NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Laserdisc

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Not to be confused with disk laser, a type of solid-state laser in a flat configuration.

Laserdisc

Laserdisc (left) compared to a DVD/CD/BD (right).
Media type	Optical disc
Encoding	Various
Developed by	MCA
Usage	Video storage

Optical disc authoring

This box: view • talk • edit

Optical media types

Laserdisc (LD)
Compact Disc (CD): Red Book, 5.1 Music Disc, SACD, PhotoCD, CD-R, CD-ROM, CD-RW, Video CD, SVCD, CD+G, CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-Extra, CD-i Bridge, CD-i
MiniDisc (MD) (Hi-MD)
DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RW DL, DVD+RW DL, DVD-RAM, DVD-D
Ultra Density Optical (UDO)
Universal Media Disc (UMD)
HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-RAM, HD DVD-ROM
Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R, BD-RE

Standards

Rainbow Books
File systems
- ISO 9660
- Universal Disk Format (UDF)
  - Mount Rainier

[edit] History

Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc^[1], was invented by David Paul Gregg in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1990)^[2]^[3]. By 1969 Philips had developed a videodisc in reflective mode, which has great advantages over the transparent mode. MCA and Philips decided to join their efforts. They first publicly demonstrated the videodisc in 1972. LD was first available on the market, in Atlanta, on December 15, 1978, two years after the VHS VCR and four years before the CD, which is based on laserdisc technology. Philips produced the players and MCA the discs. The Philips/MCA cooperation was not successful, and discontinued after a few years. Several of the scientists responsible for the early research (Richard Wilkinson, Ray Deakin, and John Winslow) founded Optical Disc Corporation (now ODC Nimbus), and that company is still the world leader in optical disc mastering technology. Jan. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Philips HQ in Amsterdam Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics N.V.), usually known as Philips, (Euronext: PHIA, NYSE: PHG) is one of the largest electronics companies in the world, founded and headquartered in the Netherlands. ... The Music Corporation of America was a United States based corporation in the music business. ... Philips HQ in Amsterdam Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics N.V.), usually known as Philips, (Euronext: PHIA, NYSE: PHG) is one of the largest electronics companies in the world, founded and headquartered in the Netherlands. ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the state capital of Georgia. ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ... Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed Top view of VHS cassette with front casing removed The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard. ... The video cassette recorder (or VCR, less popularly video tape recorder) is a type of video tape recorder that uses removable cassettes containing magnetic tape to record audio and video from a television broadcast so it can be played back later. ... CD redirects here. ...

The first laserdisc title marketed in North America was the MCA DiscoVision release of Jaws in 1978. The last two titles released in North America were Paramount's Sleepy Hollow and Bringing Out the Dead in 2000. A dozen or so more titles continued to be released in Japan until the end of 2001. The last Japanese-released LD-format movie title was Tokyo Raiders. Jaws is a 1975 thriller/horror film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on Peter Benchleys best-selling novel inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. ... Sleepy Hollow (1999) is a horror film directed by Tim Burton, interpreting the legend of The Headless Horseman and based loosely around the Washington Irving story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. ... Bringing Out the Dead is a film released in 1999. ... Tokyo Raiders (Chinese: æ±äº¬æ”»ç•¥, pinyin: DÅngjÄ«ng GÅnglÃ¼Ã¨) is a 2000 Hong Kong action film set in Hong Kong and Tokyo, directed by Jingle Ma and starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ekin Cheng and Kelly Chen. ...

It was estimated that in 1998, laserdisc players were in approximately 2% of US households (roughly two million).^[4] By comparison, in 1999, players were in 10% of Japanese households.^[5] Laserdisc has been completely replaced by DVD in the North American retail marketplace, as neither players nor software are now produced there. Laserdisc has retained some popularity among American collectors and, to a greater degree, in Japan, where the format was better supported and more prevalent during its life. In Europe, laserdisc has always remained an obscure format. DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is a popular optical disc storage media format. ...

[edit] Technical information

The standard home video laserdisc is 30 cm (11.81 inches) in diameter and made up of two single-sided aluminum discs layered in plastic and bonded with glue. Although read and featuring properties similar to a compact disc or DVD, a Laserdisc is for the most part an entirely analog system with video stored in the composite domain with analog sound and/or some form of digital audio. The first laserdiscs featured in 1978 were entirely analog but the format evolved to incorporate simple digital stereo sound to multi-channel formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS. CD redirects here. ... DVD (also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) is a popular optical disc storage media format. ... Composite video, also called CVBS (Composite Video Blanking and Sync), is the format of an analog television (picture only) signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. ... Digital audio comprises audio signals stored in a digital format. ... Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... Digital Theatre System (DTS) is a multi-channel surround sound format used for both commercial and consumer grade applications (with slight technical differences between home and commercial variants). ...

