Laserdisc, what is it?

[Ian84]

I was looking at dvds on ebay and stumbled across something called a laserdisc and after a bit more searching I found some laserdisc players, one of which was apparently brand new & unused for £50!, now without sounding dumb are these the same things that are a cross between a DVD and a LP that have been around for a few years? or is it summat i`ve missed out on?

 

[2scoops0406]

Cross between a CD and an LP is more like it but yep that's about it. From the mid '80's

 

[kendor]

Many enthusiasts prefer the uncompressed nature of the analogue Laserdisc compared to digital DVD format as it didn't suffer from such effects such as motion artifacts and colour banding which can affect MPEG 2 compressed discs(usually eliminated during the transfer procedure through frame by frame cleaning up) others on the DVD side will say the picture is sharper and more colourful (due to the higher colour resolution), but other flaws such as "disk rot" the short lifespan of discs and dust, dirt etc affecting laserdisc playback compared to todays DVD led to the demise of the format.
Incidentally those older gamers out their will remember Dragons Lair as the first arcade game to feature the use of these discs.

 

[Nige F]

Laser Do you expect me to talk?...........No Mr. Bond, I expect you to Die

 

[kendor]

Laser Do you expect me to talk?...........No Mr. Bond, I expect you to Die

cut him clean in half! ........what do you mean we've only got 2 milliwatts??!??

 

[Steve]

incidentally, what format are karaoke discs written in?

 

[ninebob]

incidentally, what format are karaoke discs written in?

They're like a multimedia CD-ROM. The format is called CD+G (G for Graphic) - the audio backing tracks are recorded normally, the graphics are all on a data track which can only be read by the CDG player.

 

[2scoops0406]

Many enthusiasts prefer the uncompressed nature of the analogue Laserdisc compared to digital DVD format

And they get to discuss the same film endlessly.