Re: Laserdiscs

[ghouck]

I remember a friend having a player where you never saw the disc, you shoved the jacket with the disc inside, and it spit out the jacket while it played. This would have been in the early 80's, and idea of what that might have been?

[Menaaard!!!]

I remember a friend having a player where you never saw the disc, you shoved the jacket with the disc inside, and it spit out the jacket while it played. This would have been in the early 80's, and idea of what that might have been?

That's a CED

[ghouck]

Cool, you know, when I got my LD Player in '93 or so, I thought the one my friend had was also an LD. I thought they re-gained popularity because of what I assumed was a new, more convenient format (CLV). Funny that I just thought about that when you mentioned people unknowingly selling CEDs as LDs. Now it makes sense why it had the deal with the jacket, the didn't want any dust on it.

[Menaaard!!!]

Now it makes sense why it had the deal with the jacket, the didn't want any dust on it.

That and to prevent scratches as a CED is nothing more than a video LP that used a needle just like a phonograph record.

[Nukie 2]

What do Laser Discs have that DVDs don't have?

[Torgo]

What do Laser Discs have that DVDs don't have?

Actually, Laser Discs have less in terms of memory.  Lots of movies on laserdisc were split up on each side and some players you had to actually get up and flip over  the laserdisc in the player to watch the other half of that particular movie. I had a friend though whose player would play both sides without you having to flip the disc.    Some early DVD's were that way, but once they figured out how to make dual layers DVD's in addition to huge improvements being made in video compression, laser discs were just left in the dust. 

[Kester Pelagius]

What do Laser Discs have that DVDs don't have?

Actually, Laser Discs have less in terms of memory.  Lots of movies on laserdisc were split up on each side and some players you had to actually get up and flip over  the laserdisc in the player to watch the other half of that particular movie. I had a friend though whose player would play both sides without you having to flip the disc.    Some early DVD's were that way, but once they figured out how to make dual layers DVD's in addition to huge improvements being made in video compression, laser discs were just left in the dust. 

Here's some informational links about some of the older video formats from my bookmarks for the curious:

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/EuropeLD/

http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20071027013535/http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/roberts-radios/ced/pages/whatisit.htm

http://disclord.tripod.com/vhddiscworld/index.html

http://www.videointerchange.com/video-history.htm

[Jim H]

What do Laser Discs have that DVDs don't have?

Actually, Laser Discs have less in terms of memory.  Lots of movies on laserdisc were split up on each side and some players you had to actually get up and flip over  the laserdisc in the player to watch the other half of that particular movie. I had a friend though whose player would play both sides without you having to flip the disc.    Some early DVD's were that way, but once they figured out how to make dual layers DVD's in addition to huge improvements being made in video compression, laser discs were just left in the dust. 

It depends on the way you look at it.  DVD video is heavily compressed, but LaserDisc is not compressed at all.  I forget the exact rates, but lossless raw video at DVD resolution is like 2 gigs a minute, somewhere in that ballpark - which means an LD could be considered to have over 120 gigabytes of storage, compared to a dual layer dvd at around 8.5.  But, this is misleading, since LaserDisc video is an analog signal, and can't really be measured in those terms.  It's further misleading as LaserDisc resolution (as close as it can be approximated) is somewhat lower than DVD.  Still, LD is amazingly competitive with DVD when viewed on a quality player.  Just remember the technology are separated by nearly 20 years, as the LD format launched in the 1970s, before even the compact disc.

As far as what LaserDiscs have that DVDs don't - the one major one is quite a few movies, as Andrew mentioned.  A lot of movies on LD will probably never make the DVD jump officially.  There are also cases where the LD version is uncensored, and the DVD is.  Some cartoon collections on DVD, for example, have racist elements altered, which might still be in the LD versions.  Sometimes DVDs are poorly mastered, and the LD is fine - though that's very, very rare these days. 

One more advantage LDs have - the stereo/pro-logic surround is uncompressed.  It can theoretically be uncompressed on a DVD, but it almost never is.  This means on standard stereo and pro-logic soundtracks, the LDs will sound better.

One other advantage LDs may have is durability.  Properly cared for LDs seem to be aging better than DVDs.  This is ignoring the badly mastered ones with laser rot, etc.  I remember reading that DVDs from the late 90s, when scanned for errors on a computer, are starting to have some pop up.  It worries me, as I have a large DVD collection.  But compare this to an LD without laser rot - late 70s discovision titles still play perfectly fine.  Errors on LDs also seem to disrupt playback less often - instead of freezing, you'll get video glitches, which is much less annoying in my opinion.  This is very much a "time will tell" sort of issue though.

[Pilgermann]

I used to have a sealed LD Criterion's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen that I got for cheap, but I parted with it when the new Munchausen DVD came out since it replicated most of the special features, although I kind of wish I'd kept it because I think the commentary track was different (although I couldn't watch it because I don't own a laserdisc player).

There's a special edition laserdisc of Something Wicked This Way Comes that has a commentary track from Ray Bradbury and a couple other folks and that track hasn't found its way to either DVD release.  I may have to get a copy.

[ghouck]

Years ago I saw a web page where a guy turned a LD player into kind of a LD-Rom connected to his computer. He supposedly stripped everything off the LD directly to his computer and used that as the basis for VOB files used to make DVDs. The whole reason was that at the time it was said that Lucas was NOT going to release any pre-special edition versions of the original Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. He wanted to make a high of quality as possible pre-SE edition of those movies on DVD. 

Errors on LDs also seem to disrupt playback less often - instead of freezing, you'll get video glitches, which is much less annoying in my opinion.

Yep, this is just like how analog TV get a little fuzz or flicker when the signal is bad, and digital gets the blocky, pixelated, several-second pause from bad data.