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TonyIC · May 23, 2002, 02:02 PM

A long time ago in the dark ages...

O. K. so it was the 80's. I remember going out to my friends farm and watching movies. The player was about the size of a modern day vcr/dvd player. The movies were stored in cases like the old-cd-roms found in the quadra's. All you did was slide the cartridge into the player and the movie would start. The cartridge itself was about the size of an LP (you know those flat round things that came before CD's).

Does anybody else remember this or am I just going crazy?

I was trying to find some information on this for a paper.

Unfortunatley the player is long gone and so is my friend.

Any help would be appreciated.

Ti X · May 23, 2002, 02:04 PM

It was called a laserdisk. I think Pioneer was the main manufacturer of the players.

hmurchison2001 · May 23, 2002, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by Ti X:
It was called a laserdisk. I think Pioneer was the main manufacturer of the players.

Laserdisks were far to large and resembled Albums more than CD's

Ti X · May 23, 2002, 02:07 PM

Look here....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=1353542474

cdhostage · May 23, 2002, 02:08 PM

I remember when I was 6 or 7 my father took me to the closest prep school (which happened to be the one I attended in highschool), and showed me the "giant CDs" as I called them Stored on the rainbows were videos colleges sent out to promote themselves to the lower schools.

They were CD technology, but with much larger disks. Very fragile too

I broke one when I dropped it.
I dunno what kind of video compression tech was used - there wasn't enough processing power in computers then to decompress DVD-quality files.

ReggieX · May 23, 2002, 02:08 PM

Nope.

The ones with the cartridge were RCA Videodiscs. They use a technique analogous to a record stylus for playback, in other words, a physical groove was read to reproduce the video and sound.

Pioneer, on the other hand, were the brains behind the Laserdisc, which were read by a laser, like CDs and DVDs. No wear and tear on the dics itself, thus more flexibility and longer life. These came in slip cases like records with soft inner sleeves to protect the surface.

I have about 40 Laserdiscs, including The Matrix and Episode One

AND NO REGION CODES!

hmurchison2001 · May 23, 2002, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by ReggieX:
Nope.

The ones with the cartridge were RCA Videodiscs. They use a technique analogous to a record stylus for playback, in other words, a physical groove was read to reproduce the video and sound.

Pioneer, on the other hand, were the brains behind the Laserdisc, which were read by a laser, like CDs and DVDs. No wear and tear on the dics itself, thus more flexibility and longer life. These came in slip cases like records with soft inner sleeves to protect the surface.

I have about 40 Laserdiscs, including The Matrix and Episode One

AND NO REGION CODES!

They were analog also....no compression needed!!!

ReggieX · May 23, 2002, 02:14 PM

Originally posted by cdhostage:
I dunno what kind of video compression tech was used - there wasn't enough processing power in computers then to decompress DVD-quality files.

No compression, just PCM stored analog video, much like a CD is PCM stored audio.
More info at the Laserdisc FAQ

ringo · May 23, 2002, 02:16 PM

Originally posted by ReggieX:
AND NO REGION CODES!

There are cheap ways to bypass these... http://www.220-electronics.com/dvd/sampo611premium.htm

On-Topic: Don't forget the lowly VCD in your "History of the DVD" paper! More info about these here... http://www.vcdhelp.com

[ 05-23-2002: Message edited by: ringo ]

Millennium · May 23, 2002, 02:24 PM

A lot of old anime also comes on laserdiscs; they were the preferred format for fansubbers, in fact, before DVD's arrival.

They also had menus and extras, unless I'm mistaken.

Paco500 · May 23, 2002, 02:25 PM

You may be talking about one of two things.

The laserdisc was a 12" disc that had info encoded digitally. I have a Sony player and a decent collection of classics (Star Wars, the Godfather, etc.). Video and sound quality was far superior to VHS, and, in some ways, better than DVD. There was little to no compression so there were no artifacts or image degredation like you see from time to time on DVD.

The down-sides were: the discs were big and content was limited to 30 or 60 min per side depending on how it was encoded. The higher qulity encoding allowed for super slow-mo and other effects. Therefore, my Jurrasic Park consisted of 4 discs. Some players played both sides, but you often had to stop in the middle of a movie and change discs. The discs were also never widely distributed, and there was little no no rental market. Because of this, the players remained pretty expensive, but movies were abou the same as today's DVD's.

The other thing, which I beleive you are actually talking about, was called video disk. These were loaded with a caddy much like old CD-ROM. They were analog devices, but with a higher quality image/sound than VHS. They played like a record, w/ a stylus. They were never widely successful, but a small group of enthusiasts loved them. Most content on them was bootleg- I saw Bladerunner on a Video Disc system long berfore it was released on video.

Here is a link to info on at lease one such system. I don't know if there were others.

I'll keep looking for more info, cuz I'm interested again.

EDIT:

Wow- I type slow- all the info is now there.

[ 05-23-2002: Message edited by: Paco500 ]

davidflas · May 23, 2002, 03:22 PM

I was and am really into LaserDisc as a substitute for VHS. I have a lot of them still including these special edition discs:

Here is the rest of my collection:

A lot of these aren't out on DVD yet.

[ 05-23-2002: Message edited by: davidflas ]

starman · May 23, 2002, 03:58 PM

I have a slowly shrinking collection of LDs. I recently threw away my Alien/Aliens box sets (couldn't even sell them on eBay), and my entire Space: 1999 collection (laser rot). As DVDs are released, I check to see if the DVDs were prepared with the same content as the LDs. If so, I chuck the LD. Yeah, the LDs have PCM sound, but if you take three aspects of home theater software: video, audio, and media breaks, DVD always wins in 2 of those catagories, and loses only 1 (DD 2.0 audio when compared to 2-channel PCM).

I loved and hated LD. Better than VHS, but the side breaks and COST pissed me off.

Mike

cpt kangarooski · May 23, 2002, 07:53 PM

Well, hell. Don't toss 'em out. Send them to me. I'll be more than happy to take them. (even if I have to resort to hanging them from my rear view mirror

nealconner · May 23, 2002, 08:35 PM

I was just thinking about laserdiscs to-day actually. My only experience with them was in a math class way back when with a laserdisc made by the text-book company about geometry.

MacmanX · May 23, 2002, 11:13 PM

Where can one still find LDs? I would love to find an online store. eBay is just too random, and I've nearly depleted the supply of used LDs at the local 2nd hand bookstore (I seem to be the only one who has bought one in the last year.)

Cheers!

Mac Zealot · May 23, 2002, 11:40 PM

I find it funny you bring this up....
we still have those LD players all over our school lol, the exact same hunkers as in the ebay auction too :/

I thought they were cool

Knof8 · May 24, 2002, 12:03 AM

cpt kangarooski Well, hell. Don't toss 'em out. Send them to me. I'll be more than happy to take them. (even if I have to resort to hanging them from my rear view mirror

OMFG, I would love to see someone try this