Since digital encoding and compression schemes were either unavailable or impractical in 1978, three encoding formats based on the rotation speed were used:

CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) or Standard Play discs supported several unique features such as freeze frame, variable slow motion and reverse. CAV discs were spun at a constant rotational speed during playback, with one video frame read per revolution and in this mode, 54,000 individual frames or 30 minutes of audio/video could be stored on a single side of a CAV disc. Another unique attribute to CAV was to reduce the visibility of cross talk from adjacent tracks, since on CAV discs any crosstalk at a specific point in a frame is simply from the same point in the next or previous frame. CAV was used less frequently than CLV, reserved for special editions of feature films to highlight bonus material and special effects. One of the most intriguing advantages of this format was the ability to reference every frame of a film directly by number—a feature of particular interest to film buffs, students and others intrigued by the study of errors in staging, continuity etc.

CLV (Constant Linear Velocity) or Extended Play discs do not have the "trick play" features of CAV, offering only simple playback on all but the high-end laserdisc players incorporating a digital frame store. These high-end laserdisc players could add features not normally available to CLV discs such as variable forward and reverse, and a VCR-like "pause". CLV encoded discs could store 60 minutes of audio/video per side, or 2 hours per disc. For films with a run–time less than 120 minutes, this meant they could fit on a single disc, lowering the cost of the title and eliminating the distracting exercise of "getting up to change the disc"—at least for those who owned a dual-sided player. The vast majority of titles were only available in CLV. (A few titles were released partly CLV, partly CAV. For example, a 140-minute movie could fit on two CLV sides, and one CAV side, thus allowing for the CAV-only features during the climax of the film.)

CAA (Constant Angular Acceleration). In the early 1980s, due to problems with crosstalk distortion on CLV extended play Laserdiscs, Pioneer Video introduced CAA formatting for extended play discs. Constant Angular Acceleration is very similar to Constant Linear Velocity save for the fact that CAA varies the angular rotation of the disc in controlled steps instead of gradually slowing down in a steady linear pace as a CLV disc is read. With the exception of 3M/Imation, all Laserdisc manufacturers adopted the CAA encoding scheme, although the term was rarely (if ever) used on any consumer packaging.

As Pioneer introduced Digital Audio to Laserdisc in 1985, they further refined the CAA format. CAA55 was introduced in 1985 with a total playback capacity of 55 minutes 5 seconds, and was necessary to resolve technical issues with the inclusion of Digital Audio. Several titles released between 1985 and 1987 were analog audio only due to the length of the title and the desire to keep the film on 1 disc (e.g., "Back to the Future"). By 1987, Pioneer had overcome the technical challenges and was able to once again encode in CAA60—allowing a total of 60 minutes, 5 seconds. Pioneer further refined CAA, offering CAA45—encoding 45 minutes of material, but filling the entire playback surface of the side. Used on only a handful of titles, CAA65 offered 65 minutes 5 seconds of playback time. The final variant of CAA is CAA70, which could accommodate 70 minutes of playback time. There are not any known uses of this format on the consumer market. Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) refers to how information is written to or read from a rotating data disk. ... In film, video production, animation, and related fields, a frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture. ... Look up crosstalk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) refers to how information is written to or read from a rotating data disk. ... Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) refers to how information is written to or read from a rotating data disk. ... 3M Company (NYSE: MMM), formerly Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company until 2002, is an American corporation with a worldwide presence. ... An Imation USB Flash Drive and CD-R Imation Corporation NYSE: IMN is an American corporation spun off from 3M, with a worldwide presence that produces mainly data storage products. ...

All of these timing parameters are based on the NTSC standard of 30fps. The PAL and SECAM standards of 25fps increases the playback capacity of all the various formats by 20%.

