Laserdisc: An Introduction
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
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Laserdisc seems to get a lot of retro cred these days. It gets featured as a technical oddity, but from today’s perspective, it might seem strange that it didn’t become the de-facto standard. Boasting many of the same features as the modern DVD, you would think it couldn’t possibly have received the cold reception it did. In this series of videos, we’ll find out why.
Here's a link to the entire playlist on Laserdisc:
• The Story of Laserdisc
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/ technologyconnections
The image of the film strip with analog audio only is in the public domain. I forgot to add that as an image credit on-screen.
Some sources!
The 1958 date appears to come from Gregg's on recollection. These sources suggest as such, anyway: (thanks to Today I Found Out for curating these links, though as you'll see in the next video their assessment of the Laserdisc situation isn't quite that nuanced)
www.blamld.com/...
www.thoughtco....
aaand... some of the patent sources
www.google.com...
www.google.com...
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I remember hearing about Laserdisc in around 1996 and thinking it was the new thing that was going to replace VHS, my mind was blown when I later found out they were pretty much the same age!
Ooh, a typo! I better point that out in the comments!
Laserdisc is an important part of our technological history, especially since it essentially was the birth of optical storage formats. But it spent its entire 22 years on this Earth as an obscure format with disastrous adoption rates. In this video we'll take a look into the early history of the format (and address some apparent information inconsistencies). Stay tuned for part 2!
"...spent its entire 22 years on Earth as an obscure format with disastrous adoption rates..." in the United States. It had much higher adoption in some other parts of the world; as with many technologies. (MiniDisc, early home computers using audio tape as the primary storage medium, heck, home computers other than IBM PC, etc.)
You should pin this comment.
Except in Japan. Laser Discs, especially anime ones, were very popular in Japan.
+Technology Connections
I was one of those lucky few who invested in LD. Had over 200 discs. DVD didn't over-take LD in the area of absolute quality until the early 2000's when mastering of DVD's was well understood and well refined. After that, I sold my LD collection to another collector for a healthy sum of money. I have to agree with you about that Magnavox player. Very beautiful example of technological craftsmanship. BTW, it can be fixed, there is a shop up in SLC that specializes in repair of older LD players. It's on 21st just east of Redwood RD.
I think it's really worth noting that by the late 80s and early 90s even in North America, Laserdisc had carved out a small but dedicated niche of consumers who were willing to spend the extra money on the premium of better video and audio. By the early 90s trendy stores like Sam Goody and Sound Warehouse (think F.Y.E. for Sam Goody and Sound Warehouse was a Blockbuster video type store that had as large of a sale section as rentals) were even actively carrying laserdisc movies. By that time frame it was no longer a competitor to VHS, but rather a premium home video format for enthusiasts who wanted movies in their original aspect ratios, director commentaries, and the other advantages provided by the format.
That machine sounds like it's about to take off when it spins the disc up!
ASMR for tech guys
Which scared a lot of people I'll bet... kinda like the Video Pirates in Amazon Women on the Moon. ;)
soundspark Smooooooth....
Just like X Box 360
Then you just see FBI and you're like: Shit, what did I do?
I had an LD player back in the 90's. And I had acquired a big pile of DiscoVision titles. But a majority of them were unwatchable, largely due to speckling. Finally, I later found that the quality control in the early MCA pressing plants was close-to-nill. So, many discs were pressed w/ dirt, dust & even dead bugs inside!
that sparkling was something called "laserrot" ..the glue that they used to keep to two sides together started to dry out and weaken...it was a major problem in the 70's and 80's
It's not about bugs being pressed with bugs inside lol, it's about the glue weakening. Laser rot.
the design of laser discs did not allow for recording as they were optically recorded.(more like a combined photograph/movie ??)....the Sony recording tech was a digital method using cd / minidisc (basically a lower quality cd but with compression tech to get closer to a cd in quality) ... more related towards DVD
So should I just aboid MCA discs all together
@@ziggyff693 Afaik Sony minidisc was more of an attempt to create a (re)recordable media for audio, intended to replace the micro cassette in the same way as the CD replaced the LP. It wasn't much of a success outside of Japan. Phillips tried something similar with their DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) that used a magnetic tape to store (compressed) digital audio. DCC also didn't really catch on. Probably because for serious professional audio DAT tape systems already existed.
Minidisc eventually were also used to store data and were called creatively MD Data in 1990, but it was uncompressed and a disc could only store up to about 140MB. But it was slow and the drives were expensive and CD-R was around by then (released in 1988 though writers and discs were expensive). (Apparently Sony did produce a second generation version that could store 640MB in 1997 but that was more or less only used in a few of their own Camcorder devices and a few multitrack audio devices)
Both that VCR and Laserdisc player are two of the sexiest pieces of technology I've ever seen and I need them in my life.
First time I saw a Laserdisc was when I visited the country's largest audio/video store (Akers Mic in Oslo) and went downstairs... as soon as I came down the stairs I saw a 60+ inch back projection TV, huge Dolby Surround system hooked up, and the psychiatric ward hallway scene from Terminator 2 playing from Laserdisc. My 12-year old self was blown away by the awesomeness and how real the gunshots sounded compared to anything else I'd seen before (apart from real gunshots, that is).
I sold very hi end AV at that time. we did not use T2 for demo due to violence and language. believe it or not. FERN GULLY sounded and looked better.
