Ready to watch another fun fact video? Then check out this awesome video- Hands On Awesome Tech: Making Solar Cells With a Particle Accelerator: th-cam.com/video/2RhcinyNVXE/w-d-xo.html
@Today I Found Out - Really like your channel. Vid's are well put together and informative. Just wanted to let you know that I believe the Image used @.30 Sec's in actually a CED removed from it's Caddy - and NOT a Laserdisc.
so you said that beta max lost because of some bad decisions of sony wich is interesting because I heard that vhs won because the pornographic industry preffered vhs. probably both sides have a valid point here
Let's all take a moment to appreciate the fact that a company once got RAY CHARLES to promote their movie-playing device because apparently even RAY CHARLES could see that amazing picture quality.
The cheaper-in-Japan thing is EXACTLY how my family got our first couple laser disc players--my grandpa did a lot of business trips to Japan at the time. We had some good stuff on laser disc, and I watched those discs a LOT as a kid; there's still several films where I subconsciously tense up to go flip the disc in the middle!
I knew a older guy when I was a kid in the 80’s that had a LaserDisk player and a ton of movies. It was really miles ahead of VHS and BetaMax that was it competition then. He was a big movie guy and had one of the rear projection big screen TVs. It was really an amazing experience for a home theater back then and honesty it’s only in recent years I’ve seen any real improvement over it.
@@DenverStarkey Blu-ray really started showing up about 8-10 years ago, it’s fairly recent in comparison with the fact I went and watched Laserdisc movies at this guys house close to 40 years ago. He owned business that ended up making him wealthy and he loved movies so he was quick to get the latest things. I think he got his first Laserdisc player around 80’ and it really was a big improvement then.
@@DenverStarkeyas pointed out in this video, LaserDisc was around for nearly 30 years before Blu-ray - so, yeah, OP's statement is 100% correct. Additionally, early Blu-ray was barely an improvement over then-current DVD technology, and it took years before it lived up to its true potential. Also, 4K Blu-ray has basically been killed off at this point, which is sad because it really only started hitting its stride right as studios decided to prioritize streaming over physical media.
@@Thuazabi no his statement is not correct , sure you can say "more recent" times but not just "recent times" because 14 years is not freaking recent it's just more reccent than laser disc times. but he didn't say MORE recent , he said recent. 14 years is not recent.
@ Jose Gonzalez: Star Wars on Laserdisc was one of the biggest reasons for me to even start with Laserdisc. And it was totally worth the effort. Original colours, original cuts, original effects, original soundmixes. Pure original nostalgia.
most of the “special features” and commentary tracks for DVDs came from their laserdisc releases. In fact sometimes the laserdisc edition had more than the DVD release
Laserdisc was and still is superior to DVD. The CD sound quality is far better than the compressed sound of DVD's plus it took DVD a few years to eliminate the digital glitches that made watching it very irritating.
I have been there in the 80's and remember that the real reasons why VHS won over laser disk were: 1. VHS made it possible to make illegal copies of movies by simply using a player and a recorder and 2. it was possible with VSH to record movies and music shown on TV.
Digital storage blows my mind these days. I just got done salvaging the data off of a physically huge 250GB HDD that Ive had for a decade, and putting it all on a thumb drive with the same storage space and that by all measures could be called a thumbnail drive, and its not even state of the art. I'm pretty sure some tech company recently announced the upcoming release of the fabled 2TB SD card that has been promised for some time now. 2TB in less than the volume of a credit card, and the actual chip probably takes up no more than 20% of the internal space. That is insane. I remember first plugging a 1GB SD card into my camera and feeling like the king of all creation.
lucky43113 I miss our first computer. We had this game that came on legit floppy disk that seemed incredible for the time and my age, even though it was essentially just a non scrolling, PvP version of asteroids confined to a 5" square box. I'm still trying to track that game down. All I remember is that you could add or remove a sun in the center, add or remove gravity for it, and you could teleport to a random position on the screen by pressing the "s" key(i think) if you were the player on the left side of the keyboard. Other than that it was just down to flying around the 2d arena and shooting the other guy. Ring a bell for anyone?
I remember being introduced to a digital camera as a *very* expensive, professional tool for use in a production environment, when I was doing R&D for an aerospace parts company. You had to sign for the camera every time you checked it out, and carry it in a hard case until you got where you were taking pictures, because of the proce.of the thing. You could fit *four* 1 megapixel JPGs on the floppy disk in the camera, and have high quality images of failures on your desk five minutes after deciding you wanted them... and you could mark them up and send them to any of the other engineers on the team (even those on other continents) by email immediately - mindblowing.
Factual Errors 0:30 pictured is a CED Which is a different technology all together. 7:04 pictured is a LV recorder which is incompatible with Laserdisc in general, the discs won't play in a Laserdisc player. Also, The tapes Sony discontinued in 2016 were DigiBeta/HD Beta tapes, not compatible with Betamax.
Yeah I noticed that first one, too. Also, Simon apparently has part of his facts somewhat incorrect --- check out 7:11 on this "Technology Connections" video: th-cam.com/video/TClRRMFZ7Sw/w-d-xo.html
It lost because you couldn't record onto one which was half of what people used their VHS machines for. We'd still be using VHS if there weren't DVR machines. Also, halfway through the movie you had to get up and turn the damn disc over.
A few of the early DVDs were that way - I guess they dumped the same master tape on them. They were double-sided DVDs and halfway through the movie, I had to flip it over to watch the second half.
David Buschhorn except for the fact that when average households adopted DVD players they didn’t also get dvr. Most households waited years after getting a DVD player to get dvr. Clearly the ability to record wasn’t the only thing holding the laserdisc back
Pioneer did make a recordable LD unit for professionals. Also, there were two LD playback formats CAV (30min/side) and CLV (61min/side). LD was also the first format with AC3 Dolby Digital out. I still have a working CLD-909 LD player and maybe 350 discs. Oh.. LaserROT! That was thanks to 3M using a crap glue the glue the two sides together. The glue would break down and create a bubble between the 2 layers and cause what looked like a Peter Pan effect of snow/noise. Also, scratches were not a huge problem either. I used to rent discs that looked like someone used sandpaper on them. They still played just fine.
Having worked in the LD field during this time, that simply isn't true. "Laser-Rot" was caused by impurities in the aluminum coating causing adhesion problems long term, not the glue.
insertnamehere001 Reminds me of the question: what did the guy designing the drawing board go back to when the first version didn't work? Fortunately there is an answer: square one.
I watched goldeneye on laser disc a few weeks ago, full Dolby digital audio with surround sound, and analog video. The picture on a giant 70" plasma, with amazing speakers... The experience was breathtaking. Whereas 4k is visually stunning and your eyes processing that goodness is primary, watching laser disc with digital audio is an aural orgasm. Suddenly, a movie I know well, made my brain process completely different, my eyes taking backseat to my ears, my experience was drastically new again. This is closer to the effect of an actual movie theater, at home. Truly amazing.
We had a laser disk player at my house growing up, and there are a couple of things that aren't quite right in this. First, regarding the durability of laser disks, they were actually MORE durable than tapes, not less. This is a common misconception because they look like records, and it's easy to assume they were flimsy. In fact, they had a durable coating over them that protected against scratches. In the introduction disk that came with the player, they even showed someone spreading ice cream over the top, then washing it in the sink, then playing it in the player to show how it could still play. (Us kids did worse to our disks and yes, they kept playing.) As for why they weren't as popular, it is true that the price was the primary issue. But another big issue was the fact that you could not record with a laser disk player. At the time, if you missed a show on TV, you didn't know when, or if you would be able to see it at a later time. You didn't get to choose when it was on. With a VHS machine you could record a show, even setting it up to record while you were out. With a laser disk player, you could only watch what you purchased.
When Jack Mullins presented the tape recorder to Bing Crosby, Bing got another and gave it to his friend Les Paul who was known to experiment with electronics and electric guitars. Les saw the possibility of adding another recording head which lead to Multi track recording which is the method music is still recorded today, be it digitally. Jack Mullins company was to become Ampex.
To those saying that Porn was what ultimately led to the success of VHS over Betamax, it was only rumor There actually was porn on Betamax, not in high numbers, but it did exist, it was true that Sony refused to mass produce porn on their format, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t or didn’t happen third party (of which it did), any person can get multiple Betamax decks and run a mass duplication system (say get 100 Betamax decks, loop the modulators into each other daisy chained, tune them all to channel 3, cover the remote sensor on deck 1, then duplicate 99 other copies at once by pressing record on the remote) There were two reasons why Betamax lost, and porn wasn’t one of them, it was cost and record time VHS was MUCH cheaper than Beta (Beta was at least $500 more than VHS) Also, VHS could record for twice as long than Betamax (I think Beta was capped at 2hrs while VHS could record for 4 to 6hrs) Since you could record for longer and the decks and tapes were cheaper on VHS, that was the final nail in the coffin for Betamax... Not porn
Also Sony removed Beta 1 speed at some point in the early 80s so it ended up being about the same quality as VHS anyway. Then when S-VHS came out, it blew Beta out of the water completely.
I think we can all agree that while LaserDisc failed, it was a brilliant innovation for its time and paved the way for DVD and Blu-ray. Good job, LaserDisc. Good job.
Fun fact: Although VHS “won” the format war, Betamax remained the preferred format of the Armed Forces. My stepdad was in the Coast Guard during the 80s and 90s, and they continued to use Beta, long after you couldn’t rent Beta format at any local video stores anymore.
Actually, some manufacturers DID make recordable optical discs as big as Laserdiscs, but they were much too expensive for the average consumer and focused sales on the professional market.
Somewhere I still have the first Lord of The Rings movie on DVD and it was double layer. It actually pauses for a second or two when it switches layers. Also, I have a few double-sided DVDs.
I love these ", Today I Found Out' videos because they seem to be more straight forward with Simon more professional. DO NOT get me wrong I love all the Channels, then him opening up more something about these videos I seem to enjoy more
I picked up a fully working Sony Blu-Ray player laying on the street. The new format was so short lived because everyone who had a DVD collection didn't want to re-buy all their movies over again. As well as streaming services like Netflix becoming popular.
You know what Simon? For the clarity, morality and the integrity that you conduct your advertisements with I will become a Patreon supporter of your channel. I've been on a binge watching spree of your TIFO and biographics videos for about a month now. Thanks for the great work, keep it up and I'll support you for your efforts.