[edit] Audio

Audio could be stored in either analog or digital format and in a variety of surround sound formats; NTSC discs could carry two analog audio tracks, plus two uncompressed PCM digital audio tracks, which were CD encoded channels, (EFM, CIRC, 16 bit and 44.1 kHz sample rate)^[6]. PAL discs could carry one pair of audio tracks, either analog or digital; in the UK the term LaserVision is used to refer to discs with analog sound, while LaserDisc is used for those with digital audio. The digital sound signal in both formats are EFM-encoded as in CD^[6]. Dolby Digital (also called AC-3) and DTS, which are now common on DVD titles, first became available on Laserdisc, and Star Wars: Episode I (1999) which was released on Laserdisc in Japan, is among the first home video releases ever to include 6.1 channel Dolby Digital EX Surround.^[7] Unlike DVDs, which carry Dolby Digital audio in digital form, Laserdiscs store Dolby Digital in a frequency modulated form within a track normally used for analog audio. Extracting Dolby Digital from a Laserdisc required a player equipped with a special "AC-3 RF" output and an external demodulator in addition to an AC-3 decoder. The demodulator was necessary to convert the 2.88 MHz modulated AC-3 information on the disc into a 384 kbit/s signal that the decoder could handle. DTS audio, when available on a disc, replaced the digital audio tracks; hearing DTS sound required only an optical digital audio connection to a DTS decoder. This article is about audible acoustic waves. ... Multichannel audio is the name for a variety of techniques for expanding and enriching the sound of audio playback by recording additional sound channels that can be reproduced on additional speakers. ... NTSC is the analog television system in use in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and some other countries (see map). ... Audio compression is a form of data compression designed to reduce the size of audio files. ... PCM is an initialism which can have different meanings: Phase Change Material Pulse-code modulation, a way to digitally encode signals representing sound and their video counterparts Potential Cancer Marker Communist Party of Mexico Plug Compatible Manufacturer Power-train control module, a computer in a car which controls the car... Digital audio comprises audio signals stored in a digital format. ... Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation (EFM) is an encoding technique used by CDs and MiniDiscs. ... In the Compact Disc system, error correction and detection is provided by Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code. ... The sampling frequency or sampling rate defines the number of samples per second taken from a continuous signal to make a discrete signal. ... For other uses, see PAL (disambiguation). ... Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation (EFM) is an encoding technique used by CDs and MiniDiscs. ... CD may stand for: Compact Disc Canadian Forces Decoration Cash Dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrum-Demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) Certificate of Deposit ÄŒeskÃ© DrÃ¡hy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers DatorfÃ¶rening (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s... Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... In cinemas, DTS (Digital Theater Systems) is a multichannel audio source for synchronized film sound. ... Events of 2008: (EMILY) Me Lesley and MIley are going to China! This article is about the year. ... Frequency modulation (FM) is a form of modulation which represents information as variations in the instantaneous frequency of a carrier wave. ... A demodulator is an electronic circuit used to recover the information content from the carrier wave of a signal. ... A Digitrax DH163AT DCC decoder in an Athearn locomotive before the shell goes on. ... MegaHertz (MHz) is the name given to one million (106) Hertz, a measure of frequency. ... In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (sometimes written bitrate) is the frequency at which bits are passing a given (physical or metaphorical) point. It is quantified using the bit per second (bit/s) unit. ... TOSLINK is a standardized optical fiber connection system. ...

At least where the digital audio tracks were concerned, the sound quality was unsurpassed at the time, but the quality of the analog soundtracks varied greatly depending on the disc and, sometimes, the player. Many early and lower-end LD players had poor analog audio components, and many early discs had poorly mastered analog audio tracks, making digital soundtracks in any form most desirable to serious enthusiasts. Early DiscoVision and Laserdisc titles lacked the digital audio option, but many of those movies received digital sound in later re-issues by Universal, and the quality of analog audio tracks generally got far better as time went on. Many discs that had originally carried old analog stereo tracks received new Dolby Stereo and Dolby Surround tracks instead, often in addition to digital tracks, helping boost sound quality. Later analog discs also applied CX Noise Reduction, which improved the signal-noise ratio of their audio. Dolby Stereo (or Dolby Analog) was the original analog optical technology developed by Dolby Laboratories for 35 mm film prints in 1976, and first used on the movie Logans Run. ... Sign for Dolby Surround Dolby Surround was the earliest consumer version of Dolbys multichannel analog film sound format Dolby Analog SR (Spectral Recording). ... CX is a form of noise reduction for recorded audio in the analog domain. ...

Both AC-3 and DTS surround audio were clumsily implemented on Laserdiscs, leading to some interesting player- and disc-dependent issues. A disc that included AC-3 audio forfeited the right analog audio channel to the modulated AC-3 stream. If the player did not have an AC-3 decoder available, the next most attractive playback option would be the digital Dolby Surround or stereo audio tracks. If either the player did not support digital audio tracks (common in older players), or the disc did not include digital audio tracks at all (uncommon for a disc which is mastered with an AC-3 track), the only remaining option was to fall back to a monophonic presentation of the left analog audio track. However, many older analog-only players not only failed to decode AC-3 streams, but weren't even aware of their potential existence. Such a player will happily play the analog audio tracks verbatim, resulting in garbage output in the right channel.

