Laserdisc: An Introduction
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ม.ค. 2018
- You can support this channel on Patreon! Link below
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
This channel is supported by people like you on Patreon. Patrons of the channel have allowed me to spend more time making videos like this. If you’re interested in helping out, please give my Patreon page a look. Thanks for your consideration.
/ 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/DiscoVision/Las...
www.thoughtco.com/david-gregg...
aaand... some of the patent sources
www.google.com/patents/US3430966
www.google.com/patents/US3350503
Thank you to the following Patrons!
Charlie Quigley, Tommi Hares, Tomas, Dakota Williams, Chuck Floyd, Eitan Tal, Callum Brieske, Paul Fisher, Stephen Vrazel, Applied Science, peter ford, Sophie Haskins, James Id, Brendan Sheehy, Jay Foreman, Howard Longden, Rich Theobald, Kyle Olson, Bryan Reid, Quinton Wilson, Jeremy DeGuzman, Sean Spark, Lucas Hartbarger, Taylor Cuzela, twiglet, David Lastres, Granger Meador, Jeremy Kitchen, Jason Wellband, Shane Belaire, Paul Emmerich, Sam Hodge, Matthew Rossi, Paul Craigie, Paul Williams, Tyler, Gerald Monaco, Kelly Rose, Tab Patterson, Jason Weathered, Sergey Kiselev, h.drew foy, Roger Beal, Gantradies, Chris Hartl, Steve Stone, Brian G. Shacklett, Colton Aubrey Hooke, Paul Mills, Christopher Luna, Kotanu, Brendan Terrett, Tiago Pereira dos Santos silva From Porto, Portugal, Techmoan, Mike Mason, Clara Latter, Elijah Reeds, Christopher Jett, Justin Talbot, Francisco Vogliotti, Steven Metcalf, Verysofisticated, Lolucoca, Matt Standish, John McLusky, Ashleigh R, Stephen Bell, Logan Beenken, Ã-rn Arnarson, Eric Wood, Stephen Pick, BlancoGrande, Matthew Giraitis, James Ryan, Robert Joscelyne, Ellis M. Eisen, Francis Fisher, Kedar Deshpande, Boris, Bill Basch, Lukas Komischke, Dave Anderson, Felix Freiberger, Dane Peterson, Brent LaRowe, Aerospyke, Kiera Cox, Hunter Schwisow, Logan Kriete, RafaÅ‚ Wiosna, Adam D. Ruppe, Audin Malmin, Eric Hansen, Noah McCann, Jason R Scheuren, Rufo Sanchez, Bjørn Vegar Torseth, Yaniv, André - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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 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!
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
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 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)
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.
*Magnavox starts spinning up; me, wide-eyed:* "Gentlemen, START YOUR ENGINES!"
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.
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!
Watching "older" videos now, shows how much you have improved, and you were already at a top level, keep it with the good work!!!
If he keeps making videos like this and doesn't have 500k subs by year's end I will have lost faith in TH-cam.
Well done.
Unfortunately it's not likely with the new recommendation system of TH-cam 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 TH-cam?
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'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 TH-cam 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.
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..
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.
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!
Who learned about laserdiscs from Regular Show?
✋😔 Me.
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.
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.
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.
One of the best channels on TH-cam. Thanks for continuing to make vids. :)
I just wanted to drop a line to let you know I truly appreciate your videos. Great information, well delivered. Keep it up!
That Magnavox is typical Philips 1970s styling, silvery grey, quite rounded and NO fake woodgrain at all.
I can't wait for the second chapter.
Awesome content and research as always! Thank you for taking the time to share this with us!
That Magnavox player sounds like an old MFM hard drive
Were you expecting a loud BIOS beep after it finishes spinning up?
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
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.
Such a great satisfying delivery man. Thank you!
Love your videos because of the great amount of research and detail you put in. Great job dude.
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.
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.
Your videos are always informative and fun. Thank you
The best review i ever see on youtube about this forgotten tecnology !!!
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 TH-camrs 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!
12:49
*laserdisc intensifies*
Excellent content. Been binge watching all your videos. Good stuff! Will keep in touch.
Keep up the good work! Looking forward to the next episode.
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!
Can´t wait for part 2!
Thanks for sharing the laserdisc series! Our family just bought a laserdisc player and we are getting it repaired right now
I'm not even particularly interested in the topic but your cogent explanations had me fascinated. Great job.
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
As a Collector Retro Wins Again!
awesome videos.
i'm gonna watch all 3 of these again, but on the tv this time.
What a brilliant and technically astute guy! Keep up the great work!
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.
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.
Fantastic, high quality video. Great work!
Great Video, Looking forward to the next installment
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.
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).
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 detail and description.
I want a laser disc player now
12:50
we have a lift off
Excellent all around as usual
That Laserdisc player is a beast! Yes kids, there was once a time when bigger was better!
please please please hurry up with part 2 :P
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!"
Your videos are so interesting! Thank you!
I love these sorts of videos
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)
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.
Awesome work man
You are a great teacher! Cheers from Los Angeles.
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
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.
th-cam.com/video/fT4lDU-QLUY/w-d-xo.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.
Wow, amazing! I love your work!
tap, tap, tap, tap....tapping my fingers waiting for the next episode! You're the best!
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.
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
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.
always very entertaining!
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.
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.
thanx man
brilliant and professional exposés
I love your TH-cam channal. Half if this stuff I never knew existed and its fascinating.
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 🤔
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.
Great job on this!
You are a genius. Its so great to see that world packed with wisdom. Woahh
completely fascinating
i honestly expected you to say "But thanks to the magic of buying two of them i also have a working one" :D
Big respect for a youtuber doing the primary source research.
It's an awesome format, and with the right modern equipment very usable ( very good picture quality can be squeezed out of it ).
*Amazing Channel*
This was very good. Intelligent and informative. Well presented by an articulate, well-spoken fellow. What is not to like? A thumbs up from me.
great videos, good work!
Another great video
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!
Very informative. Thanks !
Really cool video! I remember some kids in the 90’s ( I was born in 90 ) having these and thinking they were so hip and rich and then when DVD’s came out... wow. Haha good video, thanks for sharing!
Damn i love your videos! I not only learn things, I get to feel really old at the same time :(
holy. I'm addicted to your videos. lol
Great vid man
very nice videos! subscribed!
Thank you for this.