I just wanted to say that this is one of the most entertaining and informative channels I watch. Thank you for all the effort you put into these videos
VHS also had a very important thing in being almost royalty free, so there was less cost for the media, and unlike Beta and LD there was very little cost to make a unit as you did not have to pay a premium for the royalties per unit or per tape. Biggest killer was no recording ability, unlike tape, using the same media versus having special media. Don't forget the VHS and Beta ( plus V2000, another tape format) relied heavily on advances in tape, spurred by the computer revolution, which demanded a chrome tape formula for data density in tape backup units. Older ferrite formulas needed too high a write current for high resolution video to record well, but the advances in tape gave the ability to get good high frequency recording on relatively slow moving tape.
Laserdisc was probably better quality than DVD in most cases due to the video not being encoded so no compression artifacts. Also things like Dolby Digital (AC3) and DTS which was used in DVD was first used on laserdisc. So it was pretty much the only way to get decent multi-channel audio before DVD. Also a few films not only did you have to swap sides you had to swap discs.
Yeah, but during the time of LD's prevalence we didn't exactly have TVs that would display the difference between LD and original DVD to any noticeable extent. I would love to see them played side by side on a state of the art TV. I bet it's all kinds of noticeable now.
The quality of DVDs was acceptable enough for most people, and Bluray (and now "Ultra HD Blu-ray") would continue to improve the format. We're also entering an era where streaming video is becoming more acceptable as internet speeds continue to rise. Indeed, this TH-cam video is in 1080p @ 60 fps, which is higher quality than the DVD format can normally handle. . . . Although oddly enough, the DVD format is long from dead. Walmart still sells DVD players (although I don't see the point in purchasing them anymore), and movies are still released in the DVD format. I think some people are under the (mistaken) impression that a Bluray player won't play DVDs, so they want to buy DVD players (because they have a DVD collection), and when they do that they are stuck not being able to play Blurays. It's a bit of an unfounded fear holding back adoption of Bluray players, even in an era where the price of a player is rather minimal.
Generally, properly encoded DVDs will look better than properly made LDs. I can personally verify this, owning a few hundred movies on LD with a good Pioneer player, and having seen DVDs of the same films. They both have artifacts - LD has analog artifacts and noise and other issues, DVD can have compression artifacts. But, DVD has better resolved detail and is higher resolution (at least, as best as resolution can be compared when looking at analog VS digital). However, the best looking LDs are definitely in the same ballpark as DVDs, which is really impressive when you consider it's 17 years older as a format. .
A 14 minute video called "How LaserDisc Ultimately Won the Format Wars" that explains everything about LaserDisc except for HOW THEY WON THE FORMAT WARS
I just had a conversation yesterday about this saying only real reason LaserDisc wasn't used was because of it's cost. Getting on market first also really helps.
CDs and DVDs winning the format war doesn't mean LD actually won because they are it's "offspring". That would be like me having a child that went on to win a gold medal during the Olympics in a sport that I did well in during college and claiming it was really me that won.
Not exactly. LD, CD, DVD were made by the same company - Philips, with some collaborators in case of later formats. VHS were made by JVC. It's more like saying Word won the office format war, even though there are multiple incompatible versions of Word files.
Angelofthursday 99 No, it's not. Evolution is a long, slow, process that takes MANY generations. In the case of LD to CD/DVD it was literally a single "generation" from the analog disc format to digital. So my parent to child analogy makes perfect sense........ while your evolution analogy doesn't. Because as far as I'm aware there were no other disc formats between the analog LD and the digital CDs and DVDs.
Angelofthursday 99 No, it doesn't........ irrelevant of you being "pretty sure" that it does. Even if you were to use the examples of either the moths or maggots my point still stands. Their change only SEEMED quick (relatively speaking) due to their short life spans and fast breeding. But that's beside the point. It's not as if either species changed immediately over a single generation....... it took MANY successive generations for the changes to occur. Your analogy using various homo species to link VHS/BETA to LD/CD/DVD also doesn't fit either. Tape storage is completely different from optical disk storage and not some distant relative. It's closer to your computer's hard drive than it is to any optical disk. There weren't multiple generations of similar, yet slightly different, disk storage mediums between LD and CD/DVD. So your evolution analogy does NOT work. There was the "parent" LD analog format and then the "child" CD/DVD format...... that's it.
My grandparents had a videodisc player that used vinyl discs like old records. It came in a plastic holder and you put one side in pull it out and flip it to the other side. Was really cool.
@11:06 "Laser VHS players that could read the tape without the head needing to physically contact it". I don't think that ever existed. How would a laser "see" the magnetization of the tape?
+Dan Schwartz Verbal typo from having said "laser" a bagillion times. It was supposed to be "later":. "especially with later VHS players that could read the tape without the head needing to physically contact it."
To be fair anyone with a working brain realized it was just a verbal slip up. You would have to be really dim to think he was actually claiming laser vhs was a thing :p
As a kid I remember my cousins had a laserdisc player with one disc and we were never allowed to watch it. It wasn't even connected to the TV, the player was in a cabinet gathering dust. Good investment.
VHS tape heads were always in direct contact with the tape, there's no way to avoid that! I'm surprised you claim later machines iddn't need to do that? But the real reason VHS won the war was because you can record on it, Laser disc was play only. Time shifting TV programmes was the main reason people bought a video, at least here in the UK
the format wars tldr: first there were analog formats stored on magnetic tapes and then a while later came magnetic disks. some time later optical discs came along. after, everyone decided to make the switch to digital. finally the internet came along and utterly wrecked everything in its way.
Hehe like the ad at end about internet security but the captions translate it to transmitting your data through talaban network :) very secure that sounds
Sony invented a video cassette. The head of the company wanted it smaller. It was this second cassette format which was Betamax. The first was VHS. JVC went to Sony for a license, didn't like the high cost and bid for VHS. JVC then undercut the Sony licensing fees, so more manufacturers used their format, as did many 'own brand' marketers. Furthermore, in various markets, VHS was more readily available as a rental unit, rather than an expensive purchase. In the unit rental shops were also libraries of VHS movies to rent for few days. Anecdotal, I know: but when I was in the business, both a Sony and a JVC rep separately told me basically the same story at the end of the 80s. So now you know the uk story of the format war on tape. Possibly.
I bought my Pioneer laserdisc player in the 1990s when it was the only format that could be used to watch anime from Japan. DVD has region encoding and not a lot of anime was released on VHS. The one real advantage the format had that no other format is capable of is that it was truly a world format. There was one more thing too, in many ways laser disc was like the old vinyl albums of the 60s and 70s with inserts, extra materials, etc. Opening a new laser disc was always going to be a treat to see what it came with. This was very true of anime releases from Japan that came with booklets, toys, animation cels, etc. When the format started to die off was the golden years of snapping up fantastic releases such as the 'original' original Star Wars and complete series on discs like Star Trek for example. These days I still keep around an older but still completely functioning lcd TV that still has the correct input for the laserdisc and video tape so that I can enjoy movies that are impossible to see anywhere else but in my laserdisc collection.
The Cosby Show. In the 1980s this show's popularity at its peak for perspective would make a show like Survivor or American Idol at their peaks look like public access cable.
Simon....Do you remember the show Beyond Tomorrow? I remember seeing an episode where one of the presenters held up a CD and said "In the near future your movies will be on these." This was back in the early 90's. The Discovery Channel used to be awesome back in the day.
If it was a LD, it would be half a pound and huge. It's called a DVD because it has drastically different properties than a LD. We don't call a motorcycle a bicycle for a reason, same reason here.
@@FredrickTesla Interestingly, Laserdiscs were just huge versions of CD's. In fact that is where the CD came from. The Compact Disc was made basically from the idea of the unused 650MB of data that a LaserDisc has, which is at the start of every LaserDisc made. That area of the LaserDisc was kept empty for the reason of game data, in case videogames arose that needed it for future LaserDisc games, much like the Pioneer LaserActive. They took that unused data area, and just said screw it, and made CD's from that area of the disc, and sold it for music purposes, which led to being used for games and other things down the line. NOTE: (They didn't take cut out portions of the LD's, they just used the idea of "what can we do with that size of data that we don't even use on the LaserDiscs? Oh, perhaps it can be used as a small version of a LaserDisc and just put music on it!") DVD's are basically the same as CD's, just the laser that reads them is much thinner in size, which allows the data to be burned onto the disc at a much more compressed/thinner rate, leading to the end result of the data size being a bit larger than the Compact Disc, and the same goes for DL-DVD's, HD-DVD's, 25GB Blu-Ray disc's and then ultimately what we all use now, the market leader, 50GB Blu-Ray DL discs. The upcoming new format of Blu-Ray discs that hold 100+GB of data which the PS5 is being equipped with is typically the same thing, just a thinner laser reading the disc, and the data on the disc being burned onto thinner layers. Blu-Ray is better than HD-DVD's, whcih is better than DVD's and CD's in that not only does it hold more data, it has a protective layer of coating to protect it from scratches, similar to LaserDiscs. LaserDiscs can have a TON of scratches and still playback without audio skips and no degrade in picture quality. I own a HEAVILY used, and HEAVILY scratched up LaserDisc which was a Sample Reference Disc from 1990, and I got it for $2 from a GoodWill store, and I put it in my DVL-H9 player, and the disc plays as if it were brand new still, I was amazed. That is one of the amazing things about LD's, is that as long as they do not get LD Rot, and are made in Japan, (most LD Rot free discs were made there), you can watch it 1 million times, and the quality will always be the same. Also, the audio quality of a LaserDisc is double the quality of DVD's for the 44Khz PCM, DTS, and AC-3, (Dolby Digital), soundtracks, coming very close to that of Blu-Ray discs that utilize uncompressed 48Khz PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS-HD 5.1/6.1 Audio tracks. In fact the only DVD's I have seen that match the LD's audio quality were rare copies only sold in Japan, and even then those DVD's might have had near the same audio quality, but with proper equipment such as an upscaler and a proper 3D combfilter, the LAserDiscs can look far superior to that of a compressed DVD. I use to show people my DVD of the movie "The Beach" side by side with my LaserDisc copy of "The Beach", and people were amazed at how nice the uncompressed quality of the LAserDisc was on that movie, and as for Anime, the LAserDisc is untouched to this very day, and sports original audio soundtracks that newer DVD's and BluRays no longer have, making them the go-to discs for Japanese Animation. There are many amazing things about LaserDiscs, and without them there would be no CD's, DVD's, CDV's, HD-DVD's, Blu-Ray's (2D, 3D, and 4K) or the upcoming new Blu-Ray format for the next gen console everyone will be getting, the PlayStation 5! LaserDisc paved the way to our now Digital Blu-Ray disc of the future, and in some ways is still a very relevant format in many people's homes!