On a DTS disc, digital PCM audio is not available, so if a DTS decoder was also not available, the only option is to fall back to the analog Dolby Surround or stereo audio tracks. In some cases, the analog audio tracks were further made unavailable through replacement with supplementary audio such as isolated scores or audio commentary. This effectively reduced playback of a DTS disc on a non-DTS equipped system to mono audio—or in a handful of cases, no film soundtrack at all.^[8]

Only one 5.1 surround sound option existed on a given Laserdisc (either Dolby Digital or DTS), so if surround sound is desired, the disc must be matched to the capabilities of the playback equipment (LD Player and Receiver/Decoder) by the purchaser. A fully capable Laserdisc playback rig includes a newer Laserdisc player that is capable of playing digital tracks, has a digital optical output for digital PCM and DTS audio, is aware of AC-3 audio tracks, and has an AC-3 coaxial output; an external or internal AC-3 RF demodulator and AC-3 decoder; and a DTS decoder. Many A/V receivers combine the AC-3 decoder and DTS decoder logic, but an integrated AC-3 demodulator is rare both in Laserdisc players and in newer A/V receivers.^[9]

[edit] Hardware

The earliest players used Helium-neon laser tubes to read the media with red-orange light, later players used infrared semiconductor laser diodes. It is difficult to find one of the tube players now, in part because of the limited operating lifetime of laser tubes, but mostly because they represent only a small fraction of the total players made. Optical hobbyists have also been known to cannibalize the laser tube machines, further depleting their ranks. A helium-neon laser, usually called a HeNe laser, is a type of small gas laser. ... For other uses, see Infrared (disambiguation). ... A semiconductor is a solid material that has electrical conductivity in between that of a conductor and that of an insulator; it can vary over that wide range either permanently or dynamically. ... A laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a semiconductor p-n junction similar to that found in a light-emitting diode. ...

Most machines made were single-sided; players which required manually turning the disk over to play the other side. A number of players were made that were 'double-sided', in that the machine could automatically reverse the spin direction and move the pickup head to the other side of the disk.

Many Laserdisc players manufactured from the late 1980s through the time of the format's death had both composite (red, white and yellow RCA type connectors) and S-Video outputs on the rear panel. When using the S-Video connection, the player would utilize its own internal comb filter, designed to help reduce picture noise by separating the luminance (brightness) and color parts of the signal, while using the composite outputs forced the player to rely on the comb filter of the display device. Although using the S-Video connection was often considered to yield superior results in the late 80s and early 1990s, most of today's mid and high level television sets contain better comb filters than the vast majority of players were equipped with. In these instances, where a player is being used with a more modern display, using the composite output and allowing the display device's internal comb filter to do the work may yield better results.^{[citation needed]} The 1980s refers to the years from 1980 to 1989. ... RCA Plugs for composite video and stereo audio An RCA jack, also referred to as a phono connector or CINCH/AV connector, is a type of electrical connector that is commonly used in the audio/video market. ... S-Video (also known as Y/C) is a baseband analog video format offering a higher quality signal than composite video, but a lower quality than RGB and component video. ... In signal processing, a comb filter adds a delayed version of a signal to itself, causing constructive and destructive interference. ...

[edit] Combi-players

Most players made after the mid-1980s were capable of also playing audio CDs. These players included a 12cm (5 inch) indentation in the loading tray, where the CD would be placed for play. At least one Pioneer model also operated as a CD-changer, with several 12cm indentations around the circumference of the main tray.

In 1996, the first model DVD/LD combi-player (and first Pioneer DVD player, for that matter) was the Pioneer DVL-9 released in Japan. The Pioneer Elite DVL-90 an updated version, followed by a similar, though supposedly lower-end model, the DVL-700, and were released in 1997. Successors to this model include the Pioneer DVL-909, Pioneer DVL-919, and the Pioneer Elite DVL-91. Although the DVD/LD combi players offered competent LD performance, they paled in comparison to high end LD players such as the Pioneer Elite CLD-99 and the Pioneer Hi-Vision/MUSE HLD-X9.

The Pioneer DVL-909 lacks support for DTS output. However, a modification to the player can allow this player to support DTS streams on DTS discs, essentially turning the DVL-909 into a Pioneer Elite DVL-91.

The last model DVD/LD player was the Japanese only DVL-H9, but the older DVL-919 is still sold in the U.S. and appears on Pioneer's North American website. However, it has not been actively marketed since the late 1990s. The DVL-919 supports DTS output. The DVL-919's DVD section is unremarkable by modern standards, and does not support progressive scan (480p) even though it has component output. As noted above, the LD section, while competent, is inferior to earlier high end LD players. A few Pioneer dealers offer North American specification DVL-919s, and a unit purchased in April 2004 had a manufacture date of December 2003. Pioneer representatives reportedly state that the product is officially discontinued, and that warranty coverage for 919s will be based on the date of manufacture rather than on the date of sale.

