Purpose of the AIV disc

The Domesday86 project received these discs as a kind donation from David Moore and, at this point, little is known about the history of the discs.  The discs are "Test Pressings" of the Domesday disc set and the Community disc is dated May 5th 1986 (7 months before the actual release of the Domesday system).  At the time of writing these two discs are the only known versions of the test pressings and are still currently under investigation to determine their contents.  The discs are degraded but still readable in a VP415 laserdisc player.

Introduction video

The introduction video for the community North and South discs is quite different from the release versions and the discs contain footage that is not present on the release versions of the disc.  The following video shows the Community Disc introduction, video footage of exercising and the draft tutorial video from the pre-release discs:

The physical fitness sequence on the disc was a test sequence included for the Open University. Since the Philips VP415 LaserDisc player could instantly jump up to a second during playback, the sequences were designed to be run in a seamless loop to demonstrate the action continuously. As the BBC couldn't test this without using the 'instant jump' feature of the Philips VP415, the footage was included on the TP04 disc to allow testing at the time. (Thanks to Andy Finney for this insight into the test disc contents).

The Laser Video discs

Contents of the Discs

TP04A - Community South

This disc contains CAV encoded video, pictures and data.  The data partition boots, but crashes during loading.  The contents are different from the release version; a different introduction and a draft tutorial video.  In addition there are many test frames that are not present on the release version.  The final part of the disc seems to contain panoramic images of landscapes.

TP04B - Community North

This disc contains CAV encoded video and pictures.  There is no readable data partition.  The contents are different from the release version; there is a large section of video dedicated to physical exercise, a different introduction and a draft tutorial video.  In addition there are many test frames that are not present on the release version.

Domesday TP06C Side 1 (National side A)

This disc contains CAV encoded video, pictures and VFS data.  The disc appears to be functionally equivalent to the release version of the National disc.

Images of the 80's Side 2 (National side B)

This disc contains CLV encoded video and contains the same news footage as the release version of the National Disc (since the last footage was dated 1986-07-28 this disc is a later copy compared to the Community disc test pressing).