I knew ONE person who had one in the 90s. I remember watching Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 and my mind being blown at how much better they looked and sounded than on VHS.
TheHandOfFear Wow, nice catch, I first thought it was an off color or off lit Laserdiscs, after a closer inspection, you’re right, it is a CED outside it’s caddy
You're right to be scrutinous. This is the same group of people that claim salt intake doesn't raise your blood pressure just because there's no dedicated studies showing that it does. Never mind that sodium concentration is the most common way of explaining Tonicity, never mind that they are implying that one of the basic elements of fluid dynamics just doesn't work in the human body, screw all that basic elementary school science, they've got trendy revisionism on their side.
@@JustaSimplefact No, it’s not that well researched (especially not “objectively” so). Something I think is far more likely the cause of the insert of the CED rather than your conspiratorial idea that someone tricked him into using it. As for my own video? There are already good “history of LaserDisc” videos on TH-cam even if this one isn’t. Also, if you’re going to rant about the need to be “well researched” you might want to do a basic google search regarding some terms you misused in your posts. Start with “greenscreen.”
@@TheHandOfFear Why is it not well researched? It was a ton of information that was coherent and correct. You can just watch it to know that. Because one video editor on the team, uses an incorrect image, one time, the entire video is not well researched. Screw off. Anybody not know what I meant green-screen? Didn't think so.
Back in the early 90’s I was stationed in Okinawa when the Marine Corps bought their first Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer, ISMT, from Fire Arms Training Solutions, FATS. We got the first one and got trained by FATS personnel on how to set it up and operate it. The boot up system and scenarios were on laserdisc. We spent about 2 weeks playing with it. Every non rocket man-packable weapon was available on that system, and oddly, you could use them on every scenario. Want to use a MK-19 for room to room MOUT? Knock yourself out! Want to qualify at the 500 meter line on the KD course with a MP5, or M9, or the shotgun? Give it a shot! Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but sucked down the CO2 (used to give the weapons recoil), and the computer stack/disc player was susceptible to the high humidity and the discs were easily scratched.
pokepress Truth is LaserDisc/DiscoVision never lost, it actually won What this video doesn’t mention is that LaserDisc never competed with VHS/Betamax, it competed with RCA Selectavision’s CED Actually, LaserDisc had a pretty good run, it lasted from the 70’s/80’s till past the Millennium (around 2002), roughly 30 to 40 years or so isn’t that bad CED on the other hand (Capacitance Electronic Disc), which was essentially a movie on a vinyl record (what is really shown at 0:30 mistaken as a LaserDisc), is what failed the format war
Laserdisc didn't fail. If it had failed, it wouldn't have lasted for more than 30 years and make available more than 25.000 titles. RCA CED video disc lasted only about 5 years. THAT was a failure!! There is no eternal format except perhaps Vinyl Lps.
@@michaeldickens1101 uhm.. Laserdisc did in fact never win.. Only a small % of people had it and it was too expencive. So it was not even close. But it di lead to the DVD that actually eas a huge success. And LD did actually compete with VHS later on in VHS history. But VHS stayed on top until DVD came
Øystein You’re looking at it the wrong way, “didn’t sell very well” doesn’t equal “it failed”, Laserdiscs still sold, you could still buy/rent Laserdiscs up till the millennium, if it actually failed, that wouldn’t have happened Take a look at the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war, despite HD-DVD being the superior format, it lost to Blu-Ray due to more studios backing it, once HD-DVD lost, they ceased production of the format immediately (same went with CED when it lost to Laserdisc), the Blu-Ray format lasts to this day with 4K Blu-Rays, Laserdisc had a very long run if you count DiscoVision, what Laserdisc was called before it was called Laserdisc And no, Laserdisc and VHS did not compete with each other, they shared the market, they were unrelated technologies, VHS didn’t start out cheap at first, and the main reason most people went with VHS (alongside cost) was you could record with VHS, Laserdisc was an Optical ROM format (like CD and DVD), they couldn’t be recorded on Saying Laserdisc and VHS competed against each other is like saying D-Theater (HD VHS) competed with Blu-Ray and lost, when D-Theater technically never competed against Blu-Ray to begin with
LD was huge among real movie buffs. Letterbox, multiple sound tracks, bonus featured like trailers and photos. Even deleted scenes. Thing which helped DVD quickly replace tape.
That's a very clickbaity title given the conclusion is "LaserDisc died a death, but technologies developed decades later were better than tech released at the same time as LaserDisc so therefore it won" which is just so damn tenuous at best. I actually feel kind of deceived, tricked even, and I hope this isn't an omen for the route this channel will take in the future.
My parents had a laserdisc machine when I was a kid. It was cheaper for us in the 80s than VHS but then again we lived in Alaska, so the prices of things back then were quite different. When I was a teenager I got to discover great movies like Blade Runner, Monty Python, Time Bandits, and many more. We also had Star Wars, Alien, Jaws, and many others.
garet claborn yeah the internet is the ultimate winner despite what the Republicans do but my point is both VHS AND BLU-Ray won their respective wars because the porn industry sided with those respective formats. One was for length, the other financial security due to its security features... there’s a ironic joke in that... my point is the porn industry was the deciding factor for those respective format wars which Simon kinda alluded too with the cost of manufacturing differences due to the growing consumption of that particular media (ie porn industry sided with one format over the other which prompted consumers of that entertainment to favor said media, causing the cost of manufacturing center media to go down which ultimately allowed that format to win it’s war). Never underestimate the power of porn!
Wrong actually. Porn isn't the deciding factor as we are lead to believe as there is no evidence of such. The consumer market wanted to record live TV in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s. Betamax when it started had a record time of 30 minutes per tape in BI mode, and 60 minutes in BII mode. VHS when it started was 2hours in SP. Betamax never got more than than 4 hours per tape even in BIII mode, but 10 Hour VHS tapes (In EP mode) were released. Combined with the fact that Sony was tight when it came to licensing the Betamax technology, so prices were high for Betamax decks, while VHS deck makers were numerous and had price wars which brought prices down.
Minor correction, TGOTR. When VHS started, recording time was 1 hour in SP. My science fiction club in high school used to make movies on VHS in 1979, and that was the longest VHS tape available. It cost the club $22.
There is one statement that i strongly disagree with. The CD sound quality of Laserdisc was and still is far superior to the compressed sound of DVD's Also the Video quality of early DVD's and the players was not great, suffering from digital artefacts due to poor encoding of the discs from the master film, it took a few years before this improved, the sound from DVD's is still not upto that of Lasediscs. In my opionion DVD's should never have been made, the industry should have kept Laserdisc and VHS going until the Blu-Ray format was developed.
Considering that most people are using the built-in speaker on a TV for sound, the difference in sound quality between a DVD and a LaserDisc is basically nil, as both are limited by the quality of the speaker. Digital artefacts were not necessarily the result of poor encoding (though that was a factor in some cases), as artefacts could also occur due to using low quality video cables or routing the connection through a VCR, amp or other device that introduced electrical interference (Edit - all of the above were fairly commonplace at the time DVD players were first introduced - many households had TVs that only supported coaxial or RCA in, so they had to route the connection through another device that used a coaxial/RCA cable to the TV. Those that did have RGB inputs may have been using low-quality cables that had poor shielding because good cables were often significantly more expensive. As newer TVs commonly had multiple input for RGB and later HDMI, routing video through VCRs and video switches became less commonplace) If DVD hadn't been made, Blu-Ray might not have been either, as Blu-Ray came about as a direct result of needing increased storage space over the DVD format to provide higher quality video and sound for movies, and to support the increasing storage needs of the rapidly growing video game market.
I actually got quite familiar with LaserDisc as a kid, my stepfather was really big on video players that (back in the day), video stores like Blockbuster supported and rented out movies for saying “if Blockbuster backs it, it’s a successful format” I remember as a kid going to Blockbuster and renting movies on LaserDisc, we had a dual laser system that would “auto-flip” discs when side A ended
Laser Disc were popular in Schools because Apple computers supported "Hypercard" access to laserdisc...with Individual Frame Access. With Hypercard...students could create programs called 'stacks' of information. WIth drag/drop film clips of frames of the Laser Disc. There was one Laserdisc with art work of the Louve museum. With the hypercard stack and Macintosh interface...students could create their own presentations...accessing individual frames on the disc to do presentations controlling frame access to the Laserdisc with their hypercard program. www.offtherecord.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=664_666&products_id=39087 If you played that laserdisc at full speed...it was dizzy flash of frames of artwork. Connected to a computer interface that gave frame access..it became a tool to explore a museum and create your own presentation using the images on the disc as single frames. Hypercard was amazingly easy to use to create a small program that would interface with the laser disc player to create book reports or science presentations.
As with many good products made by ridiculous companies (looking at you Apple), the Sony Betamax was... Sony. If you wanted to use that format, there was zero selection. Every machine was way too expensive and you had one company to buy it from. Sony. They refused to license the patent so other companies could manufacture them (the way IBM did with the PC and how VHS did with those products).
Sony is Sony. They are infamous for creating their own closed off standards and losing in the end. MiniDisc, Betamax, DAT, MemoryStick, ATRAC, UMD - all failed. Recently they made an LDAC codec for Bluetooth and they actually gave it to Android - maybe MAYBE this one will stick. I hope it will, since it's better than APT-X HD.
That's what killed every single one of Sony's formats. They were all proprietary, and licensing fees were so much that publishers and other manufacturers simply avoided them. Superior technology continued to lose simply because of Sony's draconian licensing policies.
wasnt it down to porn the reason they lost in the tape battle , but with HD dvd they one the battle with blu-ray buy selling there ps3 at a loss to ensure alot of households had one in them ,but that was a short war as things went the way of files rather than disc's
Bear Arms ATRAC was pretty good though. But I still have hope Sony goes under one day. I was one of the people who had their computer infected by a virus from their music CDs way back when. Hated them ever since.
Had and loved an MiniDisc portable player (that used ATRAC compression) back when the typical MP3 player could only store about 70 minutes of music. When the first iPod hit, I knew the MiniDisc was dead, although I didn't stop using it until I ran the player into the ground (which took several years because Sony portable player quality was amazing back then).
