Laserdisc - The Format No One Respects (HD Version)

[bumblefritz]

Goddamn I love widescreen. I know it's nothing new (I guess we know why). Widescreen is the shit.

[heythanksbutnothanks]

What you said about digital sound I love Metropolis the Moroder version I reckon you probably don;t but for a long time the Laserdisc version was the only digital version available, it sounds amazing, but now it has been released on blu ray, but I was so happy to have that on Laserdisc for a long time...hope you don't mind 3 comments. But yes sound formats have come a long way since pro logic, now e got 7.1 HD master audio.

[heythanksbutnothanks]

Good review though!

[heythanksbutnothanks]

I still have my 919 Elite to this day, it is set up but I rarely ever have it on, I think I kept it because it looks nice, but it is big and bulky. But I kept it too because there still are a few things you cannot get on DVD that were available on laserdiscs, like some music videos and concerts.

Also remember I had a damaged DVD audio disc and my 919 laserdisc player is the only machine I had that would play it perfectly, you probably know the Elite 91i9 can play both DVDs and laserdiscs.

[710blodgett74]

Laserdisc was awesome back in the day. I still have my criterion Laserdisc of the Game, Seven, Taxi Driver, Breaking the Waves

[Xenomorph52]

I am watching this years from now on an HDTV and there are no black bars.

[Zaranyzerak]

@Xenomorph52 That's because this is the 16x9 re-posted version. I originally shot this in anamorphic 16x9, but when it was originally posted it was when YouTube still had the 4x3 player. So the original post was re-formatted for 4x3 letterbox. This version was re-encoded straight from the original 16x9 master, so no black bars.

[darthbriboy]

this my argument for blu-rays don't have an hd tv don't get them. have an hd tv get a ps3 that thing will play video games and blu rays. ps3 makes all other blu ray players look weak

[rothsothy]

ZARANT~!

[apeman1980]

good point on the Widescreen videos man, the first movie i saw in Widescreen which i still own today is Ghostbusters 2 on VHS!! I Like the info ur giving us about Lasrdisc History, up here in Eastern Canada where i live, i never saw any Laserdisc Players or movies in the stores when i grew up, we only had VHS at the time!! but i have heard of Laserdisc from Satellite tv on an american channel in the 80s

[MrCrazyKool]

Even if the BEST quality.. it's very simple. It's WAY to big.

[theceng]

i dont like the black bars in movies the black bars now are larger then they used to be and the movie is smaller looking then before

[Zaranyzerak]

@theceng The black bars are not larger now. Movies still use the same aspect ratios they've been using for 60 years. If you're watching on a 16x9 TV, many movies that would have had black bars on a 4x3 TV now fill the screen. Watch a 2.35:1 (cinemascope) aspect ratio film on a 4x3 TV. Then watch it on a 16x9 TV. The bars are MUCH smaller on the 16x9 TV. The fact is, no TV, regardless of aspect ratio, can display all the different aspect ratios out there without black bars sometimes.

[theceng]

so its the tvs?

[Zaranyzerak]

@theceng It's both. How big the bars are depends on what kind of TV you're using (an old "square" one or a new "rectangular" one), and what aspect ratio the movie is in. Some aspect ratios are wider than others, so you'll have black bars to some extent no matter what kind of TV you view it on. But very little has changed about the aspect ratio of films over the years, just the TVs we view them on, which NOW are actually far better suited for widescreen content than the old TVs.

[theceng]

thatnks at least theres the option of making the movie full screen i prefer it that way

[Zaranyzerak]

@theceng Yes, but bear in mind when you do that you're cropping off huge chunks of the image to force it to fit the screen, or stretching and distorting the image to fit. Black bars aren't so bad, I don't even notice them most of the time. I'd rather see the entire image instead of chopping it up to fit the screen.

[theceng]

just the way dvds are released in australia most of them have the black bars which cover about half the screen that y i generally zoom it in to make it full screen the only thing cut out is the credits eg actors names

[RushBeatles]

@theceng To answer your question for him, yes, it's the TV's aspect ratio. If you do have a widescreen TV, make sure your video input devices are set to 16:9. 1.78 aspect ratio and ones close to that ratio will fill up a widescreen TV (depends on how much overscan your TV does on the edges), anything with a 2.something:1 aspect ratio will have small black bars, but shouldn't be that big, certainly smaller than what they looked like on an old fullscreen TV.

[M3n747]

Say, why isn't this video in your HD Rants playlist?

[Zaranyzerak]

@M3n747 I never really thought of it as a part of that series, it's not really a rant.