[edit] High-end Japanese players

Certain Japanese players, which are considered to be of higher quality or of greater capacity for quality playback than the North American units, are occasionally imported by enthusiasts. These include the CLD-R7G, LD-S9, HLD-X9 and HLD-X0. All four are manufactured by Pioneer and three contain technology that was never officially available in North American Laserdisc players.

The CLD-R7G, LD-S9 and HLD-X9 share a highly advanced comb filter, allowing them to offer a considerable advantage in picture quality over most other LD players when the S-Video connection is used. The comb filter present in these players is unique and is purportedly the finest comb filter ever used in consumer A/V gear: it is still currently in use in Mitsubishi's top-spec CRT rear-projection television sets (the Diamond and now defunct Platinum series sets) and Pioneer's Elite line of rear-projection televisions. In signal processing, a comb filter adds a delayed version of a signal to itself, causing constructive and destructive interference. ...

In addition to the advanced comb filter, the HLD-X9 contains a red-laser pickup, which significantly reduces crosstalk and picture-noise levels compared to players with the traditional infrared laser; it can also read through all but the worst cases of laser rot and surface wear. The HLD-X9 is, lastly, also a MUSE player, capable when properly equipped of playing back high definition Laserdiscs, called Hi-Vision or MUSE discs in Japan. // Definition Multiple sub-nyquist sampling Encoding (MUSE) is the first HDTV compression and transmission system. ...

The HLD-X0 is Pioneer's original MUSE player, and is the player of choice for many enthusiasts despite the fact that it lacks the comb filter shared by the R7G, S9 and X9. It was entirely hand built from hand picked electronics and weighed a massive 36 kilograms. Many argue that the newer X9 was a more capable MUSE player but that the X0 had superior performance with standard NTSC discs. Nonetheless, the X9 remains the more popular of the two models, as it includes the newer comb filter and is a dual-side player, meaning that double sided discs don't need to be manually flipped over in order for both sides to be played.

[edit] Branding

During its development, MCA, which owned the technology, referred to it as the Reflective Optical Videodisc System; changing the name once in 1969 to Disco-Vision and then again in 1978 to DiscoVision (without the hyphen), which became the official spelling. MCA owned the rights to the largest catalog of films in the world during this time, and they manufactured and distributed the DiscoVision releases of those films under the "MCA DiscoVision" label beginning on December 15, 1978. The Music Corporation of America was a United States based corporation in the music business. ... Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Pioneers LaserDisc Logo The Laserdisc (LD) was the first commercial optical disc storage medium, and was used primarily for the presentation of movies. ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ...

Pioneer Electronics also entered the optical disc market in 1978, manufacturing players and printing discs under the name Laser Videodisc. For 1980 the name was compressed into LaserDisc and in 1981 the intercap was eliminated and "Laserdisc" became the final and common name for the format, supplanting the use of the "DiscoVision" name, which disappeared shortly thereafter; titles released by MCA became MCA Laserdiscs or (later) MCA-Universal Laserdiscs. The format has been incorrectly referred to as LV or LaserVision, although this actually refers to a line of Philips brand players; the term VDP or Video Disc Player was a somewhat more common and more correct name for players in general. Pioneer Corporation is a world leader in digital entertainment products, based in Tokyo, Japan. ... Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... AUGUST 25 1981 US Marine Sean Vance is Born on the 25th of August {ear nav|1981}} Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... CamelCase is the practice of writing compound words or phrases where the words are joined without spaces, and each word is capitalized within the compound. ... Philips HQ in Amsterdam Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics N.V.), usually known as Philips, (Euronext: PHIA, NYSE: PHG) is one of the largest electronics companies in the world, founded and headquartered in the Netherlands. ...

During the early years, MCA also manufactured discs for other companies including Paramount, Disney and Warner Bros. Some of them added their own names to the disc jacket to signify that the movie was not owned by MCA. When MCA merged into Universal years later, Universal began reissuing many of the early DiscoVision titles as MCA-Universal discs. The DiscoVision versions had largely been available only in pan and scan and had often utilized poor transfers, the newer versions improved greatly in terms of both audio and video quality. Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... Disney may refer to: The Walt Disney Company and its divisions, including Walt Disney Pictures. ... â€œWBâ€ redirects here. ... This article is about the American media conglomerate. ... A 2. ...

