Canal+ Video

Background

This is the home video division of Canal+, a French TV station that also operates in countries like Spain, Poland and Scandinavia and spun-off StudioCanal S.A., one of the biggest feature film-owning libraries.

1st Logo (1985-1995)

Logo: We see a white stripe moving diagonally as the word "CANAL" appears. It then becomes smaller and bigger and reveals itself to be a rainbow colored circle. Then the "+" fades in with the "VIDEO" below it. The titles then vanish and the ring becomes thinner.

FX/SFX: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A choir and synth-theme.

Availability: Common.

Legacy: This is basically the second Canal+ ident with a video indicator added below.

2nd Logo (1995-2005)

Nickname: "Flashing Squares"

Logo: A white background fades in and a brighter streak wipes in from both directions. This suddenly cuts to flashing various colors, followed by a Canal+ logo fading in on the same white background. The whole thing changes to black and the Canal+ logo appears from above, with a moving 8-pixel grid below. The whole thing disappears, and the Canal+ logo appears again, with a gray rectangle with "VIDEO" below. At the left of the gray rectangle, there's a blue square that changes colors before it changes to blue again for a few seconds.

Trivia: This is based off the Canal+ feature presentation idents from the time. The streak animation at the beginning of the logo is actually a throwback to the 1st Canal+ ident, although in a more brighter fashion. The animation was also used for the 2nd StudioCanal logo that would be shortly used during the end of the 20th century.

FX/SFX: The animation of the squares, and color transitions, which are a little fast, but nothing all that bad.

Music/Sounds: A single note sung by a soprano opera singer, followed by a percussive theme with a string section. The female notes change with clapping percussion. When the percussions stop (strings continue), a jungle-like crackling sound plays, ending with an echoed, low-pitched beeping sound. The whole music is in sync to the animation of the logo.

Availability: Most likely uncommon.

It possibly debuted on French VHS/DVDs from PFC Video (a joint-venture between Fox, Pathé and Canal+), but we're not so sure.
With the recent StudioCanal logo find, we might say that this would debut on releases from Canal+ shows, TPS shows and original works.
It also debuted on some of the VHS and DVD releases of the Smart Planet TV movie, Télétoon Advance and Télétoon Frontière.
On some releases from 2001-2005, the StudioCanal Video logo is used.