I still have 6 players and several hundred disc's. I love finding the last movies released, but only in Japan. star wars is the best OG version of course, on a Dolby digital pioneer LD/DVD combo.
Sir, you are allowed to join the sacred club of old technology:
Techmoan, 8bitguy and Lgr (and now you).
Congratulations
Don't forget VWestlife!
I consider Oddity Archive to be an honorary member of that club.
I think Ashens is also allowed here. Wouldnt allow him to cater events however
Oddity Archive!
Pieter Van den Berghe lgr or lazy game reviews
Watching "older" videos now, shows how much you have improved, and you were already at a top level, keep it with the good work!!!
*Magnavox starts spinning up; me, wide-eyed:* "Gentlemen, START YOUR ENGINES!"
Funny, I learned about Laserdisc in 4th grade as well, but I learned about it thanks to our friend Strong Bad.
"Whatever happened to the Laserdisc?"
I hope he and the Cheat find these videos
I learned it from Regular Show.
"What!? They got no Turbographx games!?"
Strong Bad, Issue 9 of Teen Girl Squad
Everything is better with a Laserdisc!
I'm 90% sure my love of outdated technology and computers comes from watching strong bad when I was little.
I'm a little older than you, and I'm impressed with your knowledge. I like how you know what our mindset was from these old era's. Keep doing the awesome job that you are. I'm a fan of your shows.
Great video. No offense but you definitely are my favorite choice for going to sleep, your delivery is like someone reading a book to you in a good way. Fairly comforting to listen to. 10/10. Not a knock on your delivery btw, you find your own voice and you found yours already!.
Exigentable - I know what you mean, I love listening to podcasts and RUclips to drift into sleep, but I hate when audio levels aren't correct and you end up getting blasted with sound, or whatever it may be. While these videos aren't long enough for me to pass out to, his delivery is excellent. Top notch work, and such awesome subject matter!
Check out culturedog
Learning ASMR style..
Similarly, I like watching his videos after waking up, enjoying this one w my morning coffee right now.
That old player spinning up is crazy to listen to.
30 rps = 1800 rpm. I can drive my old Mustang around town without the pushrod V8 ever exceeding that.
You should hear an IBM PC-XT with the original 10Mb full height HDD spinning up!
These videos never cease to impress me with their entertainment value and thoroughness.
As a kid of the 70s, I saw all of these events happen from start to finish. I know why each lost to VHS and how DVD finally dethroned it. But when you tell the story, make sure you mention the VCD (Video CD), the short lived format that came after VHS but before DVDs.
Again though, it was only short lived in the west. It was pretty common elsewhere and as a pirate movie format for quite a while. The average early Chinese and Japanese DVD player would play VCD and also CD+G, neither of which really took off in the US or Europe as far as I know. (I didn't see a CD+G in the flesh until I visited the US, where Best Buy had a small rack of karaoke discs).
Howard Jones - I was lucky enough to have a DVD player that could also play VCDs. I could rent a DVD, rip it and split the film across two CDs with reasonable quality.
You didn't hear that from me, OK?
I have DVD player less than 4 years old that plays VCD. And I'm pretty sure my Playstation 2 does as well
I wouldn't be surprised if VCD is part of the DVD standards for all players...
Sean Smith Most of the earlier DVD players supported most CD formats, even the ill-fated SACD. Most modern DVD just support Audio CD, Data CD (mostly for JPEGs and MP3s), and DVD Video. The PS2 was one of the first to drop most formats and just kept support for DVD Video, CD Audio, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. VCD is not part of the DVD standard, is part of the CD Rainbow books but it is not required that all readers support all of the books, especially an extension of the blue one (CD-i).
By the way, it would be really nice to see a video about the rainbow books.
I must have been lucky I suppose. I burned some copyright free stuff on to VCD (I'd ran out of blank DVD's, and they where only an hour long any how) and they played on everyone's DVD player I gave them to..
My parents came home with a LD player around 1990/91. I think a local electronics store was demoing one and they were impressed. We were confused about the black bars (letterboxing) and why it stopped halfway through so we took it back. They sold us a dual-sided player and informed us about lettterbox vs. pan&scan. After I got accustomed to letterbox I couldn't go back to pan&scan and the quality was so much better than VHS. We rented LaserDiscs pretty much exclusively after that. After I moved out I bought a used one for myself. I think I finally sold it around 2003/04.
If he keeps making videos like this and doesn't have 500k subs by year's end I will have lost faith in RUclips.
Well done.
Unfortunately it's not likely with the new recommendation system of RUclips in place, which honors channels with more regular uploads significantly.
It's a shame, because this channel deserves a lot more recognition.
It's not little kitty or puppy video.
not too many people are into technology as you may hope.
Thankfully I got this channel suggested by YT about a year ago.
o_O you still have faith in RUclips?
I feel bad for you man...
I'm iffy on this. The other channels I watch that are in a similar vein -- Techmoan, Curious Droid and occasionally 8BitGuy -- all have a little extra push in production value. Techmoan/8BitGuy have fancy intros/outros, 8BitGuy/Curious Droid make regular use of BGM (Curious Droid composes it all himself), all three take a little extra time in AfterEffects. TechMoan has those puppet segments and a very dry sense of humor to give the channel character.
This channel can take some of these next steps fairly painlessly, and I'd welcome it. The sooner the better, to lessen the backlog of episodes that lack intros/outros, bgm, or whatever stands to characterize this channel in the future.
