Category Archives: Blog

In order to create the Domesday Community LaserDiscs over 9,000 schools contributed text articles, pictures and captions to the BBC project. This article details the process of both collecting the data at the schools and collating the data ready for inclusion onto the LaserDisc itself. Domesday86 was contacted by Bertil Schou who kindly provided a wealth of documentation and information Continue reading Domesday data collection→

Hot on the heels of revision 4 comes the latest iteration of ld-decode including many new features including digital audio and data decoding support. For a complete breakdown of the (several hundred) commits to github, please see the github repository for the project. The following list is a summary of the improvements and new features: Improved MTF handling in ld-decode Continue reading ld-decode revision 5 released!→

A new release of ld-decode is now available from the project github: https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode/wiki Some of the many new features include: Accurate dropout detection in ld-decode using pre- and post-filtered decodes Improved dropout correction supporting inter-field replacement Intelligent line and sub-line video combination (combine video data from multiple disc sources) Improved NTSC 3D comb filter Improved YIQ to RGB colour-space conversion Continue reading ld-decode revision 4 released!→

Thanks to our friends at the Leicester Retro Computer museum, the long lost BBC AIV City Disc set has been found and documented for the Domesday86 project. This disc set (which is without doubt the rarest AIV disc made by the BBC) covers the square mile ‘City of London’ and was produced by the BBC’s Interactive Television Unit in association Continue reading The BBC AIV City Disc set is found!→

In 1989 Apple produced a LaserDisc based multimedia kit for American schools similar to the BBC’s Domesday National disc (although with less focus on data and more on video). As with Domesday, the Apple Visual Almanac is an example of early interactive multimedia applications using LaserDiscs to present video, pictures and sound with unprecedented quality. Information about the kit and Continue reading Details of the Apple Visual Almanac added→

RetroRGB recently did an interview about the Domesday86 project, Domesday Duplicator and ld-decode – with a deep-dive into what’s going on behind the scenes and the current status of both projects.  You can watch the full interview on YouTube: Pit-Perfect Laserdisc Backups with Domesday Duplicator & LD Decode

This V2.1 release of the software signifies the first ‘Production Release’ of the Domesday Duplicator hardware and software (based on the existing rev3 Domesday Duplicator board). The LaserDisc RF duplication system has now been tested successfully on a number of different capture set-ups and high-quality NTSC decodes have been produced by the ld-decode sister-project (proving the end-to-end viability of the Continue reading New release of the Domesday Duplicator software→

The Acorn AIV Master computer used by the Domesday project was fitted with a specific SCSI adapter card in order to connect the Philips VP415 LaserDisc player to the computer. As there were a relatively low number of Domesday systems sold (and very few survive) these cards can be difficult (and expensive) to source. This project provides a drop-in replacement Continue reading Replacement Acorn SCSI AIV Adapter board→

The Front-Loader module (P) in the Philips VP415 Domesday LaserDisc player is a mechanical weak-point and is prone to damage when the player is transported. This project provides a modern replacement for the module made with durable, industrial-grade parts.  The replacement can be simply dropped into the player and requires no alteration.  As well as fixing existing broken players, the Continue reading Philips VP415 Replacement Front-Loader Module→

A number of Domesday related teletext pages from the BBC’s Ceefax pages have been recovered from the teletext archive.  You can view the pages by following this link. If you know of any pages we’re missing, please let us know!