How can you do this without recognizing Ampex, and how the real winner was Germany, though it never received much recognition. (Ampex developed Tape Media, from tech taken from Germany.)
Well... Anders Enger Jensen's tune DiscoVision is a reality... Mind. Freaking. Blown. Many thanks for this tidbit of history! And this from a nerd who bought a LaserDisc player for nothing but anime. And who's father noticed the clarity of the format to make my lowly Panasonic player a center of attraction for the family's entertainment needs. Bought my player at $60 USD. Bought anime LaserDiscs. Local BlockBuster rented LaserDiscs. My precious was the center of our entertainment center's focus for at least four years. Once my father found out about my LD gem he rented a few discs... He was hooked. Even now the format is magical.
One thing I missed was the influence of the music industry. When buying a player for a particular medium the available catalog plays an important role after all. Both Sony and Philips owned record companies meaning that when CDs hit the markets an enormous catalog of music both classical and modern was available. CD laid the groundwork for the later DVD market through backward compatibility.
omg ppl such cringe. the point is that laserdisc DID NOT WIN the format wars. DVD and Blu-ray are the current winners and they ARE NOT LASERDISC, nor are they offshoots of it. If you use broad enough definitions to let laserdisc be the parent of DVD, then by the same logic vinyl records won the storage war. ffs
Part of the beauty and longevity of Laserdisc was its ability to exist side by side its competition. The sorts of people who like LD had no problems also owning a VCR. They would use the VCR for its usual expected use of recording from the TV or even creating backup copies of its LD films; but use the LD player for actually watching movies in high quality and with the advanced search features. This is the reason they never bothered putting a record feature on LD players; everyone had VCRs for that and the VCR was not actually competition. I still use my LD player because I find the format has done the best at preserving film grain and such. Modern pressings tend to digitally remove that. It does make for a nicer image; but erases a lot of film history. Meanwhile VHS resolution is to low for stuff like that to show up at all.
Consider myself lucky. I once found an NTSC Panasonic Laserdisc player for $60AU from a local Charity Shop. I contacted them later about it, and they said they sold it. Thankfully a gut instinct told me to take some money with me a couple of weeks later, because they still had it there, despite what they said earlier. So I immediately purchased it. Thankfully you can get the laserdiscs on the second hand market for cheap. And let me tell you, it's worth it. That and the fact I found that a remote control from a similar player works perfectly on this one. So I'm lucky with that!
We had a laserdisc player my uncle gave my dad (as he had upgraded his). It had one laserdisc demo real that we watched a few times. And I do remember the video and audio quality was great, but we had nothing else to watch but that one disc.
Beta in prototype, dates back to 1972. Between 1972 and 1975(interestingly the same period Australian TV stations were gearing up for colour using the superior German PAL system),Sony developed the Beta format before releasing it publicly, officially. Proto models and tapes were made available to potential sellers for demonstration purposes.
we're talking about format wars, which neither laserdisc nor vhs won because DVD/Blu-ray are not actually successors to laserdisc just because they're discs. anyway the internet won the video war. vhs porn got nothing on broadband
Ultimately we all lost when streaming won. Sure you get things cheaper and more convenient, but you don't get to choose WHAT you get. "But Amazon or pirating" you mean a small selection of current hits you don't want clogging up your computer's memory or shitty bootlegs in between viruses? I want to watch a specific episode of Psych. Great it's 2018. Go on ebay, look for DVD. Because that's the only fucking way I'm finding it. "But hurr such and such is hosting it right now" God Dammit that's not my point! My point is 90% of all film and TV ISN'T being hosted. With physical media going, so are our options. Nobody is making a mass archive option. Which is what would be a truly superior form.
Physical media is not going away anytime soon. Some people aren't satisfied with the low quality streams (even at 4K) of Netflix and them and want something better that doesn't eat up their data cap.
The President of Bell and Howell, at one time the largest maker of Home Movie Camera in the world, took a Trip to Japan in 1970. He took a tour of the JVC factory and saw the first VHS and Camera setup. It was large and bulky but they showed him how they could record and playback a video almost instantly. The President knew this was the end of movie cameras and by 1980 Bell and Howell switch over to making postal sorting equipment for the post office.
So i think the big thing missing is when talked about this stuff is the main purpose originally with video tapes was time shifting. Recording a program and watching it later. Vhs was able to record multiple programs on 1 tape due to its legnth and that is 1 large reason they won.
But, when VCR machines were first released, they cost more than LaserDisc players. The cost didn't become an issue until later, when production of VCR machines dropped. VCR machines were so mass produced by the mid-80's that prices became super low, but LaserDisc never had that chance.
The superior product never wins, the Atari 2600 was the worst of all consoles of its generation, beta was superior to VHS, the TurboGrafix16 was the best of its generation (how many people have even heard of it), etc.
FlyingFree333 Indeed, the superior system never wins. Video2000 out competed both Betamax and VHS as well, but failed for the same reasons as the LaserDisc.
Depends on how you define "superior." I'd say the "superior" machine delivers the features the consumer wants at a price the consumer is willing to pay.
Ready to watch another fun fact video? Then check out this awesome video- Hands On Awesome Tech: Making Solar Cells With a Particle Accelerator:
th-cam.com/video/2RhcinyNVXE/w-d-xo.html
@Today I Found Out - Really like your channel. Vid's are well put together and informative.
Just wanted to let you know that I believe the Image used @.30 Sec's in actually a CED removed from it's Caddy - and NOT a Laserdisc.
disney plus: who is laser disc
so you said that beta max lost because of some bad decisions of sony wich is interesting because I heard that vhs won because the pornographic industry preffered vhs. probably both sides have a valid point here
Let's all take a moment to appreciate the fact that a company once got RAY CHARLES to promote their movie-playing device because apparently even RAY CHARLES could see that amazing picture quality.
Who's Ray Charles?
This is absolute comedic genius.
@@WigWoo1 a blind musician
@@WigWoo1 - a blind piano player.
@@WigWoo1 and singer
The cheaper-in-Japan thing is EXACTLY how my family got our first couple laser disc players--my grandpa did a lot of business trips to Japan at the time. We had some good stuff on laser disc, and I watched those discs a LOT as a kid; there's still several films where I subconsciously tense up to go flip the disc in the middle!
I knew a older guy when I was a kid in the 80’s that had a LaserDisk player and a ton of movies. It was really miles ahead of VHS and BetaMax that was it competition then. He was a big movie guy and had one of the rear projection big screen TVs. It was really an amazing experience for a home theater back then and honesty it’s only in recent years I’ve seen any real improvement over it.
Define recent? Because blu-ray has been around now since 2006. 4k blu-ray since 2012.
@@DenverStarkey Blu-ray really started showing up about 8-10 years ago, it’s fairly recent in comparison with the fact I went and watched Laserdisc movies at this guys house close to 40 years ago. He owned business that ended up making him wealthy and he loved movies so he was quick to get the latest things. I think he got his first Laserdisc player around 80’ and it really was a big improvement then.
@@DenverStarkeyas pointed out in this video, LaserDisc was around for nearly 30 years before Blu-ray - so, yeah, OP's statement is 100% correct.
Additionally, early Blu-ray was barely an improvement over then-current DVD technology, and it took years before it lived up to its true potential.
Also, 4K Blu-ray has basically been killed off at this point, which is sad because it really only started hitting its stride right as studios decided to prioritize streaming over physical media.
@@Thuazabi they still produce 4K blu-ray so it's not dead.
@@Thuazabi no his statement is not correct , sure you can say "more recent" times but not just "recent times" because 14 years is not freaking recent it's just more reccent than laser disc times. but he didn't say MORE recent , he said recent. 14 years is not recent.
"Man, there's nothing on the radio...oh, hey, Nazi Radio is playing classical music!"
He did nazi that coming.
I know right
#gasthepug
#countdankuladidnothingwrong
One of the reasons Nazi failed was because they play classical music only but not Nazis pop music.
I still have my Pioneer laser disc player as well as the Star Wars Trilogy before the Lucas remakes.
Same here. Star Wars Collectors edition THX remastered. No cheesy CG added.
Best way to experience it. My old Star Wars tapes on BetaMax and VHS are long gone, but my LaserDiscs are still around.
Wow. Eating magnetic tapes and plastic. Those dogs must've been pretty rowdy or damn hungry.
Same here. The THX remastered laserdiscs. Also have THX-1138, as it's the only high def copy you can get that _also_ wasn't ruined by Lucas.
@ Jose Gonzalez: Star Wars on Laserdisc was one of the biggest reasons for me to even start with Laserdisc. And it was totally worth the effort. Original colours, original cuts, original effects, original soundmixes. Pure original nostalgia.
most of the “special features” and commentary tracks for DVDs came from their laserdisc releases. In fact sometimes the laserdisc edition had more than the DVD release
Using 'about most of' in the same way one uses 'about all' was super jarring to read. That being said, thanks for the extra info! I had no idea.
@@Urayuss yeah sorry … that was actually a typo from my phone. Meant to just say “most”
@@MurderMostFowl I didn't think of that possibility and that's embarrassing, lmao
@@Urayuss no worries, friend!
Laserdisc was and still is superior to DVD.
The CD sound quality is far better than the compressed sound of DVD's
plus it took DVD a few years to eliminate the digital glitches that made
watching it very irritating.
I remember seeing a laser disk in first grade and thought it was the coolest thing.
I only learned about laserdisk from regular show
Techmoan had a video about laserdisc:
th-cam.com/video/KOrn2hBsYKE/w-d-xo.html
C M 1945 called, they want their joke back.
I remember them from school.
8-track for lief
C M well he must not have done much rich, bitch is dead
I have been there in the 80's and remember that the real reasons why VHS won over laser disk were: 1. VHS made it possible to make illegal copies of movies by simply using a player and a recorder and 2. it was possible with VSH to record movies and music shown on TV.
My grandparents sent us a box of tapes each year of stuff recorded from satellite TV. Everything from Cartoon Network to Science Channel.
Well, VHS and Betamax were created for recording TV broadcast, so no surprises there.
I copied an entire audio book to VHS because I wanted to cancel my audible subscription. Took like 3 tapes but I regret nothing 😅
Exactly right. VHS was used to record programs off of TV way more than it was used to buy or rent prerecorded movies. (At least in my house.)