[M3n747]

@Zaranyzerak But you say in part 10 that you're going to talk about laserdisc next, and you refer to this video in later parts, so it would be logical to have it in the playlist. Besides, this particular video fits the theme of HD Rants way more than the Over 9000 Subs video, which actually IS in the playlist. ;)

[Zaranyzerak]

@M3n747 I think the Over 9000 video is in ALL the playlists, it was a special exception.

[Mankind081]

Why did LD have things in widescreen if nobody had widescreen TVs?

[Zaranyzerak]

@Mankind081 You can watch widescreen on a 4x3 TV, it just appears letterboxed (black bars on the top and bottom). Just like how if you watch a Cinemascope movie on a 16x9 TV there are still black bars. You mean you've never seen widescreen on a non-widescreen TV before? It's been around since the 80's...

[Mankind081]

@Zaranyzerak Yes I have seen hundreds of widescreen movies displayed on 4:3 box TVs and they look dreadful because you can't see what's going on unless it is a huge screen. That's my point.

[Zaranyzerak]

@Mankind081 Well, until about 10 years ago that was the only way to watch widescreen in the home since widescreen TVs didn't exist yet. It was about preserving the full theatrical image and composition as it was intended to be seen. I too have seen hundreds of widescreen movies on both VHS & Laserdisc, never had a problem seeing what's going on, and I haven't always had large TVs to watch them on. Bear in mind also that Laserdisc was MUCH higher quality than VHS or cable TV, so it looked fine.

[someguy001001]

So what's better Videodisc or beta?

[Zaranyzerak]

@someguy001001 Laserdisc by far. Beta was only slightly better than VHS resolution.  Laserdisc was almost double that.

[someguy001001]

@Zaranyzerak ok but what about Videodisc was it better or Betamax?

[thej762000]

You're so right on about good old LD. I must have a hundred lbs worth of Laserdiscs in storage.. I'd get them out but the old Pioneer player is busted. LD still deserves props as the original enthusiast video format.

[Hamzz96]

This dude reminds me of my IT teacher

[bheemabachus]

CD's will never beat Records as far as quality sound. Records are real sound, CD is digital. Tell me different, I dare you.

[Zaranyzerak]

@bheemabachus In terms of potential fidelity, correct. But no matter how well you take care of those records you'll still get pops and crackles throughout. Not so with CD. And now, with even higher bitrate audio formats available the difference is negligible between digital and analog when done properly. You can easily create a digital recording of an analog source now that sounds identical. Not on CD, but in the purely digital realm of computer-based recording.

[bheemabachus]

@Zaranyzerak Okay, fair enough. I guess it's kind of a trade off, but since CD's are still available I'll trust you.

[quigon87yt]

@Zaranyzerak - Don't forget FLAC conversions have been out for a while and can be recorded on almost any digital media, I see the days of records being numbered.

BTW - I still collect records, two Laserdisc players and two Mitsubishi VCR's just because vintage electronics is still so cool.

[Zaranyzerak]

@quigon87yt FLAC is just CD-quality in losslessly compressed form. The hardcore record fans don't like the sound of CD quality to begin with, so that makes no difference to them.

[mirabilis]

@bheemabachus CD's has much better SNR than LP's

[bheemabachus]

Video Disc is also called CED, and if I'm not mistaken (which I often am,) it was only called CED.

[bheemabachus]

Opening music Iz awesome! Must jam to music! MUST!!!!

[discjunkietv]

The "Talking out of my ass rants" then?

[discjunkietv]

I need an LD-player NOW.

[Dant2142]

2 interesting facts about AC-3 audio:

1: Because it was encoded as one of the analog tracks on the disc, you had to either had a player, receiver, or external box that could decode it, all of which seem to be near impossible to find now.

2: AC-3 is, in fact, the same 5.1 encoding they use for ATSC over-the-air TV.

[dvdmike007]

I respect it!

[hemanshera777]

you mentioned that someone made you a Fan-Made DVD of Song Of The South from a Japan Lasserdisc. right?

[spida1a]

Great stuff! I still have about a hundred LaserDiscs still and I absolutely LOVED collecting them for about five years (there was something about the 12" Disc....the giant artwork...I don't know...it was just awesome).

And as for Letterboxing, you're right...I had (and still have) the Criterion edition of Ghostbusters. I loved being the only guy in my neighborhood to see the entire frame of GB. Ha ha. :)

[yuukisama2001]

Kudos to Zaranyzerak for giving an extensive talk about LD. I own a DVL-700 (Pioneer) still works perfectly. I can play DVDs on it. But of course despite the clarity of DVDs they still have bugs and aren't perfect. As I've found time and time again trying to play them on different players. But as we know nothing is perfect the first time around. Let's not forget LD were region free when converting import movies to VHS. This was the generation of masters came about. Later Recording onto SVHS.