Edit: I'll add that it couldn't hurt to run the scripts by a grammar nazi, because once in a while there are moments where it could use it, though this observation applies also to 8BitGuy and Curious Droid.
I will never forget the first time I heard Jurrasic Park in glorious DTS 5.1 on Laserdisc. The sensation of the room pressurizing with each T-rex stomp was unlike anything I had ever experienced with any other home media format of that era.
Yay! Thank you for covering Laserdisc! It's such a great format, so it's nice to see you go all in depth with it. Love that old player you got, such a classic design!
Laser disc was ahead of its time. Problem was the expensive players and the bulky size of the disc. Still it was the best until DVD showed up.
Zzygyy Also, the relatively short run time for Laserdiscs (30 min per side for CAV Discs, 60 for CLV Discs) meant that a 2 hour movie had to be put on multiple discs and most consumers didn’t want to have to change discs and sides multiple times for 1 movie.
Zzygyy
What killed the LD was more than just the cost, it was the fact that users had to get up to flip the disc every 30 mins. Or 1 hr if you could afford a LD player that read both sides. Most people found these interuptions annoying, so they chose VHS because it was good enough with no interruptions.
+ Wolf Mobile It should be noted that "standard play length" of 30 minutes per side doesn't mean "common". Almost all movies were released in CLV format, the _extended play_ length of one hour per side. Most movies would fit on one disc, and both-side-play units wouldn't need an interruption at all. CAV discs were sold mainly for quality purists and film enthusiasts who wanted the trick-play features, as these weren't possible with CLV discs. You'll find out more about this in the next video :)
Pretty sure he's leading up to the fact that LaserDisc was designed exclusively for playback of purchased cinema movies (and perhaps packaged television seasons), while VHS was originally marketed as a home TV recording solution. Only after VHS/Beta started to take off did publishers realize they could sell movies on it.
Thus, the real killer was the fact that VHS players were also recorders at the time, while there were no LaserDisc burners. Same reason CD-ROM didn't kill floppy disks until the USB flash drives hit the market, despite costing less and holding 400x more.
As a kid growing up in the early and mid 1980s, we had a VHS player (like most people). I do remember seeing laser discs of movies at video stores, however. I remember wondering about them. My dad (being technically-minded by nature) explained to me about how they had an impeccable sound and picture quality, however they were very expensive (and you couldn't record off TV with them). My dad (being a natural tech) wished that he could afford one (as well as a VHS player).
In the end, I remember him telling me how many of the wealthier people had laser disc players, while the common masses (us among them) either had a VHS or Beta machine.
I remember seeing laserdiscs in Sears when I was a little boy. My family never owned laserdiscs because they were too expensive. When I was in college, the campus library actually had laserdiscs. I got to watch Zeferelli's Romeo & Juliet and Fiddler On The Roof on laserdisc.
That Magnavox is typical Philips 1970s styling, silvery grey, quite rounded and NO fake woodgrain at all.
That Magnavox player sounds like an old MFM hard drive
Were you expecting a loud BIOS beep after it finishes spinning up?
One of the best channels on RUclips. Thanks for continuing to make vids. :)
12:12 I see why did LaserDisc failed. That thing sounds like a jet engine, how can you watch a movie with that sound?
Later Pioneer players were much quieter than the early player used here.
I can't remember. I was only around five when I last had one.
To expand on the two types of available disks - CAV and CLV.
CAV was "Constant Angular Velocity" which meant that an entire video frame was recorded for one revolution of the disk. This allowed perfect freeze frame since it was easy for the machine to read one frame for one revolution, the drawback was limited playback time. Since each frame required one complete revolution of the disk, the total number of frames (and hence the total playback time) was limited by the number of concentric grooves on the disk.
CLV was "Constant Linear Velocity" which meant the frames were recorded one after another, regardless of which spiral groove they were on. Since the diameter of a groove is small at the center but large at the outer rim, an internal groove might hold one frame but the outer groove might hold many more. That meant that a single CLV disk could hold an entire movie while a CAV disk might require two or more. Most full movie disks were CLV while games and demo disks were CAV.
Imagine printing "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" on various size pieces of paper from post-it note size to 8X14 legal paper. If you printed it once on each type of paper it would be easy to read, but would have lots of wasted space on anything but the smallest pieces. If you printed the same line repeatedly for as many times as each paper could hold, you would have many, many more lines printed with no wasted space. That is the essence of CAV vs. CLV.
Send it to Techmoan for a quick fix.
Send it to 8bitguy to fix it.
I' going to wild-ass guess that thing to weight 30 pounds. I imagine the cost of shipping to the UK (or Lolstralia) will be multiple times more than the cost of a working unit. At that point, may as well Big Clive it - at least that might result in a hilarious one-way trip for the thing. And no disrespect to 8bitguy, but he's not going to be the one to tap for something like this. Plenty of other US-based RUclipsrs that would be though.
I vote for 12voltvids.
SEND IT TO VSAUCE BECAUSE I KNOW CHANNELS TOO
C'mon guys, you know Photonicinduction's the best channel to send it to!
Thanks for sharing the laserdisc series! Our family just bought a laserdisc player and we are getting it repaired right now
In fourth grade I considered it a holiday when I saw the film projector set up. Sometimes we had the slide shows with synchronized audio. Ah! There's a topic for you!
