The Laserdisc (LD) is an obsolete home video disc format, and was the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially marketed as Discovision in 1978, the technology was licensed and sold as Reflective Optical Videodisc , Laser Videodisc , Laservision , Disco-Vision , DiscoVision , and MCA DiscoVision until Pioneer Electronics purchased the majority stake in the format and marketed LaserDisc in the mid to late 1980s.
While LaserDisc produced a consistently higher quality image than its rivals, the VHS and Betamax systems, the laserdisc never obtained more than a niche market with videophiles in America. In Europe, it remained largely an obscure format. It was, however, much more popular in Japan and in the more affluent regions of South East Asia, such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Laserdisc was the prevalent rental video medium in Hong Kong during the 1990s.
The technology and concepts provided with the Laserdisc would become the forerunner to Compact Discs and DVDs.
History
Laserdisc technology, using a transparent disc, was invented by David Paul Gregg in 1958 (and patented in 1961 and 1990). 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. Laserdisc 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 Dakin and John Winslow) founded Optical Disc Corporation (now ODC Nimbus).
In 1979, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago opened their "Newspaper" exhibit which used interactive Laserdiscs to allow visitors to search for the front page of any Chicago Tribune newspaper. This was a very early use of digitally interactive technology in museums and could even be among the first.
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. The last Hong Kong-released Laserdisc format-movie was Tokyo Raiders . A dozen or so more titles continued to be released in Japan, until the end of 2001. Production of Laserdisc players continued until January 14, 2009 when Pioneer stopped making them.
It was estimated that in 1998, Laserdisc players were in approximately 2% of US households (roughly two million). By comparison, in 1999, players were in 10% of Japanese households. Laserdisc was released on June 10, 1981 and a total of 3.6 million Laserdisc players were sold in Japan. A total of 16.8 million Laserdisc players were sold worldwide of which 9.5 million of them were sold by Pioneer.
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, the Laserdisc has always remained an obscure format. The format was, however, chosen by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the BBC Domesday Project in the mid-1980s, a school-based project to commemorate 900 years since the original Domesday Book in England.
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. Although appearing similar to compact discs or DVDs, Laserdiscs use analog video stored in the composite domain with analog sound and/or some form of digital audio. However, despite its analog nature, the Laserdisc at its most fundamental level is still recorded as a series of pits and lands much like DVDs and CDs are today. The first Laserdiscs featured in 1978 were entirely analog but the format evolved to incorporate digital stereo sound in CD format (sometimes with a TOSlink or coax output to feed an external DAC), and later multi-channel formats such as Dolby Digital and DTS.
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 crosstalk 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.
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). 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. 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. 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.
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