[mydogprick]

i bet the a.v. store you went to in toronto was called BAY BLOOR RADIO thats where i used to go back in the day your story is very similar to mine when i 1st found out about ac3 i had T2 on laser disc that came with the same note

[Zaranyzerak]

Yes!  That was the one! I knew it had a street name in it, just couldn't remember what it was...hehehe.

[unclefister77]

i still watch laserdisc. i'm a dead format junkie.......

[killervacuum]

Was this made before youtube was in 16:9?

[Zaranyzerak]

Originally yes, but it was filmed in 16x9. This is the 16x9 version.

[yhtomitb]

I still have over 700 LDs in my collection, but I probably only watch 7 or 8 a year these days. I always felt that the biggest DISADVANTAGE to LD was that I couldn't loan them to my friends, because they didn't own a player. The biggest ADVANTAGE to LD was that I couldn't loan them to my friends, because they didn't own a player. That way, I could always be sure to keep my discs in pristine condition! ;-)

[yhtomitb]

Just for some clarification, "VideoDisc" as you call it was actually CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) from RCA. It was designed to utilize the LP pressing facilities that RCA had contemplated shutting down. The CED system utilized a stylus (aka: needle) very similar to what an LP requires to read a disc. "True Lies" and "Clear and Present Danger" came out in 1996 and were the first two Dolby Digital releases. The following year DVD was released and the rest is, as they say, history.

[ImportantIrrelevance]

I really want to get some of the old Criterion laserdics, specifically Sonatine, Citizen Kane, and Supercop. That would be so kickass.

[frankfantastic001]

Dragons Lair was the first game to be on a Laserdisc.

[Zaranyzerak]

Actually, the first Laserdisc game was one called "Quarter Horse" (a horse racing/betting game) which was developed in 1981, and released in 1982. The outer space shooter "Astron Belt" also pre-dates Dragon's Lair. A prototype of Astron Belt was shown in 1982, and it came to market shortly after Dragon's Lair in 1983. Dragon's Lair didn't appear until 1983.

[leathertrousersrock]

Im an avid laserdisc collector with a Pioneer CLD2950. I was just wondering if anyone wants to share thoughts on particularly good quality releases. So far True Lies (PAL), Evil Dead 2 (red disc) and Thelma and Louise are my best quality LDs.

[s9lngbord]

@stingrn:

Zaran gave you the correct short story. The long story: ANY laserdisc was only as good as the source material used and the transfer itself. If pristine condition film / hq digital master tapes were used, the LDs came out near DVD quality. Also, choice of LD player is of EXTREME importance. A cheap player will yield a cheap result.

Unfortunately, I read a few laserdiscs looked like they were made from VHS tapes (ugh!).

Some very early DVDs looked pretty crummy.

[Knightmessenger]

the best players were the X0 and X9 which were only made and sold in Japan.

[pvx]

Very true about the early DVDs--The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" DVD that was released in 1997 has some really granular-looking compression artifacts.

This was possibly due to MPEG-2 itself (being the core technology making DVDs work) being such a new technology then, with it's compression algorithms & such (like multi-pass encoding) not having been perfected yet, with  MPEG-2 haitng been just standardized & published by the ISO & IEC in 1996. DVD was one of it's first uses.

[pvx]

(pardon my typo- "having" instead of "haitng"). :P

[fenixwylde]

I've got a few LD movies :) Unfortunately I have a crappy industrial Sony LD player.

[mariskal26]

this is my favourite video of you...im from south america argentina and this format was doin really great here so i remember a lot of laserdisc-clubs down here

[patchman1997]

Zaranyzerak has viewers all around the world!

[pelamar121]

i had five vhs widescreen

[Zaranyzerak]

And I had about 100 widescreen Laserdiscs. I never said it wasn't on VHS AT ALL, just nowhere near as common or standard as Laserdisc. In the latter days of Laserdisc, it was rare to see a new release not in widescreen.

[pelamar121]

i see

[sinning1966]

Analog seperated sound in the back of the home theatre for the Laserdisc. Wow! So, is the sound on the Laserdisc better than the Dolby Digital on DVDs (or even Blu-Ray discs)?

Because analog sound should sound closer to the theatre (I mean 90's cinema theatres) because recently, I've seen some cinemas where they put the DVD film onto a DVD player and project it on the screen. And I'm scared that they do that for all movies at the theatre now :-(.

[stingrn]

I really exited about getting a laser disc !

but i heard that its worse than VHS is it true ???