Loosely related, I dabbled in 8mm (silent) film as a kid; our projector came with a weird option thing that expected the tape of a reel-to-reel tape player looped over it and was supposed to somehow aid sync of recording and film. To this day I haven't got the foggiest idea how exactly it was supposed to achieve that...
Don't forget the cool kids got to turn the knob at the beep for film strips.
"Slide shows"? Do you mean, "Filmstrips"? (Boop!)
no these were shorter rolls of film like 35mm movie film but it was manually turned
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmstrip
@David Kerns, I was asking "Dead Frt West" about his "slide show" comment. I don't remember too many slides in schools. Filmstrips were common.
I LOVE your videos. Just found you yesterday and have been binge watching. I love how detailed you are and your love of the topics. I find this stuff so interesting
I used to work as a projectionist for a while. DTS comes on CDs that load into a little computer on the side, with a dotted line of sync pulses on the film.
Not only do you only have 5 minutes to move a print off the platter, put a new one on, lace it and set the automation, but you also have to remember *this* print has a DTS disc. And then comes something about contractual obligations regarding distributor screening practices.
*sigh* It could be a great job at times... but...
UnitSe7en I had no platters. We had two projectors and switched between reels. The cinema only got non-rewind platters after I quit.
Hahaha wow. I knew an old-timer who used to privately run public shows from time to time with a side-by-side setup, but that was more than 25 years ago. Of course, way back in my father's time as a projectionist at the dawn of Cinemascope it was the way it was done. Your cinema must have been a small, privately-owned business? I always wanted to work for somewhere like that. Being under the corporate thumb was soul-sucking.
Finally everything is digital now. There aren't even any projectionists left; The duty manager arranges a playlist on their office computer. So sad.
UnitSe7en Yeah, the cinema I worked at was a small local privately owned cinema, only a single screen. It was also about 15 years ago, I think they went digital a few years after I left.
Time code!
I remember when I had a laserdisc player back in the 90s. We had Snow White, The Original Star Wars Trilogy, Space Ace, Hair, Tommy, Fergully: The Last Rainforest, and others I can't think of at the moment.
Ah, children.
I owned an early Pioneer laserdisc top loader.
Better picture quality, and good quality stereo sound. The 1 hour a side playing time was the problem.
RM apCynan I very nearly bought one that was a drawer load and would auto flip to side b. It was demonstrated in the “back room” where the high end stuff was. Anyone of a certain age recalls the back room only big spenders were allowed. I was into high end in my 20’s and had a good job Haha. I decided it was just too much money for the unit. DVD came out and changed everything later and I was an early dvd owner.
In 1990, Japan was a paradise for HiFi fans. A lot of anime, movies, ans concert live were releaed as LD and the image and sound was just totally different level than VHS.
I can't wait for the second chapter.
I just wanted to drop a line to let you know I truly appreciate your videos. Great information, well delivered. Keep it up!
12:49
*laserdisc intensifies*
That Laserdisc player is a beast! Yes kids, there was once a time when bigger was better!
Love your videos because of the great amount of research and detail you put in. Great job dude.
The best review i ever see on youtube about this forgotten tecnology !!!
I started out with the very first LaserDisc player in the 1970s and then graduated into my own dealership. I remained faithful to the system until around 94 when almost all of my discs started developing laser rot. Fortunately I found a collector who was able to buy the 1700 laser discs that I owned, along with my entire movie theater that I had set up. You presented a very interesting video but you've left out some very important things. Infrared lasers are restricted on the amount of information that they can rebroadcast and it's when manufacturers changed over to Blue lasers that they were able to invent the DVD system. There were also some things going on over at Bell Labs that weren't mentioned such as the original video playing system was on a Wire.
There is another video just around the corner, so I don't think it's fair to point out that I've left things out, is it :)
DVDs use a red laser, not blue. The blue-violet laser wasn't feasible at the time of DVD's introduction. Not until Blu-Ray disc (hence the name) were blue lasers used.
Also, it's interesting to me that most of your discs developed laser rot. Of course I don't have any discs from the Discovision era and all the discs I own are from either eBay or thrift stores, but I've only encountered two discs with laser rot. One is a _very_ early copy of Star Trek the Motion Picture, and the other was a single-sided disc mastered by Image featuring a Neal Diamond concert, iirc. That disc was odd as the other side was an opaque white plastic, and I strongly suspect that to be the reason for the rot.
Also, please link to some info on the Bell Labs stuff. I've never heard of it, and it sounds intriguing!
"Disk rot", lasers don't rot. Issue is bad manufacturing, mostly with early production and cheap production later. HD DVD is reportedly to be very bad, and DVD and Blue Ray are not immune to disk rot.
Note: the rot is actually corrosion, oxygen reacting to the reflective material due to poor material handling.
Not exactly. The reflective surface is Aluminium, which almost instantly forms a protective oxide layer the moment it meets air. The problem is caused by a fungus that eats Aluminium. The first case reported was in Belize because of its warm and humid climate, but I'll bet if you go through your collection you will find an old CD or DVD with a fingerprint etched into the surface, it's not acids from your skin, it's that fungus. When it was discovered Philips was all "Oh this is totally a one off" but it's since been determined that this stuff lives basically everywhere, and unless you've just washed your hands with molten lead, it's living on your skin too.
