"laserdisc is dead! long live the laserdisc!"

[laserdisc]

Once upon a time, a webmaster that I consider now a friend wrote: "laserdisc in not dead, it had only retired"... but, after I read the news that Pioneer decided to abandon the format, I cried and screamed: "laserdisc is dead! long live the laserdisc!" as the people once upon a time usually scream when a beloved king die...

I love the laserdisc: it's part of my life! It was my first video format, I bought the first laserdisc with the woman who is now my wife, many of my birthday and Christmas presents were laserdiscs, my two children grew up watching laserdiscs before DVD was ubiquitous!

I have so many laserdiscs that I don't remember (well, indeed I have a complete database in my computer, and they are over 2400, but let me be poetic ;-) ), so many laserdisc players to set the grandsons of my grandsons ready to watch all my entire collection (at least, the laserrot free ones that will remains...).

I knew that last movies were released almost a decade ago, the only brand new players are some combi LD/DVD, but this piece of news was so tragic... like when you don't see a friend for a long time, sure he's busy as everyone but healthy, and one day you discover he passed away the day before! But he will live in your memory, forever...

Well, after some time of sadness and depression, I decided to do something to honor the memory of the laserdisc; I owe it this! I decided to write a book about it! Share all the knowledge I learned on the magazines, newspapers, books in the past 15 years and the information gathered over the web in the past 10 years, to let the people know the "truth" about it.

Now it's time for you to raise your right eyebrow just like Mister Spock, stare for a while with your hand on your chin, scratch your head, mumble some more, and finally say "who in the whole world needs a book about laserdisc nowadays?", then you will suppose that the information floating around the web about the laserdisc argument are enough for everyone; but I kindly disagree.

Let me explain my reasons: it's true, if you search on every search engine, results will contain million pages with the word LASERDISC, but effectively there are so few websites devoted to it, that you can count on your fingers, if you are lucky.
I talk about the websites of the laserdisc aficionados, and I remember here the most important (to me, at least) in no particular order: [b]the laserdisc database, BlamLD, LaserGuru, Laserdisc Archive, Leopold FAQ, Robert Niland FAQ,[/] and also the wikipedia page.

I agree, all these places are useful and everyone who are involved in the laserdisc world should visit them, but I think someone, after visiting these websites, say "I want to know more!, I NEED to know more!". Usually, at this point someone will answer: "Well, buy a book about the argument!" but I could say, honestly, that there is no book that talks about laserdisc, at least no one like "DVD demystified", for example.

Obviously, don't forget all the countless threads in this forum and others, and also the ones on Google groups; there are important supporters who posted in the years, like Joshua, Julien, Kurtis, Douglas, Iain, Kevin, Ty, Christopher, Rachel, Nicholas, Hartmut... it's impossible to name all here!

Literally, there are thousand important bits of info here and there, little chunk of data, curiosities that it's impossible to know them all. Something is saved now thanks to the internet archive, but many, too many things are simply not around, they are vanished. Fortunately, I'm keeping save them on my hard disk, everything, quite every day, about laserdisc from 1999, to preserve them from the passage of the (internet) time. Many GB are awaiting to be rediscovered.

So, I simply came to the conclusion that a "summa" of all the laserdisc information about movies, players, games, history, collector's advices it's not a bad idea, and collect them all in one place, a old-fashioned paper book is a good idea, surely for someone who loves vintage things like a laserdisc lover... where you can find when and where the laserdisc is born, how many titles were pressed, how many copies a certain title has sold, discover what is a VSD, what are the best players, what is a demodulator, what are laserdisc games, which were the real and false names of the laserdisc... but also how to collect laserdiscs, how to send them, how to achieve the best performance in a digital world like this...

I'm realistic, I will not be richer thanks to the ten-twelve copies I hope to sell - my family, my friends, my colleague MUST buy it - but surely I'll be happier, because someone else will know (quite) everything about our beloved big shiny disc!

But, at the end, I must admit that, after ten years on the web reading ALL things laserdisc-related, working in the A/V field for twelve and talked with thousand people, I know so many things about laserdiscs that few others know, but still something is missing...

Yes, I have all the technical details, the info on movies, players, games and, as a old collector myself, many hints and tips; also, the "canonical" history is present, what's missing is the real life experience!