[edit] Significant players

Pioneer LD-X1 (Japanese market only; it had more sophisticated video processing than the LD-S1)
Pioneer LD-S1
Pioneer CLD-1010
Pioneer LD-S2
Pioneer CLD-D703/CLD-D704/CLD-79
Pioneer CLD-97
Pioneer CLD-99
Pioneer HLD-X0
Pioneer HLD-X9
DVL-700/DVL-909/DVL-90/DVL-91/DVL-919
Pioneer CLD-2950
Pioneer CLD-D925
Pioneer LX-1000U

The Pioneer CLD-1010 is a Laserdisc player introduced by Pioneer Electronics in 1987 as the last of their top-spec players not to be part of their Elite lineup. ... The Pioneer CLD-D703 was a part of Pioneers seven-hundred-series of upper-mid-range Laserdisc players, and the first player in the family. ... Pioneers LaserDisc Logo The Laserdisc (LD) was the first commercial optical disc storage medium, and was used primarily for the presentation of movies. ... The DVL-XXXX Series of LaserDisc Home Video Players were manufactured by The Pioneer Corporation and were some of the last LaserDisc Players made before its Retirement. ...

[edit] Laserdisc vs. VHS

LD had a number of advantages over VHS. It featured a far sharper picture with a horizontal resolution of 425 TVL lines for NTSC^{[citation needed]} and 440 TVL lines for PAL discs, while VHS only featured 240 TVL lines. It could handle analog and digital audio where VHS was analog only, and the NTSC discs could store multiple audio tracks. This allowed for extras like director's commentary tracks and other features to be added on to a film, creating "Special Edition" releases that would not have been possible with VHS. Disc access was random and chapter based, like the DVD format, meaning that one could jump to any point on a given disc very quickly. By comparison, VHS would require tedious rewinding and fast-forwarding to get to specific points. Laserdiscs were cheaper than videocassettes to manufacture, because they lack the moving parts and plastic outer shell that are necessary for VHS tapes to work. A VHS cassette has at least 14 parts including the actual tape while laserdisc has one part with five or six layers. Bottom view of VHS cassette with magnetic tape exposed Top view of VHS cassette with front casing removed The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard. ... Image resolution describes the detail an image holds. ...

Moreover, because the discs are read optically instead of magnetically, no physical contact needs to be made between the player and the disc, except for the player's clamp that holds the disc at its center as it is spun and read. As a result, playback does not wear the information-bearing part of the discs, and properly manufactured LDs will theoretically last beyond one's lifetime (however, see Laser rot, below). By contrast, a VHS tape holds all of its picture and sound information on the tape in a magnetic coating which is in contact with the spinning heads on the head drum, causing progressive wear with each use. Also, the tape is thin and delicate, and it is easy for a player mechanism (especially on a low quality or malfunctioning model) to mishandle the tape and damage it by creasing it, frilling (stretching) its edges, or even breaking it. Not to be confused with disk laser, a type of solid-state laser in a flat configuration. ...

[edit] Special Editions

The format's support for multiple audio tracks allowed for vast supplemental materials to be included on-disc and made it the first available format for "Special Edition" releases; the 1984 Criterion Collection edition of Citizen Kane is generally credited as being the first "Special Edition" release to home video,^{[citation needed]} and for setting the standard by which future SE discs were measured. In addition, the format's instant seeking capability made it possible for a new breed of Laserdisc-based video arcade games, beginning with Dragon's Lair, to be born. // Events The Walt Disney Company founds Touchstone Pictures to release movies with subject matter deemed inappropriate for the Disney name. ... The Criterion Collection is a joint venture between Janus Films and The Voyager Company that was begun in the mid 1980s for the purpose of releasing authoritative consumer versions of classic and important contemporary films on the laserdisc and DVD formats. ... Citizen Kane is a 1941 mystery/drama film released by RKO Pictures and directed by Orson Welles, his first feature film. ... Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ... Dragons Lair was one of the first laserdisc video games, released in June 1983 by Cinematronics. ...

[edit] Disadvantages of the format

Despite the apparent advantages over competing technology at the time (namely VHS), the format was not without its flaws. The discs were 30 cm in diameter, heavy, cumbersome, easier to damage on handling than a VHS cassette, and manufacturers did not market LD units with recording capabilities to consumers. Also, because of their size, greater mechanical effort was required to spin the discs at the proper speed, resulting in much more noise generated than other media.