Digital storage blows my mind these days. I just got done salvaging the data off of a physically huge 250GB HDD that Ive had for a decade, and putting it all on a thumb drive with the same storage space and that by all measures could be called a thumbnail drive, and its not even state of the art. I'm pretty sure some tech company recently announced the upcoming release of the fabled 2TB SD card that has been promised for some time now. 2TB in less than the volume of a credit card, and the actual chip probably takes up no more than 20% of the internal space. That is insane. I remember first plugging a 1GB SD card into my camera and feeling like the king of all creation.
The first computer in my house had 20GB HDD. All it was used for was documents, paint, pinball and solitaire.
uyu man wow my 1st pc had 800mb hard drive
lucky43113 I miss our first computer. We had this game that came on legit floppy disk that seemed incredible for the time and my age, even though it was essentially just a non scrolling, PvP version of asteroids confined to a 5" square box. I'm still trying to track that game down. All I remember is that you could add or remove a sun in the center, add or remove gravity for it, and you could teleport to a random position on the screen by pressing the "s" key(i think) if you were the player on the left side of the keyboard. Other than that it was just down to flying around the 2d arena and shooting the other guy. Ring a bell for anyone?
Started in IT in the early 80's. Seen it, done it, got the T-shirt.
I remember being introduced to a digital camera as a *very* expensive, professional tool for use in a production environment, when I was doing R&D for an aerospace parts company. You had to sign for the camera every time you checked it out, and carry it in a hard case until you got where you were taking pictures, because of the proce.of the thing. You could fit *four* 1 megapixel JPGs on the floppy disk in the camera, and have high quality images of failures on your desk five minutes after deciding you wanted them... and you could mark them up and send them to any of the other engineers on the team (even those on other continents) by email immediately - mindblowing.
Factual Errors
0:30 pictured is a CED Which is a different technology all together.
7:04 pictured is a LV recorder which is incompatible with Laserdisc in general, the discs won't play in a Laserdisc player.
Also, The tapes Sony discontinued in 2016 were DigiBeta/HD Beta tapes, not compatible with Betamax.
Yeah I noticed that first one, too. Also, Simon apparently has part of his facts somewhat incorrect --- check out 7:11 on this "Technology Connections" video: th-cam.com/video/TClRRMFZ7Sw/w-d-xo.html
Laser Vision and Laser Disc is the same thing.
It lost because you couldn't record onto one which was half of what people used their VHS machines for. We'd still be using VHS if there weren't DVR machines.
Also, halfway through the movie you had to get up and turn the damn disc over.
yup, that is accurate. DVD isn't really a descendant of laserdisc anyway
A few of the early DVDs were that way - I guess they dumped the same master tape on them. They were double-sided DVDs and halfway through the movie, I had to flip it over to watch the second half.
But you could drop or scratch them and it didn’t damage the movie. Too bad that’s not true of dvd or blu-ray.
I remember every point you'd need to flip the disc over in Return of the Jedi. It still feels weird to have the movie continue uninterrupted.
David Buschhorn except for the fact that when average households adopted DVD players they didn’t also get dvr. Most households waited years after getting a DVD player to get dvr. Clearly the ability to record wasn’t the only thing holding the laserdisc back
The MUSE "HI-Vision" LaserDisc is (I think) the original HD format.
Also, great video!
Correct...
I remember them being so expensive that no one I knew could afford them.
Pioneer did make a recordable LD unit for professionals. Also, there were two LD playback formats CAV (30min/side) and CLV (61min/side). LD was also the first format with AC3 Dolby Digital out. I still have a working CLD-909 LD player and maybe 350 discs. Oh.. LaserROT! That was thanks to 3M using a crap glue the glue the two sides together. The glue would break down and create a bubble between the 2 layers and cause what looked like a Peter Pan effect of snow/noise. Also, scratches were not a huge problem either. I used to rent discs that looked like someone used sandpaper on them. They still played just fine.
Having worked in the LD field during this time, that simply isn't true. "Laser-Rot" was caused by impurities in the aluminum coating causing adhesion problems long term, not the glue.
either way, it was a cancer.
Suggestion: Who was the first person to coin the phrase "coin the phrase"?
Probably the Romans, who would put words on the coins along with the Emperor's face.
insertnamehere001
Reminds me of the question: what did the guy designing the drawing board go back to when the first version didn't work? Fortunately there is an answer: square one.
Heh, when I first read that I said to myself "Square what?"
_I don't think that phrase was ever coined._
I watched goldeneye on laser disc a few weeks ago, full Dolby digital audio with surround sound, and analog video.
The picture on a giant 70" plasma, with amazing speakers... The experience was breathtaking.
Whereas 4k is visually stunning and your eyes processing that goodness is primary, watching laser disc with digital audio is an aural orgasm.
Suddenly, a movie I know well, made my brain process completely different, my eyes taking backseat to my ears, my experience was drastically new again.
This is closer to the effect of an actual movie theater, at home.
Truly amazing.
We had a laser disk player at my house growing up, and there are a couple of things that aren't quite right in this. First, regarding the durability of laser disks, they were actually MORE durable than tapes, not less. This is a common misconception because they look like records, and it's easy to assume they were flimsy. In fact, they had a durable coating over them that protected against scratches. In the introduction disk that came with the player, they even showed someone spreading ice cream over the top, then washing it in the sink, then playing it in the player to show how it could still play. (Us kids did worse to our disks and yes, they kept playing.) As for why they weren't as popular, it is true that the price was the primary issue. But another big issue was the fact that you could not record with a laser disk player. At the time, if you missed a show on TV, you didn't know when, or if you would be able to see it at a later time. You didn't get to choose when it was on. With a VHS machine you could record a show, even setting it up to record while you were out. With a laser disk player, you could only watch what you purchased.
When Jack Mullins presented the tape recorder to Bing Crosby, Bing got another and gave it to his friend Les Paul who was known to experiment with electronics and electric guitars. Les saw the possibility of adding another recording head which lead to Multi track recording which is the method music is still recorded today, be it digitally. Jack Mullins company was to become Ampex.
To those saying that Porn was what ultimately led to the success of VHS over Betamax, it was only rumor
There actually was porn on Betamax, not in high numbers, but it did exist, it was true that Sony refused to mass produce porn on their format, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t or didn’t happen third party (of which it did), any person can get multiple Betamax decks and run a mass duplication system (say get 100 Betamax decks, loop the modulators into each other daisy chained, tune them all to channel 3, cover the remote sensor on deck 1, then duplicate 99 other copies at once by pressing record on the remote)
There were two reasons why Betamax lost, and porn wasn’t one of them, it was cost and record time
VHS was MUCH cheaper than Beta (Beta was at least $500 more than VHS)
Also, VHS could record for twice as long than Betamax (I think Beta was capped at 2hrs while VHS could record for 4 to 6hrs)
Since you could record for longer and the decks and tapes were cheaper on VHS, that was the final nail in the coffin for Betamax... Not porn
ahh but think about how much porn one could pirate from video stores on each platform before macrovision came out. vhs wins.
.. i kid. mostly.
Also Sony removed Beta 1 speed at some point in the early 80s so it ended up being about the same quality as VHS anyway. Then when S-VHS came out, it blew Beta out of the water completely.
The porn thing is a myth.
I think we can all agree that while LaserDisc failed, it was a brilliant innovation for its time and paved the way for DVD and Blu-ray.
Good job, LaserDisc. Good job.
Fun fact: Although VHS “won” the format war, Betamax remained the preferred format of the Armed Forces. My stepdad was in the Coast Guard during the 80s and 90s, and they continued to use Beta, long after you couldn’t rent Beta format at any local video stores anymore.
Actually, some manufacturers DID make recordable optical discs as big as Laserdiscs, but they were much too expensive for the average consumer and focused sales on the professional market.
Somewhere I still have the first Lord of The Rings movie on DVD and it was double layer. It actually pauses for a second or two when it switches layers. Also, I have a few double-sided DVDs.
Somewhere I still have the Fellowship of the Ring on VHS. :p
I have LOTR: Fellowship on a double-sided DVD.
I have "UHF" on the double sided DVD.
Moonbeam I told you, that feature is ON THE OTHER SIDE!
WickedWonder1979 That was the best thing on the menu.
Had a friend who’s dad had Jurassic Park on Laserdisc. It was incredible home entertainment experience for back in 1995.
Lasers were just invented in 1960. That part of the popular story is a little off. Technology Connections has a nice segment on this.
alright, that was a good ad at the end. whoever wrote it that way, bravo. thats how you write an ad.
I love these ", Today I Found Out' videos because they seem to be more straight forward with Simon more professional. DO NOT get me wrong I love all the Channels, then him opening up more something about these videos I seem to enjoy more
I picked up a fully working Sony Blu-Ray player laying on the street. The new format was so short lived because everyone who had a DVD collection didn't want to re-buy all their movies over again. As well as streaming services like Netflix becoming popular.
I bought a non working Pioneer CLD-S315 from a car boot sale for £20 then after a few minor repairs sold it less than a week later for £130.
Profit on that
Good business.
You know what Simon? For the clarity, morality and the integrity that you conduct your advertisements with I will become a Patreon supporter of your channel. I've been on a binge watching spree of your TIFO and biographics videos for about a month now. Thanks for the great work, keep it up and I'll support you for your efforts.
I just wanted to say that this is one of the most entertaining and informative channels I watch. Thank you for all the effort you put into these videos
Derek Bastinck Thanks!
Have a top of the line, Pioneer LaserDisc player, and this is so damned true. Please bring it back.
Tunnel bear...
If something is free, you are the product sold.
VHS also had a very important thing in being almost royalty free, so there was less cost for the media, and unlike Beta and LD there was very little cost to make a unit as you did not have to pay a premium for the royalties per unit or per tape. Biggest killer was no recording ability, unlike tape, using the same media versus having special media.
Don't forget the VHS and Beta ( plus V2000, another tape format) relied heavily on advances in tape, spurred by the computer revolution, which demanded a chrome tape formula for data density in tape backup units. Older ferrite formulas needed too high a write current for high resolution video to record well, but the advances in tape gave the ability to get good high frequency recording on relatively slow moving tape.
Laserdisc was probably better quality than DVD in most cases due to the video not being encoded so no compression artifacts.
Also things like Dolby Digital (AC3) and DTS which was used in DVD was first used on laserdisc. So it was pretty much the only way to get decent multi-channel audio before DVD.
Also a few films not only did you have to swap sides you had to swap discs.