Check the spindle system on that laserdisc player. I've had a few LD players in my time and that machine is making WAY too much sound when revving up. They normally do make some sound when reaching 30 revolutions per second but not THAT much. Slightly wobbly spinning has the symptoms of being extra loud and troubled video playback, which seems to be what you are experiencing. I remember desperately placing strategically placed pieces of tape on the pad opposite the spindle to achieve better balance, but your mileage may vary. :-) In this day and age, I wonder what could be 3d printed? Of course all this would be divergent from the classic original design which reduces the units value as a museum piece, even if you do get it working. :-) Great video and thanks for the pleasant trip down memory lane.
Who learned about laserdiscs from Regular Show?
✋😔 Me.
I had several laserdisc players. My first was the Pioneer VP1000A. I even purchased the CX noise reduction adapter for superior sound. I still have all of my laserdiscs, in excess of 300 in total and a Pioneer DVL-909 player still connected to my A/V system. My player stopped functioning in 2011 because the laser diode failed. I sent the player to a service technician in Olympia Washington who did in excellent job of repair, even doing some modifications I requested. The player is still working beautifully.
Laserdisc was / is great, I still have my movie collection and player. I remember when I was THE house on the block having a home theater in the early 1990s and remember having to drive over 400Km to purchase movies for it in the only store in the area that would carry new release movies.
Crank up the volume for the THX intro..... Ahhhh
I ended up getting a laserdisc player from a charity shop here in Australia. It had NTSC playback, worked well with my high def television, and worked with an Aussie power supply. It only cost $60AU, so knowing the finding of such goods was rare, decided to purchase it a week later. Thankfully I listened to my instincts and brought some money with me.
I wouldn't call laserdisc an obscure format, at least to anyone who was alive during its heyday. It was an enthusiasts' format to be sure, but everyone at least knew about its existence. I still see LD players and stacks of disks show up in thrifts at a regular basis, so *someone* back then was buying them.
* Raises hand and smiles *
Agreed. It wasn't obscure. Just expensive, but those who could afford a large screen TV back then also often had a LaserDisc player. The rest of us couldn't really see the improvement on a normal TV enough to justify the cost.
I had a store next to me that rented laser disks. Although around 92'93 owner sold his stock and left. Wonder why.... :)
Japan loved to release a lot of films and anime on it back in the day.
The picture was way better than VHS (twice as sharp) and only a little less sharp than standard DVD. And it came out in the late 70s. It was pretty obvious to most people I showed it to as an electronics salesperson in the 1990s (whether they bought a machine was a different issue).
I have an incomplete but strong memory of a LaserDisc player my grandmother owned. The disks were kept and played in rigid plastic caddies like the lovechild of an LP record and a 3.5" floppy diskette. The only film I remember watching on it (repeatedly) was Star Wars: A New Hope. So much so that not only do I notice all the edits Lucas made later, my foundational memories of the film include a few skips and jerks on Tatooine where the disk had a scratch.
You could be thinking of the RCA SelectaVision CED, which come in hard caddies. There’s a series on CEDs on this channel . Not 100% sure though, there might have been LaserDisc systems that used caddies.
I want a laser disc player now
i honestly expected you to say "But thanks to the magic of buying two of them i also have a working one" :D
It looks like it should have controller ports. Or a missile launcher.
There _was_ a LD gaming system.
The laserdisc was used for Dragon's Lair
Moistifier There were more than just one.
The reason Laserdisk didn't grab the market when it had the chance was, well there are a few reasons. 1 it couldn't record, 2 it was very expensive but the big one was studio support. Back in the early 80's RCA commanded a huge share of the TV / Home video market and they using their marketing influence were pushing their own video disk format the CED disk. This used a stylus to pick up the video signal just like a standard vinyl record, but no wiggly groove, instead the grove had a capacitance change for the video signal by varying the depth of the groove. Anyway RCA went and signed up all the US studios into exclusive contracts to release movies on CED. Pioneer was one of the few companies to release on laserdisk and they mostly released Paramount movies. RCA had the Fox, Columbla, MGM movies. After RCA dumped their early attempt, at video disks all the studios got on board with Laserdisk, but it was too little too late, as DVD was just around the corner. Laserdisk is the father of all optical recording. I have a collection of laserdisk titles that were gifted to me. About 500 movies and concerts. 5 big boxes that weight about 100 lbs each of disks sitting in my closet, and a half dozen players to pley them on. The quality is superior to DVD in every aspect.
12:50
we have a lift off
The neighbor across the Street had one. 1983 Sacramento California... war of the worlds was the only movie he had. Took me right back... good job.
We had laserdisc in school in 4th grade too... Not DVDs... because they weren't invented yet... aye...
Yep Schools where the most common place to see Laserdisc players in the US, as school systems could justify the cost benefit of it all over something like VHS.
I'm too old. We had a "VTR" in High School, an expensive B&W cassette system with a video camera, similar to VHS but larger with I think a little wider tape. Top loading, looked kind of like the VHS that he demoed in this video. Only saw that system used in schools. BTW I went to a brand new High School in 1972 with all new equipment. It was state of the art back then.
My middle school music classroom still had a Laserdisc player in 2005. We used it to watch The Pirates of Penzance once.
V. Sigma. a broke-ass school my kids went to used them till about 2015!
Lucky you. I heard abouy laser discs too. But never saw one. A friend discribed it as big. Well, time passed and CDs became popular. Then I wondered if CDs were what my friend actually meant.