[Zaranyzerak]

God, no! It's sooo much better quality than VHS. Nearly double the resolution and digital sound. Many of the later releases looked just as good as DVD.

[stingrn]

Wow man that's cool ! thanks for the advice ! =D

[The64BitGeek]

I remember that my dad came home with a VCR one day.

He bought it "in second hand" so it wasn´t a brand new one.

I think we were the only family that had a VCR on our street for a while so my brother and I were quite popular during that time.

[The64BitGeek]

When I was a teenager (around 15 - 20 years ago) I remembered laserdiscs.

They were pretty cool back then because they looked like a big CD.

I think LD:s are the same size as LP:s.

I didn´t own any LD:s or a player for that matter.

I was a teenager with no money.

[DarthGaras]

I remember an episode of the Simpsons were they go to the town dump. There is a rubbih pile for Beta, a rubbish pile for Laserdisc and then an empty spot which said "reserved for DVD." A tad cruel, but it made me chuckle.

After watching this vid I have more respect for laserdisc, but can still see why it didn't take off. The price is an issue and I think most people don't like flipping discs mid-movie. It sorta spoils the mood.

[sinning1966]

Well, I remember I had a Beta tape from a french movie made in 1978 called "La Zizanie" and the Beta tape was in widescreen (big black bars). Manhattan was in the early 90's I guess.

[sinning1966]

Early than this some color 60's french movies were widescreen. Even on Vhs in the 70's.

Correction: Manhattan was released in 1978.

[Zaranyzerak]

There may have been some rare cases of movies being shown in widescreen on television, but Manhattan was most definitely the first home video release in that format.

[sinning1966]

Yeah. If you only talk about the U.S., you're right.

[Zaranyzerak]

If there were any widescreen video release elsewhere in the world prior to that, I have yet to find any record of them. Everything I've seen seems to back up that Manhattan was the first, period.

[PearlJammer07]

Laser disc is so cool. Very cheap now too.

[EvolutionStratus]

LOL I loved your story on how you didn't understand why there wasn't an audience when you watched your first widescreen film. Back when I was a kid, I also didn't understand the concept of widescreen myself.

[Zaranyzerak]

Hehehe...only from the mind of a child, eh? I remember thinking that the audience must have just been really into the movie, so that's why nobody got up during the whole thing. :D

[2Old4Toys]

Hey, flip side disks didnt die with LDs, I still have a few DVD's that need to be physically ejected and turned over halfway through! Ah... the nostalgia.

I suggest "Zaranyzerak's Rambles"

[Zaranyzerak]

Oh I know, a lot of early DVDs were flippers until dual-layer became a more widely used standard.  And they STILL crop up from time to time. But overall, most DVDs nowadays are single sided.

[CoolXer0]

call it Rantarayzerak. Its almost as hard to pronounce as your screen name lol.

[msize802456]

Cool Video I recently did few videos on Laser Disc check it out if you get chance Great Job

[moviejohn75]

My Step dad has about 40 Laser Disc and the player just chillin in a closet I want it but he will not part with them.I bet some are worth a good penny what do you think and do you have a myspace if so send me the link so I can add you.

[JesusOfSuburbia94]

When u were talking about widescreen i remember watching T2 on dvd in widescreen and my grandfather was asking why it was cut off on the top and bottom and why anyone would buy it i tried explaining it to him but I was like 11 and he did not believe me.

[Zaranyzerak]

Lol! Yeah, what's a young whippersnapper like you gonna know about it, eh? ;) I feel your pain!

[Vermillion1000]

thanks for uploading old eps

[Zaranyzerak]

My pleasure! It's been irritating me for a long time, and thought I should get on it before too long.

[Vermillion1000]

its really kool of you man, as ive seen most of your videos and it still amazes me how smart you are and i learn alot from your videos and now i have a whole new batch f videos to watch, keep 'em comin sean

[moviejohn75]

I always thought Beta never got respected

[Zaranyzerak]

That too, but my main point with this video was to illustrate how many of the features we enjoy today actually started with Laserdisc. Not to mention that it was far from a failure and lasted almost as long as VHS...

[dvd6441]

ZARANYZERAK, what is the most attractive laserdisc packaging? You just highdefefied your HD rants, you are a perfectionist.

[Zaranyzerak]

Yep. I say exactly that about myself in my new video, which is currently processing and should be live any minute. I'm "HDing" ALL the old MMC episodes that aren't already HD, fixing ones with aspect ratio issues, etc.

As for most attractive LD packaging, take your pick of pretty much any of the MASSIVE boxed set collector's editions that came out in the mid-90's. Some of those were amazing! I still have a few kicking around, one of these days I'll show 'em off.