Yeah, but during the time of LD's prevalence we didn't exactly have TVs that would display the difference between LD and original DVD to any noticeable extent. I would love to see them played side by side on a state of the art TV. I bet it's all kinds of noticeable now.
The quality of DVDs was acceptable enough for most people, and Bluray (and now "Ultra HD Blu-ray") would continue to improve the format. We're also entering an era where streaming video is becoming more acceptable as internet speeds continue to rise. Indeed, this TH-cam video is in 1080p @ 60 fps, which is higher quality than the DVD format can normally handle.
. . . Although oddly enough, the DVD format is long from dead. Walmart still sells DVD players (although I don't see the point in purchasing them anymore), and movies are still released in the DVD format.
I think some people are under the (mistaken) impression that a Bluray player won't play DVDs, so they want to buy DVD players (because they have a DVD collection), and when they do that they are stuck not being able to play Blurays. It's a bit of an unfounded fear holding back adoption of Bluray players, even in an era where the price of a player is rather minimal.
Generally, properly encoded DVDs will look better than properly made LDs. I can personally verify this, owning a few hundred movies on LD with a good Pioneer player, and having seen DVDs of the same films. They both have artifacts - LD has analog artifacts and noise and other issues, DVD can have compression artifacts. But, DVD has better resolved detail and is higher resolution (at least, as best as resolution can be compared when looking at analog VS digital).
However, the best looking LDs are definitely in the same ballpark as DVDs, which is really impressive when you consider it's 17 years older as a format. .
lartrak Interesting and very cool, thanks for the input.
Nope... Most DVDs had better quality. But there where a few LD videos that was just as good and even a little better than DVD. But not many
A 14 minute video called "How LaserDisc Ultimately Won the Format Wars" that explains everything about LaserDisc except for HOW THEY WON THE FORMAT WARS
Today I found out why Simon is bald.
?
"Bald! Bald! Bald! My Eyes!"
i read that in his voice
only on the top of his head
Simon is bald because he did these daily for 3 years:
1. 100 push-ups
2. 100 sit-ups
3. 100 squats
4. 10 km running
I just had a conversation yesterday about this saying only real reason LaserDisc wasn't used was because of it's cost. Getting on market first also really helps.
CDs and DVDs winning the format war doesn't mean LD actually won because they are it's "offspring". That would be like me having a child that went on to win a gold medal during the Olympics in a sport that I did well in during college and claiming it was really me that won.
Not exactly.
LD, CD, DVD were made by the same company - Philips, with some collaborators in case of later formats.
VHS were made by JVC.
It's more like saying Word won the office format war, even though there are multiple incompatible versions of Word files.
i mean not like some parents don't do that at all
Yeah, lately Today I Found Out seems to be...slipping a bit.
Angelofthursday 99 No, it's not. Evolution is a long, slow, process that takes MANY generations. In the case of LD to CD/DVD it was literally a single "generation" from the analog disc format to digital. So my parent to child analogy makes perfect sense........ while your evolution analogy doesn't. Because as far as I'm aware there were no other disc formats between the analog LD and the digital CDs and DVDs.
Angelofthursday 99 No, it doesn't........ irrelevant of you being "pretty sure" that it does. Even if you were to use the examples of either the moths or maggots my point still stands. Their change only SEEMED quick (relatively speaking) due to their short life spans and fast breeding. But that's beside the point. It's not as if either species changed immediately over a single generation....... it took MANY successive generations for the changes to occur. Your analogy using various homo species to link VHS/BETA to LD/CD/DVD also doesn't fit either. Tape storage is completely different from optical disk storage and not some distant relative. It's closer to your computer's hard drive than it is to any optical disk.
There weren't multiple generations of similar, yet slightly different, disk storage mediums between LD and CD/DVD. So your evolution analogy does NOT work. There was the "parent" LD analog format and then the "child" CD/DVD format...... that's it.
That was one slick segway into the ad at the end, props to whoever scripted that!
"And just before we get started, I just want to say" *skips 30 seconds*
Ya God bless skip button! :)
just watch the ad
Just think about countries where information like this is illegal, people there would need a VPN.
Neither of us paid to watch this video, however making such video requires funds which TIFO gets from advertisement.
If they need a VPN to view the info, how'd they get to see the ad? Catch 22
My grandparents had a videodisc player that used vinyl discs like old records. It came in a plastic holder and you put one side in pull it out and flip it to the other side. Was really cool.
@11:06 "Laser VHS players that could read the tape without the head needing to physically contact it". I don't think that ever existed. How would a laser "see" the magnetization of the tape?
I call bullshit on Simon's 'fact'. @Simon, source please ?
+Dan Schwartz Verbal typo from having said "laser" a bagillion times. It was supposed to be "later":. "especially with later VHS players that could read the tape without the head needing to physically contact it."
Magic, what else did you thought?
To be fair anyone with a working brain realized it was just a verbal slip up. You would have to be really dim to think he was actually claiming laser vhs was a thing :p
@ Dan Schwartz: never heard of Holotape? ;)
As a kid I remember my cousins had a laserdisc player with one disc and we were never allowed to watch it. It wasn't even connected to the TV, the player was in a cabinet gathering dust. Good investment.
VHS tape heads were always in direct contact with the tape, there's no way to avoid that! I'm surprised you claim later machines iddn't need to do that?
But the real reason VHS won the war was because you can record on it, Laser disc was play only. Time shifting TV programmes was the main reason people bought a video, at least here in the UK
the format wars tldr:
first there were analog formats stored on magnetic tapes and then a while later came magnetic disks. some time later optical discs came along. after, everyone decided to make the switch to digital. finally the internet came along and utterly wrecked everything in its way.
Hehe like the ad at end about internet security but the captions translate it to transmitting your data through talaban network :) very secure that sounds
That made my day
Today, the captions cut off "at the end"
where he's talking about betamax availability in 2016...
:(
Sony invented a video cassette. The head of the company wanted it smaller. It was this second cassette format which was Betamax. The first was VHS. JVC went to Sony for a license, didn't like the high cost and bid for VHS.
JVC then undercut the Sony licensing fees, so more manufacturers used their format, as did many 'own brand' marketers. Furthermore, in various markets, VHS was more readily available as a rental unit, rather than an expensive purchase. In the unit rental shops were also libraries of VHS movies to rent for few days.
Anecdotal, I know: but when I was in the business, both a Sony and a JVC rep separately told me basically the same story at the end of the 80s.
So now you know the uk story of the format war on tape. Possibly.
0:30 that disc is an RCA Videodisc.
Not a laserdisc.
You mean CED or Capacitance Electronic Disc
I guess they didn't find out that that day.
I bought my Pioneer laserdisc player in the 1990s when it was the only format that could be used to watch anime from Japan. DVD has region encoding and not a lot of anime was released on VHS. The one real advantage the format had that no other format is capable of is that it was truly a world format. There was one more thing too, in many ways laser disc was like the old vinyl albums of the 60s and 70s with inserts, extra materials, etc. Opening a new laser disc was always going to be a treat to see what it came with. This was very true of anime releases from Japan that came with booklets, toys, animation cels, etc. When the format started to die off was the golden years of snapping up fantastic releases such as the 'original' original Star Wars and complete series on discs like Star Trek for example. These days I still keep around an older but still completely functioning lcd TV that still has the correct input for the laserdisc and video tape so that I can enjoy movies that are impossible to see anywhere else but in my laserdisc collection.
Of all the celebrities there were in the 70s, why choose Ray Charles to pitch VIDEO entrateinement systems?
Why choose Bill Cosby to advertise New Coke?
He was pitching the audio quality of Laserdisc, so it makes perfect sense
The Cosby Show.
In the 1980s this show's popularity at its peak for perspective would make a show like Survivor or American Idol at their peaks look like public access cable.
Simon....Do you remember the show Beyond Tomorrow? I remember seeing an episode where one of the presenters held up a CD and said "In the near future your movies will be on these." This was back in the early 90's. The Discovery Channel used to be awesome back in the day.
How LaserDisc Ultimately Won the Format Wars.
Answer it did not but it get points for it's replacement doing it.
Bob Wright in Asia LD won the format war. There were more LD rental stores than VHS and Betamax combined.
A DVD or CD is just a digital laserdisc. It's the same technology, just different information being read.
If it was a LD, it would be half a pound and huge. It's called a DVD because it has drastically different properties than a LD. We don't call a motorcycle a bicycle for a reason, same reason here.
I call all of them vinyl records. Sue me.
@@FredrickTesla Interestingly, Laserdiscs were just huge versions of CD's. In fact that is where the CD came from. The Compact Disc was made basically from the idea of the unused 650MB of data that a LaserDisc has, which is at the start of every LaserDisc made. That area of the LaserDisc was kept empty for the reason of game data, in case videogames arose that needed it for future LaserDisc games, much like the Pioneer LaserActive. They took that unused data area, and just said screw it, and made CD's from that area of the disc, and sold it for music purposes, which led to being used for games and other things down the line. NOTE: (They didn't take cut out portions of the LD's, they just used the idea of "what can we do with that size of data that we don't even use on the LaserDiscs? Oh, perhaps it can be used as a small version of a LaserDisc and just put music on it!")
DVD's are basically the same as CD's, just the laser that reads them is much thinner in size, which allows the data to be burned onto the disc at a much more compressed/thinner rate, leading to the end result of the data size being a bit larger than the Compact Disc, and the same goes for DL-DVD's, HD-DVD's, 25GB Blu-Ray disc's and then ultimately what we all use now, the market leader, 50GB Blu-Ray DL discs. The upcoming new format of Blu-Ray discs that hold 100+GB of data which the PS5 is being equipped with is typically the same thing, just a thinner laser reading the disc, and the data on the disc being burned onto thinner layers. Blu-Ray is better than HD-DVD's, whcih is better than DVD's and CD's in that not only does it hold more data, it has a protective layer of coating to protect it from scratches, similar to LaserDiscs.
LaserDiscs can have a TON of scratches and still playback without audio skips and no degrade in picture quality. I own a HEAVILY used, and HEAVILY scratched up LaserDisc which was a Sample Reference Disc from 1990, and I got it for $2 from a GoodWill store, and I put it in my DVL-H9 player, and the disc plays as if it were brand new still, I was amazed. That is one of the amazing things about LD's, is that as long as they do not get LD Rot, and are made in Japan, (most LD Rot free discs were made there), you can watch it 1 million times, and the quality will always be the same.
