Overview

These pages cover 12 cm CD Video Singles (CDVs) and  Video Single Discs (VSDs), not the 8 and 12 inch CDVs / Laserdiscs.

Released between 1986 and 1991, the gold coloured 12cm inch CD Video Single normally contains 3 or 4 standard audio tracks plus one video track of up to approx 6 minutes. The audio tracks are playable on any CD player but the video portion can only be played on Laserdisc players. A few 'Clip' players were released which were basically 12 cm only Laserdisc players

CD Videos were never very popular. As people had already invested in CD players, an upgrade to another player seemed like an expensive upgrade. In Europe especially, Laserdiscs never had anything like the impact that they had in the US or Japan and very few people had Laserdisc players. Many CD Video singles sold in England were marketed through HiFi shops in an attempt to assist in the selling of Laserdisc players.

The whole CDV marketing campaign in the UK appeared to fail miserably even though it was pushed several times. For reference, the second release was published in the UK based magazine "CD Review". The cover of the magazine showed the promo UK release of Cutting Crew's (I Just) Died In Your Arms. Sadly I lost that copy many years ago so if anyone has a copy, please contact me.

By far the majority of CDVs contain popular music tracks although there are quite a few classical titles. There are quite a few unusual CDVs that are not really music-based; an example is a Skydiving title! These are CDVs nonetheless and are documented in these pages.

The first commercially available CDV single in Europe was Level 42's 'It's Over'. This was released on September 11th 1987. The original UK version has the gold stripe down the left had side. This is probably the most common CDV. The slightly later released European version uses the more standard artwork consisting of the CDV Logos running down each side of the disc cover, instead of the gold stripe version. Several releases including those by Wet Wet Wet and Elton John have multiple release styles. In the US the first CDV was Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach'. There are five different CDV versions of this track:

 As you read through you will find that there is much diversity in release versions covering promos, artwork, catalogue numbers etc.

The information in these pages is gained from my own knowledge and the input of many other people. My sincere thanks to them, especially to LDP and DT. If you have information about CDVs please do not hesitate to contact me - reg@mrjolly.com <mailto:reg@mrjolly.com>; I am a collector and am always interested in any CDVs people have for sale or trade.