Despite their large physical size, the space-consuming analog video signal of a Laserdisc limited playback duration to 30 or 60 minutes per side because of their refusal to reduce line count for increased playtime. After one side was finished playing, a disc would have to be flipped over in order to continue watching the film, and many films required two discs or more. Many players, especially units built after the mid-1980s, could "flip" discs automatically by rotating the optical pickup to the other side of the disc, but this was accompanied by a pause in the movie during the side change. If the movie was longer than what could be stored on 2 sides of a single disc, manually swapping to a second disc would be necessary at some point during the film. Note: The Pioneer LD-W1 is an exception to this rule, as it has two disc platters.

[edit] Laser rot

Main article: Laser rot

To make matters worse, many early LDs were not manufactured properly; sometimes a substandard adhesive was used to sandwich together the two sides of the disc.^{[citation needed]} The adhesive contained impurities that were able to penetrate the lacquer seal layer and chemically attack the metalized reflective aluminum layer, causing it to oxidize and lose its reflective characteristics. This was a problem that was coined "laser rot" (or, "LaserRot", after the original official CamelCase "LaserDisc" name of the underlying product) among LD enthusiasts. Some forms of laser rot could appear as black spots that looked like mold or burned plastic which would cause the disc to skip and the movie to exhibit excessive speckling noise. But, for the most part, rotted discs may actually appear perfectly fine to the naked eye. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The most fundamental reactions in chemistry are the redox processes. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Later optical standards have been known to suffer similar problems, including a notorious batch of defective CDs manufactured by Philips-DuPont Optical in Europe during the early 1990s. CD rot (or DVD rot) is a common phrase describing the tendency of CD or DVD disks to become unreadeable within a few years of manufacture. ... For the band, see 1990s (band). ...

Coincidentally, the Laserdisc movie that has the most reported laser rot is the film Eraser (1996), as noted by the contributors of LaserDisc Database. The discs for this title were replicated by Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation, U.S., in Terre Haute, Indiana. Eraser is a 1996 action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vanessa Williams. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Terre Haute (pronounced ) is a city in Vigo County, Indiana near the states western border with Illinois. ...

[edit] Laserdisc vs. DVD

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Laserdisc is a composite video format: the luminance (black and white) and chrominance (color) information are transmitted in one signal and it is the responsibility of the receiver to separate them. While good comb filters can do so adequately, these two signals cannot be completely separated. On DVDs, data is stored in the form of blocks which make up each independent frame. The signal produced is dependent on the equipment used to master the disc. Signals range from composite and split, to YUV and RGB. Dependent upon which format used this can result in far higher fidelity, particularly at strong color borders or regions of high detail (Particularly if there is moderate movement in the picture) and low-contrast details like skin tones, where comb filters almost inevitably smudge some detail. Composite video, also called CVBS (Composite Video Blanking and Sync), is the format of an analog television (picture only) signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... REDIRECT RGB color model ...

Compared to the entirely digital DVD, Laserdiscs use only analog video. As the Laserdisc format is not digitally encoded and does not make use of compression techniques, it is immune from video macroblocking (most visible as blockiness during high motion sequences) or contrast banding (subtle visible lines in gradient areas, such as skies or light casts from spotlights) that can be caused by the MPEG-2 encoding process as video is prepared for DVD. However, proprietary human-assisted encoders manually operated by specialist experts can vastly reduce the incidence of artifacts. A compression artifact (or artefact) is the result of an aggressive data compression scheme applied to an image, audio, or video that discards some data which is determined by an algorithm to be of lesser importance to the overall content but which is nonetheless discernible and objectionable to the user. ... Colour Banding Illustrated Colour banding is a problem of inaccurate colour presentation in computer graphics. ... MPEG-2 is a standard for the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information [1]. It is widely used around the world to specify the format of the digital television signals that are broadcast by terrestrial (over-the-air), cable, and direct broadcast satellite TV systems. ...

Audio

DVDs almost exclusively use compressed audio formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS which offer multichannel sound. Most Laserdiscs were encoded with stereo (often Dolby Surround) CD quality audio 16bit/44kHz tracks as well as analog audio tracks.^[10] Many later release Laserdiscs included Dolby Digital and DTS audio tracks but at slightly lower bitrates than DVD. Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... DTS (also known as Digital Theater Systems), owned by DTS, Inc. ... Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... DTS (also known as Digital Theater Systems), owned by DTS, Inc. ...

Other Differences

Given the analog nature of Laserdiscs, without any forms of checksum or error correction, slight dust and scratches cause various problems that could affect video quality. Wearout and/or calibration drift on the playback hardware also play a role in degrading video quality, audio quality, and tracking accuracy. In contrast, the DVD format's digital nature and error correction ensures that the signal from a damaged disc will remain identical to that from a perfect disc right up until read errors become so bad as to prevent the disc from producing any usable data.

