Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert explains Pioneer laserdisc (1980)

[swthair]

Facinating. 

[Claudius131]

What an extraordinary man was Don Herbert. Apart from being a highly distinguished WW2 pilot he was a master of science and the English language, a skilled writer and actor (note how he doesn't refer to cue cards or autocue for the majority of this clip) and a supreme communicator combined with a sense of fun and entertainment. Where else do you get that in one person? RIP Don. Your legend lives on.

[Luigi84289]

When I was in grade school all the teachers used these. Loved the picture quality as a kid.

[RetroToledo]

@Luigi84289 Got my first LD player from a school that ditched it in a dumpster one year!

[sglasspool]

I never knew "laser" was an acronym.

[noisedownloader]

@sglasspool Almost everything that involves technical specs. is an acronym. LASER, MOSFET. RAM. ROM. CPU. NASA. BRAVIA. LED. and so on..

[winterka100]

All of that precision an science, and I can buy a DVD player for $25.00!

[rabbitsib]

I remember in school teacher playing laserdiscs and I thought is was a amazing now days it was like who would want something that big and over complicated device not to mention is couldn't hold much data.

[zazon5]

That's chocolate all right!

[yolangston]

That's chocolate alright.

[Nofancyscreenname]

Who knew that what seems like such a piece of junk today was so complicated !!

[AnAscendingAngel]

This is awesome! What's even more incredible is 10,000 people have watched it and not 1 turd has given it a thumbs down!

[morrisonAV]

@AnAscendingAngel

NOW you've gone and done it!! ;-) Careful what you ask for.....OR point out!

[lnventlve]

@AnAscendingAngel Soooooo tempting.

[jasonmathias]

@AnAscendingAngel There is your 1 thumb down. Love the turd.

[MysticArksRevenge]

@AnAscendingAngel I agree! It is because they respect old technology and Mr. Wizard.

[MikeTaylorLives]

We need more men & women on TV promoting science and explaining it as well as guys like Don Herbert and Carl Sagan did. Don was great at explaining the principles behind everyday things and Dr. Sagan did a wonderful job of presenting the larger universe in terms the average person could understand.

[daffydoug]

I've always love Mr wizard!

[MLeonBridges]

now i understand why blu-ray is so much better, higher frequency light=more detail. how long till ultra violet ray disc players?

[redmustang03]

From 1951 to 2000 Mister Wizard could be seen on TV from new episodes on NBC to Nickelodeon in the 80's. After his show on Nick was canceled in 1990 they still showed reruns to 2000. I mean 49 years of this guy teaching millions of kids about science and made it fun. He was the first guy to do that. He once said that even though he will may die someday his show will never go off air that is so true.

[mrcrtking]

The Constant Linear Velocity (CLV) or extended-play disc doubles the maximum playing time to 60 minutes by varying the rotational speed from a maximum of 1500 RPM for a PAL disc and 1800 RPM for an NTSC disc to a minimum of 600 RPM as the laser beam moves away from the center of the disc. The disc surface therefore moves past the laser head at a constant rate, and each track is longer than it's predecessor, Video Spot on explains the workings in real simple to understand speak, now lost today!

[mrcrtking]

Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) or standard-play disc rotates at constant 1500 RPM for a PAL disc & 1800 RPM for a NTSC disc. Each track, or path traced by the laser for a single rotation of the disc produces a single frame. Each side of the disc holds up to 54,000 frames, the equivalent of 36 minutes of playback for a PAL disc and 30 minutes of playback for a NTSC disc. Each frame has a number that is stored with the data on the disc.

[mrcrtking]

Laserdisc was the first optical storage medium and lead to the development of the CD laserdiscs were released as early as 1979 where as the CD was around 1984 - 1985 ish, The older LD players used HE-NE lasers and with carfull adapting and cooling could be used (on a more beefy power supply) to cut / burn though paper, I have several HE-NE lasers that I played with when yong, laserdisc ultimatly lead to the BlueRay we know today using smaller wave lenght beam of light a Bluey Purple light, Cool!

