tracks (they automatically detect and create a new entry in the MD when a CD track is ended, allowing automatic copying).
• DVD (Digital Video Disc/Digital Versatile Disc): this is essentially a disguised high-density CD-ROM with audio/video files recorded. The audio standard is really impressive: up to 24 bits data with a 96 kHz sampling rate. Of course, this increasing in quality results in less playback time. The weak point of the DVD is the "V": the video images are made out of 8 bits data (256 colours) with 8 bits of brightness control. The conversion from 24 bits images (known as "true colour images") to this 8x8 resolution is made by an MPEG-2 algorithm, which is based in the human eye's resolutions, resulting in terrible distortions of colour and brightness (better noticed when smooth changes of colour and brightness are shown, like shiny surfaces). Beside the bad compression technique, there is another problem: they are still using the same infrared laser (780 nm wave length) of the first CD player and trying to make an LD fit in a CD sized disk. The wave length is too big to allow smaller media (and unlike LD, DVD uses only one side of the disks). A blue laser would probably solve the problem, unfortunately they are still very expensive. But what really annoyed me was the nation lock, which doesn't allow a disk from Japan, for example, to be reproduced in a Jamaican DVD player. It is a very idiot copyright, I would say "copywrong", protection attempt, and I think it won't ever stop the professional pirates. LD or DVD is better? Most people would say DVD, but it is not, not necessarily. They misjudge the quality of the copy used to record them with the quality of the medium. And there is another point: DVD allows more lines per image, that is, while LD has about 250 lines of resolution, DVD can have twice that number, what really improves image quality (though not all releases uses all that possible resolution). There're several problems with DVD standard and technology: (1) the LASER, as explained; (2) the MPEG-2 is a "lossy compression algorithm", i.e., part of the images' data is ignored to allow greater compression, which reduces the resolution, colour depth and average quality with each copy made; (3) the extremely annoying "nation lock"; (4) DVD is not recordable (more for copyright problems than for technological ones). Presenting only the problems is of no use, of course. So, here is what I think should be done to make DVD work: (1) change the infrared laser to another of higher frequency (yellow, green, blue or whatever); (2) enable direct 24 bits images, with "non-lossy" compression standard; (3) release, as soon as, possible the DVD recorder (even with a lossy compression method, the quality would be probably better than any current video tape recorder, except, of course, the digital ones); (4) I would like to say some not-very-beautiful words about the "nation lock" and what its idealizers should do with it, but I will just ask them to remove it. My final considerations: I think DVD may be, today, a good medium to replace rental VHS tapes and common movies, but LD is the best medium for collection. Tomorrow is another day, and perhaps the great-big-brainless companies would give us a gift of good will.

Page last modified on 1998-September-30 Wednesday.

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