Also, the audio quality of a LaserDisc is double the quality of DVD's for the 44Khz PCM, DTS, and AC-3, (Dolby Digital), soundtracks, coming very close to that of Blu-Ray discs that utilize uncompressed 48Khz PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS-HD 5.1/6.1 Audio tracks. In fact the only DVD's I have seen that match the LD's audio quality were rare copies only sold in Japan, and even then those DVD's might have had near the same audio quality, but with proper equipment such as an upscaler and a proper 3D combfilter, the LAserDiscs can look far superior to that of a compressed DVD. I use to show people my DVD of the movie "The Beach" side by side with my LaserDisc copy of "The Beach", and people were amazed at how nice the uncompressed quality of the LAserDisc was on that movie, and as for Anime, the LAserDisc is untouched to this very day, and sports original audio soundtracks that newer DVD's and BluRays no longer have, making them the go-to discs for Japanese Animation.
There are many amazing things about LaserDiscs, and without them there would be no CD's, DVD's, CDV's, HD-DVD's, Blu-Ray's (2D, 3D, and 4K) or the upcoming new Blu-Ray format for the next gen console everyone will be getting, the PlayStation 5! LaserDisc paved the way to our now Digital Blu-Ray disc of the future, and in some ways is still a very relevant format in many people's homes!
I knew ONE person who had one in the 90s. I remember watching Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 and my mind being blown at how much better they looked and sounded than on VHS.
That's a CED disc at 0:32, not a LaserDisc. This video is not off to a good start.
TheHandOfFear Wow, nice catch, I first thought it was an off color or off lit Laserdiscs, after a closer inspection, you’re right, it is a CED outside it’s caddy
You're right to be scrutinous. This is the same group of people that claim salt intake doesn't raise your blood pressure just because there's no dedicated studies showing that it does. Never mind that sodium concentration is the most common way of explaining Tonicity, never mind that they are implying that one of the basic elements of fluid dynamics just doesn't work in the human body, screw all that basic elementary school science, they've got trendy revisionism on their side.
_Umm.............you knew that anyway and we don't care._
@@JustaSimplefact No, it’s not that well researched (especially not “objectively” so). Something I think is far more likely the cause of the insert of the CED rather than your conspiratorial idea that someone tricked him into using it.
As for my own video? There are already good “history of LaserDisc” videos on TH-cam even if this one isn’t.
Also, if you’re going to rant about the need to be “well researched” you might want to do a basic google search regarding some terms you misused in your posts. Start with “greenscreen.”
@@TheHandOfFear Why is it not well researched? It was a ton of information that was coherent and correct. You can just watch it to know that. Because one video editor on the team, uses an incorrect image, one time, the entire video is not well researched. Screw off. Anybody not know what I meant green-screen? Didn't think so.
Back in the early 90’s I was stationed in Okinawa when the Marine Corps bought their first Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer, ISMT, from Fire Arms Training Solutions, FATS. We got the first one and got trained by FATS personnel on how to set it up and operate it. The boot up system and scenarios were on laserdisc. We spent about 2 weeks playing with it. Every non rocket man-packable weapon was available on that system, and oddly, you could use them on every scenario. Want to use a MK-19 for room to room MOUT? Knock yourself out! Want to qualify at the 500 meter line on the KD course with a MP5, or M9, or the shotgun? Give it a shot!
Yeah, it was a lot of fun, but sucked down the CO2 (used to give the weapons recoil), and the computer stack/disc player was susceptible to the high humidity and the discs were easily scratched.
Laserdisc is one of the best examples of a failed technology leading to a successful one.
pokepress Truth is LaserDisc/DiscoVision never lost, it actually won
What this video doesn’t mention is that LaserDisc never competed with VHS/Betamax, it competed with RCA Selectavision’s CED
Actually, LaserDisc had a pretty good run, it lasted from the 70’s/80’s till past the Millennium (around 2002), roughly 30 to 40 years or so isn’t that bad
CED on the other hand (Capacitance Electronic Disc), which was essentially a movie on a vinyl record (what is really shown at 0:30 mistaken as a LaserDisc), is what failed the format war
Laserdisc didn't fail. If it had failed, it wouldn't have lasted for more than 30 years and make available more than 25.000 titles. RCA CED video disc lasted only about 5 years. THAT was a failure!! There is no eternal format except perhaps Vinyl Lps.
@@michaeldickens1101 uhm.. Laserdisc did in fact never win.. Only a small % of people had it and it was too expencive. So it was not even close. But it di lead to the DVD that actually eas a huge success.
And LD did actually compete with VHS later on in VHS history. But VHS stayed on top until DVD came
@@Edubarca46 LD did fail but not as much as other formats. Very few users had LD and people did rather use VHS until DVD came...
Øystein You’re looking at it the wrong way, “didn’t sell very well” doesn’t equal “it failed”, Laserdiscs still sold, you could still buy/rent Laserdiscs up till the millennium, if it actually failed, that wouldn’t have happened
Take a look at the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war, despite HD-DVD being the superior format, it lost to Blu-Ray due to more studios backing it, once HD-DVD lost, they ceased production of the format immediately (same went with CED when it lost to Laserdisc), the Blu-Ray format lasts to this day with 4K Blu-Rays, Laserdisc had a very long run if you count DiscoVision, what Laserdisc was called before it was called Laserdisc
And no, Laserdisc and VHS did not compete with each other, they shared the market, they were unrelated technologies, VHS didn’t start out cheap at first, and the main reason most people went with VHS (alongside cost) was you could record with VHS, Laserdisc was an Optical ROM format (like CD and DVD), they couldn’t be recorded on
Saying Laserdisc and VHS competed against each other is like saying D-Theater (HD VHS) competed with Blu-Ray and lost, when D-Theater technically never competed against Blu-Ray to begin with
LD was huge among real movie buffs. Letterbox, multiple sound tracks, bonus featured like trailers and photos. Even deleted scenes.
Thing which helped DVD quickly replace tape.
That's a very clickbaity title given the conclusion is "LaserDisc died a death, but technologies developed decades later were better than tech released at the same time as LaserDisc so therefore it won" which is just so damn tenuous at best. I actually feel kind of deceived, tricked even, and I hope this isn't an omen for the route this channel will take in the future.
yeah, except he added the statement "it's offspring soon avenged it's parents by killing VHS". still... tricky word use.
sham rally, we really are held backwards, the 80s should have been more like the 2000s
My parents had a laserdisc machine when I was a kid. It was cheaper for us in the 80s than VHS but then again we lived in Alaska, so the prices of things back then were quite different. When I was a teenager I got to discover great movies like Blade Runner, Monty Python, Time Bandits, and many more. We also had Star Wars, Alien, Jaws, and many others.
Why did VHS win the format war? Porn. Lots and lots of porn.
it didn't win, neither did laserdisc. they are both dead.
garet claborn yeah the internet is the ultimate winner despite what the Republicans do but my point is both VHS AND BLU-Ray won their respective wars because the porn industry sided with those respective formats. One was for length, the other financial security due to its security features... there’s a ironic joke in that... my point is the porn industry was the deciding factor for those respective format wars which Simon kinda alluded too with the cost of manufacturing differences due to the growing consumption of that particular media (ie porn industry sided with one format over the other which prompted consumers of that entertainment to favor said media, causing the cost of manufacturing center media to go down which ultimately allowed that format to win it’s war).
Never underestimate the power of porn!
And the machines and tapes were far cheaper.
Wrong actually. Porn isn't the deciding factor as we are lead to believe as there is no evidence of such. The consumer market wanted to record live TV in the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s. Betamax when it started had a record time of 30 minutes per tape in BI mode, and 60 minutes in BII mode. VHS when it started was 2hours in SP. Betamax never got more than than 4 hours per tape even in BIII mode, but 10 Hour VHS tapes (In EP mode) were released. Combined with the fact that Sony was tight when it came to licensing the Betamax technology, so prices were high for Betamax decks, while VHS deck makers were numerous and had price wars which brought prices down.
Minor correction, TGOTR. When VHS started, recording time was 1 hour in SP. My science fiction club in high school used to make movies on VHS in 1979, and that was the longest VHS tape available. It cost the club $22.
I love it when people say "Moreover" it makes them sound important and informative when somone feels they have given tmi
There is one statement that i strongly disagree with.
The CD sound quality of Laserdisc was and still is far superior to the compressed
sound of DVD's
Also the Video quality of early DVD's and the players was not great, suffering from
digital artefacts due to poor encoding of the discs from the master film, it took a few
years before this improved, the sound from DVD's is still not upto that of Lasediscs.
In my opionion DVD's should never have been made, the industry should have kept
Laserdisc and VHS going until the Blu-Ray format was developed.
Considering that most people are using the built-in speaker on a TV for sound, the difference in sound quality between a DVD and a LaserDisc is basically nil, as both are limited by the quality of the speaker. Digital artefacts were not necessarily the result of poor encoding (though that was a factor in some cases), as artefacts could also occur due to using low quality video cables or routing the connection through a VCR, amp or other device that introduced electrical interference
(Edit - all of the above were fairly commonplace at the time DVD players were first introduced - many households had TVs that only supported coaxial or RCA in, so they had to route the connection through another device that used a coaxial/RCA cable to the TV. Those that did have RGB inputs may have been using low-quality cables that had poor shielding because good cables were often significantly more expensive. As newer TVs commonly had multiple input for RGB and later HDMI, routing video through VCRs and video switches became less commonplace)
If DVD hadn't been made, Blu-Ray might not have been either, as Blu-Ray came about as a direct result of needing increased storage space over the DVD format to provide higher quality video and sound for movies, and to support the increasing storage needs of the rapidly growing video game market.
I love Pioneer's DJ equipment. I own DJRX2s. Best purchase ever
I'm an old fart...and can only remember one person with a LD player.......it looked like a mini oven.....
im 37, i dont know any1 with an LD player, had a friend with a beta, but they went to VHS a year later
had a Betamax for years but then went vhs as there were more tapes for that around especially in rental shops, never had a video 2000 machine though
I actually got quite familiar with LaserDisc as a kid, my stepfather was really big on video players that (back in the day), video stores like Blockbuster supported and rented out movies for saying “if Blockbuster backs it, it’s a successful format”
I remember as a kid going to Blockbuster and renting movies on LaserDisc, we had a dual laser system that would “auto-flip” discs when side A ended
I never knew anyone that had one. But I remember watching them in school.
