What was the first picture disk

Red Raven Movie Records, introduced in , were a very unusual type of children's picture disc. They featured a sequence of sixteen interwoven animation frames arrayed around the centre and were to be played at 78 rpm on a turntable with a short spindle, on which a small sixteen-mirrored device, a variety of the praxinoscope great word!

Gazing into this as the record played, the user saw an endlessly repeating high-quality animated cartoon scene appropriate to the song. Only the earliest Red Raven discs, which were of the coated cardboard type but reinforced with a metal rim and spindle hole grommet, were true picture discs.

The more common later issues were larger "picture label discs" made of solid coloured opaque, translucent or transparent plastic, with the recording in a band surrounding a very large label that carried the animation graphics.

In the s similar products were introduced in several countries under various brand names—Teddy in France and the Netherlands, Mamil Moviton in Italy, etc. Picture discs of the large and solid Victor-Vogue type were very rarely issued in the U. A new generation of picture discs appeared in the s. The first serious pictures discs, with acceptable but still inferior sound quality, were developed by Metronome Records GmbH, a subsidiary of Elektra Records.

These new picture discs were made by creating a five-layer lamination consisting of a core of black vinyl with kiln-dried paper decals on either side and then outer skins of clear vinyl film, manufactured by 3M, on the outsides. In manufacture, one layer of the clear film was first placed on the bed of the press on top of the stamper, then a "puck" of hot black vinyl from the extruder was placed on top of that.

Finally the top print and vinyl film layer was added held by a retracting pin in the upper profile usually employed to retain the upper paper label and the press closed. Problems with poor vinyl flow caused by the paper texture and air released from the paper that had not been removed in the kiln drying process plagued the process.

Issues with sound quality would plague picture discs right into the mid s, coloured vinyl likewise was often noisy and sounded like you were playing a sheet of sandpaper. Eventually they got the production process correct but it had taken a full 60 years.

The glory picture disc days were in the mid to late 80s when many bands would routinely release a version of the album as picture disc, as well as black vinyl and coloured vinyl. It Bites did this a lot as did the Black Crowes. I love them. The chance to get more records by a band you loved was not one I was going to pass up. Bear Family Records issued reproductions of many, if not all, of the Vogue picture discs several years ago.

Eli , May 3, Chip TRG , May 3, Yeah, I hope there are more around. I've found some cool stuff in that thrift store. Victor had picture records in In general they are much less common than the Vogues, as they were a luxury few could afford during the Depression. Location: South of Southern Maryland. Hopefully this won't be perceived as a thread-crap, but was the first laser-etched disc? Y'know, where they cut a picture into the vinyl without affecting theoretically the grooves.

I remember a Styx album and another from some Australian band. Roland Stone , May 3, Location: LA, CA. Ron - the "Australian" group was Split Enz, which made a big deal about having the first record their album "True Colours," the sleeve of which also came in different colors with "laser" etching - a bunch of geometric shapes, which was actually kind of cool looking.

This never caught on, but I liked the similar idea of simply carving designs into the vinyl rendering that side of the vinyl unplayable, obviously. Location: Wisconsin. SuiteMadameBlue , May 4, Location: Youngstown, Ohio. MikeM , May 4, Location: Central VA. HS , , which featured the famous "S" shield logo on the B-side. Though, with the post s, production became more of a promotional process. Promotional copies were generally pressed in extremely small quantities, and sometimes as little as copies of a disc were released to a worldwide market.

Starting in the late s, a push by several recording companies including Capitol, Epic, and Columbia Records, was made to bring picture discs onto the commercial market in vast numbers. Capital Records pressed 60, discs of this version of Dark Side of the Moon in As the s came about, commercial production of picture discs was in full swing, although production eventually switched from domestic presses to the British and European plants.

Towards the latter half of the s, interest in picture discs began to diminish. With the arrival of the 90s and the demise of vinyl records, the production of picture discs was again used somewhat promotionally or limited to small batches.

The bulk of these discs appear to have originated from the European and Asian plants. As we enter the 21st century, the future is bright for the picture disc market. Jeff Bender has been an avid collector of vinyl recordings for over 40 years.