As I live in Italy, I have not the same experience of a person who lives in USA, Japan or UK (or in France, or Germany, other important markets for laserdisc), and it will be wonderful to know what the people thought during the first years of the laserdisc, in its heydays, until the last years; I need someone who lived up the moments, and ready to share its memories.
Also, I'm sure many of you still have the magazines they read in those days, full of meaningful informations, like reviews, technical data, sales figures, charts, interviews etc.

Well, if you have not fallen asleep after reading all this pamphlet, if you think you are one of those persons, and you feel you must participate in the biggest laserdisc project ever, please contact me. Any help will be highly welcomed!

If anybody have any question about the project, want to share here his/her experiences, or just want to know something more about laserdisc, nessun problema! (no problems in italian) - I'll try to answer to every post.

Thanks in advance to everyone, and enjoy your laserdiscs - forever!

Andrea

P.S. Please forgive me for my English, but don't worry about grammar and spelling of the book; it will be corrected, word by word, at least twice, by one of my best friend, a graduated English teacher, (who obviously has NOT corrected this post)

[Brookster]

Sounds like a great project good luck with it.

I got my first laserdisc players (now have 3) this year, you are right that there are so little online resources. I particularly like the wiki page:
Laserdisc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A book would be interesting, look forward to hearing more in due course.

[richard_t]

You can put my name down for a copy of book, it sounds fantastic.

[HummerUK]

I started with Laserdiscs when Philips launched their first machines in the UK and if I recall I got a free disc for being one of the first 500 customers to register their purchase (if they sold that many).

I had several generations of players either Sony or Pioneer badged (I still have my Pioneer 2 side player if it still works).

At the peak I had quite a few discs, about 270 I think which most of which I bought in a shop in Eastbourne who used to import them from the USA which of course had a lot better choice of titles.

Then in April 1997 I visited my shop and he had started importing things called DVD's from the USA...

Twelve years later I now have about 2,400 of them and quite a few of them I have only watched once.

Laserdiscs were cool but like lp's, compact cassette, dat, mini discs and of course one day cd and dvd's all only have a limited life before something better comes along to replace them.

I still have a few Laserdiscs but I suspect like the rest of them I had that they will end up in a landfill.

HummerUK

[Graham43]

I've got a cupboard shelf which is groaning under the weight of (don't remember the exact number) Laserdiscs. Probably all got the dreaded "laser rot" now. Pride of place belongs to a five disc box set "The Compleat Tex Avery" which I managed to track down. Unfortunately, I can't watch any of my LD's because my Pioneer player broke and it would cost me about £80 to get it fixed.

[MrFurious]

i still have my player working and about 30 ld's.

i loved collecting them and the packaging was superb on some, my personal favorites being the star wars definative boxset, the t2 boxset and the platoon oliver stone book edition, so cool.

[HummerUK]

Just imagine how many movies you could get on a 12" double sided dual layer Blue-Ray disc....

HummerUK

[Graham43]

I've got the Star Wars Box Set as well, in a lovely big black box. Also got The Rock BS, Natural Born Killers Sp Ed. and Dawn of The Dead Sp. Ed.

But who got into laserdisc to view/get a hold of the elusive ones? I won't list some of the titles, but you know the ones I mean

[Noggin1980]

Originally Posted by HummerUK

Just imagine how many movies you could get on a 12" double sided dual layer Blue-Ray disc....

HummerUK

bluray area = pie x 6cm (squared) = 113.09
area not used ie the area in the middle (im not going to measure, just looking by eye) = pie x 2cm (squared) = 12.57

113.09-12.57 = 100.52cm (squared)

so thats 0.5GB per cm^2 for a 50GB blu-ray.

so for a 12 inch double sided laser disc but with blu-ray data density

12 inch = 30cm
area = (pie x 15^2) - 12.57 = 706.85
2 lots of that for a dual sided disc = 1413.72cm^2
so thats just over 0.7 of a Terrabyte at a density of half a gig per cm2

So at say 40GB a movie that is over 17 movies on one disc impressive. Concidering that HD-DVD looked just as good as blu-ray in the vast majority of cases you could probably get well over 30 on at blu-ray quality, of course thats all rough math but hey it's only for intellectual curiosity im sure.