In the beginning, another advantage of LD was that you could skim over damaged spots, while a DVD would become unusable. Some newer DVD players feature a repair+skip algorithm, which alleviates this problem by continuing to play the disc, filling in unreadable areas of the picture with blank space or a frozen frame of the last readable image/sound. The success of this feature depends a lot upon the amount of damage. LD players, when working in full analog, recover from such errors faster than DVD players. Direct comparison is, however, almost impossible due to the differences between the two media. A 1" scratch on a DVD will probably cause more problems than a 1" scratch on an LD, but a fingerprint taking up, say, 1% of the area of a DVD would almost certainly cause fewer problems than a similar mark covering 1% of the surface of an LD.

Laserdisc players sometimes suffered a problem known as "crosstalk" on extended play discs, usually with equipment requiring service of the laser optical pickup assembly when this occurs. However, the problem with crosstalk may also occur with poorly manufactured CLV Laserdiscs or with discs that are excessively warped. The issue comes up when the optical pickup inside the player accidentally picks up the encoded video information from a track adjacent to where it was reading on the disc. The added information shows up as distortion in the picture, looking reminiscent of and referred to as "barber poles". Some players were better at compensating for and/or avoiding crosstalk entirely than others, provided that the cause of crosstalk was the disc and not the player. There is no crosstalk distortion on CAV standard play Laserdiscs as the rotational speed never varies, but, if the player calibration is out of order or if the CAV disc is faulty, other problems affecting tracking accuracy could occur, such as "laser lock", where the player reads the same track and, thus, the same two fields for one frame over and over again, causing the picture to freeze as if in pause.

On most television sets a given DVD player will produce a picture that is visually indistinguishable from other units, and quality differences between players only becomes easily apparent with higher-end equipment due to some post-processing of the MPEG-2 stream. In contrast, Laserdisc playback quality is highly dependent on hardware decoder quality (as with any analog format). Major variances in picture quality could appear between different makes and models of LD players, even when tested on a low to mid-range television. This had long lasting ramifications, as the pricing for high end players has remained comparably high (anywhere from US$200 to well over $1,000), while older and less desirable players can be purchased in working condition for as little as $25. USD redirects here. ...

Laserdisc players were known to provide the operator with a great degree of control over the playback process. Unlike many DVD players, the operator is immediately tied to the transport mechanism: pause, fast-forward, and fast-reverse commands are always accepted. There were no "User Prohibited Options" where content protection code instructs the player to refuse commands to skip a specific part (such as fast forwarding through an FBI warning). However, some DVD players, particularly in the higher-end units, have the ability to ignore the blocking code and play the video without restrictions. With CAV laserdiscs the user can access each individual frame of a video; a feature not common among DVD players. However, Some DVD players have cache features which stores a certain amount of the video in RAM which allows the player to index a DVD as quickly as an LD, even down to the frame in some players.

Some of the Arguments

While Dolby Digital and DTS offer multichannel sound, many Laserdisc enthusiasts claim that the uncompressed PCM tracks often can outperform the respective DVDs of a title in richness and depth (and, because of the ways in which 5.1 tracks are often mastered, in dimension as well). One important factor in newer DVD releases' small advancement over Laserdiscs is their opting for 16bit/44kHz sound in lieu of the DVD standard's little-known 24bit/96kHz capabilities.

Some Laserdisc proponents believe analog laserdisc is theoretically capable of higher quality than the lossy quality of DVD. Early DVD demo discs often had compression or encoding problems, lending additional support to such claims at the time. However, "LD-perfection" is rarely achieved in practice. Only the best LDs in the best playback systems exhibit such superior quality in comparison to the newer DVDs. Proponents of Laserdisc argue that Laserdisc maintains a "smoother", more "film-like" image while DVD still looks slightly more artificial. This is similar to the CD versus LP sound quality debates common in the audiophile community. A lossy data compression method is one where compressing a file and then decompressing it retrieves a file that may well be different to the original, but is close enough to be useful in some way. ...

[edit] Comparison to other media

This is a list of modern-day, digital-type measurements (and traditional, analog horizontal resolutions in TV lines per picture height) for various media. The list only includes popular formats, not rare formats, and all values are approximate (rounded to the nearest 10), since the actual quality can vary machine-to-machine or tape-to-tape. For PAL media, replace 480 with 576 and 240 with 288. For ease-of-comparison all values are for the NTSC system, and listed in ascending order from lowest quality to highest quality.

350×240 (250 lines): Video CD
330×480 (250 lines): Umatic, Betamax, VHS, Video8
400×480 (300

Encyclopedia > Laserdisc

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