We had both VHS for recording TV & LD for movies (pre-recorded content).. Here in Singapore, we get the best of both the East & the West. Another format we had that supplanted the LD was the VCD. Basically 288P video encoded in MPEG-1 and dropped into a data CD. The player would scale up the picture for our PAL CRT TVs.
Can´t wait for part 2!
I bought one of those in the early 80's, In the UK it was branded Philips and I got one when the shops were selling them 1/3 price due to lack of interest. They wouldn't sell as people couldn't seem to get their head around non recordable over VHS.
I was more keen on the quality improvement. Strange since non recordable audio was mainstream.
VCR won because of recording capabilities, didn't it
And the advent of video rental stores on every corner. I don't remember them renting Laserdiscs, and you couldn't find cheap movies back then like you can pick up today at Walmart. I remember looking through the selection of movies in the Video Concepts store across from mine, wasn't uncommon to have to shell out $90+ for a movie back when $90 was a lot of money.
I remember a few places renting out LaserDiscs, but their selection was always only a handful of titles at best. But the VHS rental only took off due to the rapid spread of VHS players in homes, and served to reinforce VHS as market leader as VHS rentals grew in availability. Which is a weird round about point in history.
Yeah, I probably was typical. I bought my first VCR for time-shifting and recording movies from Showtime. Couldn't do that with LaserDisc. I imagine that was what drove most people's decision.
Because of porn, indeed
Okay, as someone who had to *sell* the Pioneer Laserdisc back in the 1980s, I'd like to weigh in on why the format failed - and failed badly.
We could see how useful the format would be if it were attached to a computer, even back then. There was even a promotional video out that touted the ability of placing the entire Library of Congress on a ridiculously small amount of the physical media. To those of us that were tasked with selling the item, this would seem to be the best possible use for the technology.
Instead, they tried to market and promote it as an entertainment system. That was a disaster that sank the Pioneer product in an incredibly short period of time.
Why?
Two reasons: the first being that there were a *very limited* number of movies and other media licensed to the format, with only the promise that more were coming.
The second?
*IT DID NOT RECORD.* This would prove to be the format's biggest downfall. Even in a meeting with Pioneer reps held at the company I worked for the time, when the question came up about how to sell an item that did not record the Pioneer reps had a very telling answer:
"Then take them by the hand and walk them over to the VCRs and sell them one of those."
Not the answer we were looking for, since we were trying to find ways to get people interested in the Pioneer laser format - as I pointed out to them, we had absolutely no trouble selling VCRs as those were flying off the shelves at the time. We needed help unloading the Laserdisc players we had been saddled with. (I did use that language, BTW.)
The Pioneer folks avoided me for the remainder of the meeting. Wonder why?
As a Collector Retro Wins Again!
DUDE!!! I still use my Laser Disc Collection of Karaoke on my gigs. All these years and plenty of scratches but most of them still work. Both my Pioneer and Sony Laser Disc Players have been repaired a few times but still work just like new. Love it and will keep using them till they die.
Great video mate, you earned another sub!
Great video. One key plus to a laserdisc player was the cost of movies. Movies were generally $29.99 for new releases where they were $99.99 on VHS. I remember buying Blue Thunder on laserdisc at a local store for $29.99 and right next to it was a VHS and Beta copy selling for $99.99.
So laserdisc movies where cheaper and you get to own them right similar to the rca select vision
When I was young and the DVD was making its appearance on the market, my grandmother told me about an older similar technology: double-faced vinyl-sized disc containing movies. At first I thought she was referring to actual vinyls containing movies, and I didn't believe her since I couldn't see how that was possible. Oh boy was I wrong.
RCA did actually make what was effectively a vinyl record that stored a movie on it. It was called the CED (marketed as SelectaVision)
I have a 90's LaserDisc player somewhere but only one disc. DiscoVision seems to be a fitting name for something from the 70's! Speaking of DVDs on the other hand ... I remember when we got our first DVD player, after we'd watched our first DVD, mum asked "how do you rewind it?", honestly, she didn't know.
I've heard a story like that. Mom kept asking how to rewind it, and people started to laugh. She got mad and the started to laugh harder. The madder she got, the harder they laughed.
I once heard someone say that the first time he sent a fax he made a copy first so that he'd still have one.
Remember the old joke about the blonde who had just become a new AOL (America OnLine) subscriber? She kept going out to the street to check her mailbox, when her computer/AOL told her...
"You've got mail!"
I bought my first Laserdisc player in 1995. Bought my second last week.
It is weird that LD movies rental service was a thing for the early 90s when i was a kid (in Malaysia). the pictures and sound quality was amazing back then...
A few of my favorites, Terminator 1 & 2, Back to the Future series, Juristic Park was truly amazing on LDs.
I knew someone who had a Laserdisc (or was it Laservision?) player. I remember watching the original Star Wars on it and thinking it was dynamite, especially being used to mostly bootleg or recorded-from-TV VHS recordings. I wanted a player but we never did get one. I do remember that there were some video rental stores that had Laserdiscs. (California, USA)
Excellent video.
I am sure that you know that IBM had a hand in LaserDisc in the early days. One of the things that IBM used the machines for was in its customer training centres. Even we in New Zealand, in the early 80s, received a DiscoVision PR-7820 (Branded MCA but made by Pioneer) player and a NTSC TV monitor to connect to it.
