The Empire Strikes Back, Laserdisc ("CD Video"), CBS/Fox Video. France 1990. 1425-35
Widescreen 2.35:1 - Digital Stereo (French) - PAL - 2 sides (CLV)

Though not specified anywhere on the sleeve, this is a widescreen release, featuring both a French opening crawl and French dubbing. The end credits, however, are not in French. The PAL format allows for the movie to fit on one disc, but the end credits are truncated by a few seconds, abruptly cutting the fade-out of the music at the very end of side B. This release is using the exact same Laserdisc master as the French 1993 Laserdisc. The copyright scroll is the same, image characteristics are the same, the sidebreak is the same, and side 2 cuts out in the same, abrupt way. The releases even have identical product numbers, 1425-35! In 1989 European Tech company Philips, one of the inventors and major patent holders of the Laserdisc format, made a push to relaunch the Laserdisc format in Central Europe under the "CD Video" banner. The format is exactly the same as Laserdisc, with analog PAL video and PCM Stereo sound, but the actual discs were gold coloured. Unfortunately, these "CD Video" discs have a propensity for the so-called "Laser rot", and it is not uncommon that they suffer from excessive speckling, dropouts and crackling sound when played back today. My copy is okay as of 2025, thankfully.