Laser Disc were popular in Schools because Apple computers supported "Hypercard" access to laserdisc...with Individual Frame Access.
With Hypercard...students could create programs called 'stacks' of information. WIth drag/drop film clips of frames of the Laser Disc. There was one Laserdisc with art work of the Louve museum. With the hypercard stack and Macintosh interface...students could create their own presentations...accessing individual frames on the disc to do presentations controlling frame access to the Laserdisc with their hypercard program.
www.offtherecord.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=664_666&products_id=39087
If you played that laserdisc at full speed...it was dizzy flash of frames of artwork.
Connected to a computer interface that gave frame access..it became a tool to explore a museum and create your own presentation using the images on the disc as single frames.
Hypercard was amazingly easy to use to create a small program that would interface with the laser disc player to create book reports or science presentations.
As with many good products made by ridiculous companies (looking at you Apple), the Sony Betamax was... Sony. If you wanted to use that format, there was zero selection. Every machine was way too expensive and you had one company to buy it from. Sony. They refused to license the patent so other companies could manufacture them (the way IBM did with the PC and how VHS did with those products).
Sony is Sony. They are infamous for creating their own closed off standards and losing in the end.
MiniDisc, Betamax, DAT, MemoryStick, ATRAC, UMD - all failed.
Recently they made an LDAC codec for Bluetooth and they actually gave it to Android - maybe MAYBE this one will stick. I hope it will, since it's better than APT-X HD.
That's what killed every single one of Sony's formats. They were all proprietary, and licensing fees were so much that publishers and other manufacturers simply avoided them. Superior technology continued to lose simply because of Sony's draconian licensing policies.
wasnt it down to porn the reason they lost in the tape battle , but with HD dvd they one the battle with blu-ray buy selling there ps3 at a loss to ensure alot of households had one in them ,but that was a short war as things went the way of files rather than disc's
Bear Arms
ATRAC was pretty good though.
But I still have hope Sony goes under one day. I was one of the people who had their computer infected by a virus from their music CDs way back when. Hated them ever since.
Had and loved an MiniDisc portable player (that used ATRAC compression) back when the typical MP3 player could only store about 70 minutes of music. When the first iPod hit, I knew the MiniDisc was dead, although I didn't stop using it until I ran the player into the ground (which took several years because Sony portable player quality was amazing back then).
This vid was exactly what I needed this morning. Thanks Simon, this was a lot to take in. Gonna watch it again.
🤯
I love laserdisc. They are like my records. I own over 80.
VHS: F**k you laser disk, loser.
DVD: Dad, hold my beer.
How can you do this without recognizing Ampex, and how the real winner was Germany, though it never received much recognition. (Ampex developed Tape Media, from tech taken from Germany.)
lmao thats cute
Well... Anders Enger Jensen's tune DiscoVision is a reality... Mind. Freaking. Blown. Many thanks for this tidbit of history! And this from a nerd who bought a LaserDisc player for nothing but anime. And who's father noticed the clarity of the format to make my lowly Panasonic player a center of attraction for the family's entertainment needs.
Bought my player at $60 USD. Bought anime LaserDiscs. Local BlockBuster rented LaserDiscs. My precious was the center of our entertainment center's focus for at least four years. Once my father found out about my LD gem he rented a few discs... He was hooked.
Even now the format is magical.
One thing, It's Laserdisc, not Laserdisk.
My2CommonSense why do you care?
Uh, I don't care, it's the proper spelling.
@@my2commonsense476 It's called Internet Pedantic Douche Bag Syndrome.
One thing I missed was the influence of the music industry. When buying a player for a particular medium the available catalog plays an important role after all. Both Sony and Philips owned record companies meaning that when CDs hit the markets an enormous catalog of music both classical and modern was available. CD laid the groundwork for the later DVD market through backward compatibility.
Yeah, just like Germany ultimately won WW2.
they might still.
the war never oficially ended, there was only ever a cease fire between the alied forces and germany.
Really? Maybe you are talking about North and South Korea. It's too bad Germany lost the way it did, I wish they hadn't tried taking on the world.
+Windhelm Guard Uh, what is this then? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Instrument_of_Surrender
cicalinarrot I'm not sure you understand the meaning of the word "ultimately". They're fucked. Being invaded and replaced as we speak.
omg ppl such cringe. the point is that laserdisc DID NOT WIN the format wars. DVD and Blu-ray are the current winners and they ARE NOT LASERDISC, nor are they offshoots of it. If you use broad enough definitions to let laserdisc be the parent of DVD, then by the same logic vinyl records won the storage war. ffs
Part of the beauty and longevity of Laserdisc was its ability to exist side by side its competition. The sorts of people who like LD had no problems also owning a VCR. They would use the VCR for its usual expected use of recording from the TV or even creating backup copies of its LD films; but use the LD player for actually watching movies in high quality and with the advanced search features. This is the reason they never bothered putting a record feature on LD players; everyone had VCRs for that and the VCR was not actually competition.
I still use my LD player because I find the format has done the best at preserving film grain and such. Modern pressings tend to digitally remove that. It does make for a nicer image; but erases a lot of film history. Meanwhile VHS resolution is to low for stuff like that to show up at all.
*Reads title*
This is gonna be about how DVD & Blu-ray uses a similar idea
*Watches video*
100% right. :3
wow ur a genius u should work for nasa
Consider myself lucky. I once found an NTSC Panasonic Laserdisc player for $60AU from a local Charity Shop. I contacted them later about it, and they said they sold it. Thankfully a gut instinct told me to take some money with me a couple of weeks later, because they still had it there, despite what they said earlier. So I immediately purchased it. Thankfully you can get the laserdiscs on the second hand market for cheap. And let me tell you, it's worth it. That and the fact I found that a remote control from a similar player works perfectly on this one. So I'm lucky with that!
It’s funny, I just bought 2 laserdisc player
Yeah, boyeeee!
We had a laserdisc player my uncle gave my dad (as he had upgraded his). It had one laserdisc demo real that we watched a few times. And I do remember the video and audio quality was great, but we had nothing else to watch but that one disc.
So... He stole the idea from a German classic radio?
dumb
Beta in prototype, dates back to 1972. Between 1972 and 1975(interestingly the same period Australian TV stations were gearing up for colour using the superior German PAL system),Sony developed the Beta format before releasing it publicly, officially. Proto models and tapes were made available to potential sellers for demonstration purposes.
VHS won the video wars. Because you could get porn on VHS.
You could get porn on Laserdisc and Betamax contrary to popular belief.
th-cam.com/video/TSk4NZFG_fI/w-d-xo.html
we're talking about format wars, which neither laserdisc nor vhs won because DVD/Blu-ray are not actually successors to laserdisc just because they're discs. anyway the internet won the video war. vhs porn got nothing on broadband
I worked at a video store from 1981-1984. All of the porn was VHS and sold briskly.
Lukiel666 As a former VHS distributer, I concur. Porn outsold general release 4 to 1. Without porn, VHS was dead.
To think that many attribute the victory to Disney.
I work accepting donations and once got a laser disc player in. It was all the bells and whistles set and was a huge set up. At least 3 feet tall.
Ultimately we all lost when streaming won. Sure you get things cheaper and more convenient, but you don't get to choose WHAT you get. "But Amazon or pirating" you mean a small selection of current hits you don't want clogging up your computer's memory or shitty bootlegs in between viruses? I want to watch a specific episode of Psych. Great it's 2018. Go on ebay, look for DVD. Because that's the only fucking way I'm finding it. "But hurr such and such is hosting it right now" God Dammit that's not my point! My point is 90% of all film and TV ISN'T being hosted. With physical media going, so are our options. Nobody is making a mass archive option. Which is what would be a truly superior form.
Blame the record and movie companies for being against anything internet related.
yup. mp4 won the format wars
Psych is on amazon prime video my guy, I’m rewatching it rn, also I have all of the eps downloaded
Physical media is not going away anytime soon. Some people aren't satisfied with the low quality streams (even at 4K) of Netflix and them and want something better that doesn't eat up their data cap.
TGOTR yeah also there’s something about collecting blu-rays that I like a lot of other people enjoy
The President of Bell and Howell, at one time the largest maker of Home Movie Camera in the world, took a Trip to Japan in 1970. He took a tour of the JVC factory and saw the first VHS and Camera setup. It was large and bulky but they showed him how they could record and playback a video almost instantly. The President knew this was the end of movie cameras and by 1980 Bell and Howell switch over to making postal sorting equipment for the post office.
Today I Found Out that Simon is one of my favourite people on TH-cam.
This is consistently one of the best channels on TH-cam
streaming is winning.
Until you find that what you want to watch isn't available.
So i think the big thing missing is when talked about this stuff is the main purpose originally with video tapes was time shifting. Recording a program and watching it later. Vhs was able to record multiple programs on 1 tape due to its legnth and that is 1 large reason they won.
It's hard to understand him.
But, when VCR machines were first released, they cost more than LaserDisc players. The cost didn't become an issue until later, when production of VCR machines dropped. VCR machines were so mass produced by the mid-80's that prices became super low, but LaserDisc never had that chance.
Tunnel bear yall. 😤😤💪💪💪💪take a tunnel. take a bear...Tunnel bear.
Nice try, NSA
Laser Discs were still used at my grade school as late as 2000. I remember watching some kind of nature documentary on one.
A strange winding story that's hard to listen to.
Short attention span much?
The long section about the history of audio tape was pretty much entirely off-topic and best saved for another video specifically about it.
Yeah, story had too many tangents in my opinion. Didn't mean to be overcritical.
@Atheist Avenger - A lot of the info given is incorrect.
My friend brought a laser disc player and we watched some movies on it, I really loved the quality of the movies on it.
The superior product never wins, the Atari 2600 was the worst of all consoles of its generation, beta was superior to VHS, the TurboGrafix16 was the best of its generation (how many people have even heard of it), etc.
beta had a flaw, i forgot what it was, also marketing killed it
Same with the Gameboy vs the Gamegear and the Atari Linyx. (even Ps2 vs. Xbox and Gamecube)
FlyingFree333 Indeed, the superior system never wins. Video2000 out competed both Betamax and VHS as well, but failed for the same reasons as the LaserDisc.
Don't forget the PS Vita and the Neo-Geo
Depends on how you define "superior." I'd say the "superior" machine delivers the features the consumer wants at a price the consumer is willing to pay.
Going to give you credit for your TunnelBear plug. Way better than most cheesy ones but other TH-camrs do