There were many CAV training discs available. The discs would typically play a training chapter followed by multi choice questions, based on the chapter content, in paused images. The trainee would select the correct answer using a number button on the remote and if correct the disc would advance to the next chapter. If you got the answer wrong, it would replay the appropriate section and pose the question again.
So this was one of the first interactive video training systems, long before PCs took over.
Very cost effective!
You're right about how amazing it is that the technology managed to encode so much info in an analog scheme. On your old Magnavision player, it's not unusual for European electronics to be flaky.
Had a friend growing up whos family had a LD player and I always thought it was the coolest thing.
We had a CED player, which I also felt was a neat piece of tech.
I never knew you could see the video signal on those discs. Of course, I never owned a Laserdisc player. It makes me wonder if a finer laser beam could store analog, 1080 HD video on such a disc. Why would you want to do that? BD uses video compression to store HD video which is lossy. An analog storage medium would store the video in its entirety. At any rate, it would be a fun thing to try. I don't think it would be a practical, commercial alternative to BD though, but techie purists might be interested in it and might actually dish out more money for the system. However, I've heard that 1080i video was available in Japan much earlier than in the United States possibly as far back as the 1980s. I do not know if that was true or not, but if so, they may have used such a format.
Robert Gaines here is a Japanese movie in 93 on HDVHS.
ruclips.net/video/fT4lDU-QLUY/видео.html
There was an indeed an interlaced, analog video HD variant of LaserDisc in the 90s called Hi-Vision, using the Japanese MUSE HD system. The best of the Pioneer players are also the best at playing standard definition LDs, and still cost a pretty penny today because of it. There were less than 200 Hi-Vision disc releases put on market, and many of those are also highly sought after, even though some of the video transfers aren't that great.
Except HDMI is a digital format - so, you'd have trouble getting from a analog player into your HDTV. The real issue here isn't analog vs. digital, it's the lossy compression used. Find a medium that uses lossless compression and you'd be set.
What? You never heard of component video? My TV has it, and I am using it on one device. Component video is a completely analog, HD format that gets a bad wrap for some reason. I personally can't tell the difference, and it is superior to VGA when it comes to long cables. Component goes up to 1080i/p. I don't know if it would have been able to handle 4k as they never intended it to be used on 4k, but it does 1080i/p just fine. I imagine if it is superior to VGA, the Component video should have been able to handle 4k. Component video was deliberately discontinued because there was no anti-copying system for it. At any rate, yeah, the Component video would have REALLY been used to its full potential with an analog, HD video storage format. Being an analog disc, it would have been far harder to copy than a DVD or a BD. DOH! Stupid movie industry! You have to capture analog to copy it while you can just rip a digital disc.
I get your argument, but at up to 50 GB for a regular BD and all the way up to 100 for UHD BD, the amount of compression on a well authored Blu Ray is so mild as to be almost a lossless transfer anyway. Hell, just about every blu ray since the format's inception has even offered totally lossless audio and the UHD discs these days mostly seem to just have the movie on one disc and all the special features on the other disc, so that the movie can be held in as high quality as possible. Moreover, while the likes of LD and VHS were analogue and therefore theoretically offered an exact copy, in practice, you'd end up with a movie that just deteriorated over time and never actually gave that perfect transfer, and given how much better modern tvs and projectors are, analogue artefacts would go from a minor quirk to a major problem when presented clear as day.
Therefore, I respectfully disagree.
I was one of the first people in Atlanta to own a laserdisc player. I bought a Pioneer VP-1000 along with the clunky remote control (which I still have). After several years, I started having problems with the laser, and moved to a Panasonic player, which I still own. I loaned my player to my wife's school, so they could review some of the older media that they found in the school;s library. Of course, the first laserdisc player was released by Phillips/Magnavox. Now, we have 4K DVDs...
please please please hurry up with part 2 :P
I have 2 Laserdisc players and still have all of the Laserdiscs I ever bought (60-70 discs plus several of those CD Videos that had normal CD audio tracks but had one analog video track that required a Laserdisc player to play. It was a good way to release a music video. I eventually digitized a lot of music videos from my Laserdiscs and CD Videos (if they were not on DVD) to preserve them in good quality. I only use my LD players if I want to transfer/digitize something because if they break, it's probably nearly impossible to get them fixed in my area. I have one DTS Laserdisc of the movie "Independence Day" and for several years after DVD came out as a format, there were several great movies that were not available on DVD and my house was the place to watch the original Star Wars Trilogy, Good Will Hunting, Titanic, Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and some others.
get tah LS player fixed, it would be great
RamaTurnes Most of the time with old electronics of this nature the issue is failing capacitors. The difficulty of repair varies greatly by design, but so long as you're persistent and reasonably handy with a soldering iron, it can be done.
Holy shit, at 30 RPS, that means the outside edge of the disc is spinning at 102 KPH (63 MPH)!
You're like Techmoan but focuses on the technicalities instead of per-product details and no puppets
The puppets are a nice bit of comic relief though. And his critics deserve to be made fun of anyway.
I'm not even particularly interested in the topic but your cogent explanations had me fascinated. Great job.
There is a good chance that your Magnavox has Capacitor plague. Good capacitors where not the norm for electronic devices in the day. (Still not in many cases today)
I'd wager replacing the caps would fix that machine right up.