[Clay3613]

I'm surprised he didn't make a comparison between vinyl and LaserDisc. Its literally the same principle without physical contact between the player and storage medium.

[Clay3613]

Shame we couldn't get Bill Nye to explain the DVD or Blu-Ray.

[Hadra568]

RIP Mr. Don "Mr. Wizard" Herbert

[NinjaGhostScorpion]

One of the smartest men we had the misfortune of losing.

[unclejohnthezef]

MR WIZARD! WahoooOOO!

[TheCartoonClassics1]

this mans got good views, thanks for uploading

[olafurhh03]

humongous cd :)

[steadfastcoward]

@olafurhh03 A 12" optical disc similar to this was used in early PCM audio players by Sony. You may alse be aware of CED-Capacitance Electronic Disc I I haven't mangled it, also known as RCA Selectavision Videodisc and a similar technology from JVC called VHD that used grooves and needles that read CAPACITANCE, not a groove like a phonograph record reading amplitude (put simplistically, VOLUME). CED lasted from about 1982-86, VHD was sold abroad, not in the US. VHS then DVD beat all handily/

[jamak42]

Welcome to the future...

[Prowalka]

lol...i can remenber me :) i have the Muppet Show on this (mega)cd :D

[Prowalka]

lol...i can remenber me :)

[DukeOfJelly]

Mr. Wizard explained Pioneer laserdisc while eating chocolate ice cream. My life is complete.

[steadfastcoward]

@DukeOfJelly Well, I should hope NOT! You too can spread the knowledge....rememberm Mr. Wizard preferred to explain all concepts using plain language and simple props or experiments.

Even the biggest secrets of the universe have a basis in simple truths.

[MickeyKnox]

oh man - I want one :D

[EzekialRage777]

1980 Mr. Wizard taught me something new that is still applicable in today's world. Man!

[Makron5]

Ya know understanding more about Lasers I see holes in Mr. Wizard's representation of lasers :~( NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Draikar]

Great video but One thing I would ask him is what about TV display resolution, most television sets were "basic" only color and B&W. Don't think there were RGB tv's. So was laserdisc better ?

Maybe its like my 1984 Zenith television set, It looks as good if not better then my 1080i-720p TV.

[morrisonAV]

Yep, measurably better. LD had around 425 lines or resolution vs. VHS's 240. Also, linear PCM stereo audio and the lack of tape wear made it a collector's format. Also, they added S-video outputs fairly early to improve the picture quality even more.

[mrcrtking]

@Draikar My Sony CRT projector from 1994 has a better image than any 1080P LCD / plasma and the projector handles way more than 1080P and that was made back in 1994 !!!!! just had to convert HDMI to a signal the PJ could use as in 1994 HDMI (and DVi) were not around. also pretty much any TV with SCART (UK and Europe not sure if scart was in USA) supported Scart RGB and most of not all Digital set top boxes stick out Scart RGB via this socket and it is a better signal than Composite or S-Video

[MrStratofish]

These were the days when a company wouldn't just make the assumption that the customer was dumb like they do today. I wish more did things like this still.

[bellini1992]

@MrStratofish even with this brilliant explanation... it isn't easy to understand----LOL but these were the good old days were Pioneer was THE pioneer in technology

[steadfastcoward]

@bellini1992 Think of it this way: The video carrier is FREQUENCY modulated and the entire bandwidth of the signal on the disc is over 7 megahertz. This allows for not only for a very high quality picture,, breaking the signal down into bits that are represented in the pits of the disc instead of waveforms in a groove it can be represented more clearly/less distortion and can be shown in any order you might program.

There was at least one disc with thousands of images of art one per frame.

[steadfastcoward]

@bellini1992 Laserdiscs formed the backbone of development for the DVD system, pioneering (no pun) letterbox widescreen, digital, multiple and multichannel audio, captioning, interactive multimedia...even HDTV in the form of Japanese discs in MUSE high definition (analog) format.

However, Pioneer did not invent them. Development dates to the mid 60s with works by Gauss, MCA and Philips. Problems with production, standards were not good and Pioneer is seen as a savior of the format.. c '78-'01