Laserdisc Guide Moes Home Theater. This guide was written by Rachael Bellomy who was nice enough to allow me to post it here on my site. She has a pretty wacky web site check it out here. If youre reading this Im assuming that you dont know much or enough about the Laserdisc format. Here, Ill fill you in with a history of the format, advice about players, advice about discs, general terms, and how to hook up players. Its the holiday show that sparks a frenzy Oprahs Ultimate Favorite Things Hold on to your jingle bells and check out the featured items. HISTORY OF THE LASERDISC FORMATThe format first appeared in Atlanta and a few other test markets in 1. At that point it was being pushed by Phillips Magnavox and MCA. Hi-Def Quality Open Season 2 ' title='Hi-Def Quality Open Season 2 ' />The discs were marketed under the name Disco. Vision. The early Magnavox players were called Magna. Vision. The players were all single side, top loaders. The video output was an RF radio frequency cable to go to a TVs antenna input and also carried a mono audio track. Until about 1. 99. RF output or composite video output. Most of the early players also featured a pair of jacks to export high quality analog stereo sound to an amplifier or home stereo system. The early Disco. Vision discs were generally defective. They were all CAV discs that only fit 3. CAV is explained below. Over 100,000 HQ DivX TV Movies All DVD Quality 99. Active Links The Fastest Streams Updated Daily No Cams And we love you too. They all suffered from manufacturing defects. If they were playable they had some degree of spots in the picture caused by air inside the disc. Air inside a Laserdisc will cause it to rot rot means the oxygen in the air breaks down the aluminum substrate that contains the pits that contain the program information that the players read. The picture gets more and more spots that appear over time and the audio gets pops and other abnormalities. Eventually, they figured out how to vacuum out the air during the disc manufacturing process, but it took a few more years to figure out that the glue they were using to seal the two plastic halves that covered the aluminum substrate was gradually oxidizing and releasing oxygen into the discs. Its a good rule of thumb to avoid Laserdiscs dated 1. By 1. 98. 2 most discs were CLV, up to 1 hour per side, more about CLV later. In 1. 98. 1, after Disco. Vision was stalled, Pioneer became involved in making players and discs and the format began to move towards its modern incarnation. A few years later composite video outputs appeared and in 1. Pioneers first statement player, the LD S1 even featured S Video output and an optical digital output to send the digital audio stream of the new Digital Sound PCM discs to an outboard digital to analog converter. A few years later, the first LDCD combo players appeared. By 1. 98. 8 Pioneers entire line, except the statement player LD S2 and the LD W1 auto flip, double disc player that played four sides in succession, was made up of CDLD combo players. Also, in 1. 98. 8 I found out about discs that had OAR original aspect ratio and started buying them. If there were OAR discs before that, they were few and I didnt know about them. Anyway, the gradual shift to mostly proper OAR discs began. Players stayed pretty much the same, with only small improvements like a small drawer for CDs, until 1. Pioneer released the HLD X0 in Japan. It was the first player to feature an AC 3 Audio Coder 3, the original name for Dolby Digital output. In 1. 99. 5 Pioneers entire U. S. lineup, except the budget model CLD S1. AC 3 RF output, allowing people with proper decoders to experience multiple channel surround sound at homeMore about AC 3 RF later. In 1. 99. 7 Pioneer introduced their ultimate combo players that handled LDs, CDs, and DVDs. Pioneer is no longer manufacturing LD players for the U. S. A few dealers still have DVL 9. ELite DVL 9. 1 DVDLD combination players in stock. In Japan where the LD format was far more popular, Pioneer is making the last production runs of LD players now spring 2. Pioneer has announced that 1 June 2. Laserdisc format. Theyll provide service for many years to come, undoubtedly. Other manufacturers quit offering LD players in the U. S. between 1. 99. That pretty much brings us up to the present and its time to move on to the technical specs of the format. LASERDISC TERMSCAV Constant Angular Velocity is also called Standard Play. CAV discs or sides are limited to 3. The frames of CAV discs correspond to the actual film frames. So, when you pause, or still frame, on a disc the image you is one of the films frames. CAV is often used on disc sides that contain extra or special materials. Cheap The Triplets Of Belleville Movie on this page. Its perfect for displaying images of things like movie posters or pictures of the set or cast. CAV discssides have a running frame count instead of running time in the players display. CAV discssides allow the user to use all the formats playback features which include frame by frame advance, still frame, and multi speed. CAV discs are a great way to study how films are put together. Many people dont like them for casual viewing since the disc must be changed more often. Many CLV disc sets have one side, typically the last side, in the CAV format. CAV picture quality is said to exceed CLV picture quality by 1 to 2, but its never been readily apparent to me. CLV Constant Linear Velocity discs, sometimes called Extended Play can typically hold up to one hour per side, a very few have exceeded that. But, most LD users will never see that Its rare for US discs to exceed 6. Japanese LDsThe overwhelming majority of discs are CLV. Using basic LD players, CLV discs dont allow the use of the players still frame or frame advance. You cannot view the films actual frames on CLV discs. They are not available. Some nicer player have Digital Field Memory DFM. Using DFM one can use still frame and frame advance to see still images but they are not the films actual frames. Since about 1. 99. DFM. DIGITAL SOUND When an LD is thusly labeled it means it has a PCM digital audio track which could be mono, stereo, or Pro Logic. In the laserdisc world, Digital Sound does not mean 5. Dolby Digital or DTS. CX NOISE REDUCTION CX noise reduction was used on analog Laserdiscs or the alternative analog soundtrack that is present on Digital Sound Laserdiscs. I think its something along the lines of various Dolby noise reduction systems A, B, C, ect. I think it simply raises the signal above the noise floor like Dolby does. The sound on analog sound laserdiscs is generally pretty good. TRICK PLAY Is a term that generally refers to Digital Field Memory see above in CLV or other special playback functions. Some nicer players, like the CLD 9. STROBE playback. It drops some of the frames but maintains the sound. The image will look like a series of stills. Many camcorders have similar functions. The Panasonic LX 1. U even has an odd paint function that will give the image a chalky, animated look. AC 3, THE LONG FORM. AC 3 AUDIO CODER 3, its the original name for Dolby Digital on Laserdics. The last count I heard was that there were over 8. AC 3 Laserdiscs released in the U. S. I think CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER was the first. The first one I got was STARGATE. AC 3 has caused beaucoups of confusion with more than a few LD newbies. Here, Ill explain it. The original LD format specifications included a stereo analog soundtrack plus analog left and analog right options. In the mid 8. 0s the digital audio channel was added to the LD specifications. After Digital Sound appeared Pioneer insisted that all Laserdiscs maintain an analog soundtrack to maintain compatibility with older players that only supported analog sound. Now, in 1. 99. 4 when Pioneer added AC 3 surround sound to the Laserdisc specifications they wanted to maintain compatibility with as many of the older players as possible. The only players that would not be able to play the AC 3 encoded discs would be the very early players that only had an RF output for video and analog sound, that was routed into a TVs antenna input. The analog right channel was the channel that was routed into the players RF output. Partner Perspectives. Partner Perspectives. Partner Perspectives. White Papers. Current Issue. Digital Transformation Myths Truths. Transformation is on every IT organizations to do list, but effectively transforming IT means a major shift in technology as well as business models and culture. 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