When a capacitor pops, the goop inside damages the PCB. I'm not sure if it would be repairable.
The caps probably haven't popped, just degrading.
The Magnavision players had glued mirrors that fall off and were infamously unreliable when new... over 35 years ago. That it's even *trying* to play and can put an image up is a minor miracle. It's a later run (with the Laservision logo) which might explain why it almost works.
Awesome content and research as always! Thank you for taking the time to share this with us!
I taped so fast my screen cracked!
that doesn't make sense.
Maybe he taped it afterwards?
perhaps tapped with 2 p's ?
No no no, it can't be that easy 🤔
I remember watching laser discs in elementary school. Oh boy, the early 90s
Porn... when in doubt what killed a format, its always porn....
thereisnospace true story
Well, in the sense that it killed the format that porn *wasn't* allowed on (Sony didn't want it on Beta)... Playboy and Penthouse both published tons of videos on LD, though the vast, vast majority of hardcore stuff was only on VHS.
Since you're so young... I actually watched movies on LaserDisc in the 80's at film school. Huge upgrade from the original 35MM film we had to use, VHS/BETA were great, but wore out to fast. LaserDisc was a dream. I love the way you would slide the whole thing into the machine and remove the case, while the disc stayed in the machine.
That sounds like a CED player, not a laserdisc. The RCA videodisc system used plastic caddies which were inserted into a machine, with the disc staying behind. Laserdiscs rarely used caddies like that, with the user handling the disc directly.
I remember in the 6th grade my science teacher pulled out a laserdisc to show an educational flick to the class. I was so curious about this silver reflective record she had seemingly pulled out of Narnia. that was when I had 1st heard of laserdisc. Back in 98 if memory serves.
When I became head over heals obsessed with Laserdiscs, my mom told me about when she was a teenager (the late 60's), her best friend's sister who was in college, was learning about this, and would blow my mom's mind thinking about watching a movie read by a laser.
Really impressed by how quiet it is once spun up to 30 Hz.
I learned about Laserdisc back in high school. My life skills teacher had one about childbirth and told us the history of laser disc.
When I dug into the technology used for Laserdiscs, I was surprised that, as Alec said, they were not just 'big DVDs', and were not all all digital. I have not revisited that technology recently, so just being lazy and deciding to wing it here, I seem to recall that the pulses of laser light resulting from the reading of the track on the disk just resulted in a varying analog waveform, which was FM modulated or something like that, with the result being an analog signal akin to a normal composite video signal that a TV or video monitor would use. What I can't recall at all now was HOW the audio content was included in all that. Anyway, anyone who wants to can dig into this subject, and will likely find it to be surprising and fascinating.
I can’t believe how loud and fast that spins
Ugh that magnavox is gorgeous.
Your videos are always informative and fun. Thank you
I wish you’d consider a follow-up video about the Ampex HS-100 analog disc video recorder. I think most people have never heard of it, but its impact on our culture has been at least as profound as that of Technicolor in the cinema, or stereo records in music. It used discs that weighed about five pounds each, and the discs had a capacity of 30 seconds. The device could do slo-mo and freeze-frame. It was the first practical instant replay machine, and it was invented in the 1960s. Its impact on television and on sports can’t possibly be overstated. It’s probably the single most important technological development in the history of sports broadcasting. (Instant replay had been attempted before, with some feeble success, but this machine did its job so well that instant replay quickly became a crucial standard for sports broadcasting, and in the process transformed a number of sports into spectacles.)
If you’ve watched a football game on TV in the past 55 years or so, try searching youtube for one of the 1950s-era Rose Bowl games and watch a couple minutes of the original TV broadcast. These games pre-date instant replay. You’ll quickly see exactly what I’m talking about.
I also remember my film and language teacher in high school playing us Star Wars on a CAV disc so he could key in specific frames to explain how the special effects were done.
I bought a Pioneer (CLD-M301, I think) Laser Disc player when I was stationed in Okinawa in 1992 because I could rent Laser Disc movies on base. It could play nearly any disc you could get your hands on. 3 inch CD singles, 5 inch CDs, 5 inch VCD singles, 8 inch and 12 inch Laser Discs, and Karaoke Laser Discs. It had a tray with concentric indents for each size and five CD sized indents to function as a CD changer. Alas I sold it a year later because Laser Disc was just not a popular as VHS.
Such a great satisfying delivery man. Thank you!
I am very excited to see this series! I still have my CLD-3080 player in my home theatre setup...along with my Sony UHD player and other “current” equipment.
Damn i love your videos! I not only learn things, I get to feel really old at the same time :(
My family never had a DVD player. I still haven't except on my computer but I have never used it.
VCR was worlds better at the time because I could record on a VCR and do it multiple times on the same tape. Never had a need for a DVD player.
Fun fact: In the late 80's and early 90's, BBC news played all of their title sequences from 'professional' laser disc players. For the more complex title sequences, this involved simultaneously running 4 different players at the same time for the various elements. I believe the reason for using laser disc rather than the then widely used Betacam SP video tapes was because the titles were run at least once a day, every day for years, which would wear through video tape too quickly resulting in a need to duplicate as well as loss of quality. The players were running pretty much continuously, but even so, we extremely reliable.
I do have to agree, that is a beautifully designed player and looks downright futuristic standing next to that old VHS player.