I would immediately assume it was the LD. The LD was analog. Seriously. It was a like a CD/Record hybrid. Somehow, the information was recorded as waves (like a record) just in a CD-like medium. CDs (or VCDs in regards to this discussion) use pits that represent the binary ones and zeroes.
Since the encoding in analog, I'd assume that the playback of the LD has the potential to be far superior.
I never saw VCD. Those were the ones that were one complete piece, you insider it, and then the inside was ejected into the player with the case coming out like a cover? I know that description is horrible but I don't know how else to describe it.
Laserdisc I love, though. I should buy more movies. What is the movie that you own, OP?
I never saw VCD. Those were the ones that were one complete piece, you insider it, and then the inside was ejected into the player with the case coming out like a cover? I know that description is horrible but I don't know how else to describe it.
Those were CEDs - (Capacitance Electronic Disc) - those had a lot of flaws (due to the mechanics of the system) and the quality wasn't nearly as good as LD.
Interesting, I may be unfamiliar with this format entirely. They're the size of standard cds?
The same size - I don't think they were ever released over here - but they were very popular in many parts of Asia.
To confuse the issue there was also a CD-Video format that some Laserdisc players could play - they would have one music video and three audio tracks on a cd sized disc. They never caught on and are a collectors item now. (And there were a series of 8" lds that were music ones - generally 4 music videos to a disc that were more popular - I have a bunch of them.)
You know, with efforts to resurrect "dead format"S like cassette tapes, vinyl and even polaroids, I'm surprised their hasn't been a big push to resurrect the LD. I know, DVDs would even be superior, but people love old formats.
You know, with efforts to resurrect "dead format"S like cassette tapes, vinyl and even polaroids, I'm surprised their hasn't been a big push to resurrect the LD. I know, DVDs would even be superior, but people love old formats.
The only person I know who primarily watched movies on LD was my friend's A/V geek dad (who has of course kept up with the times and now wants 4K, Dolby Atmos, HDR movies). They're neat to collect if you never want to watch them since you get the big physical piece of art, but composite video quality, flipping discs over, and being big and heavy as hell are pretty inconvenient.
At least vinyl people can pretend their old crackling and new digitally mastered records "sound better" and old tapes at Goodwill are cheaper than buying an MP3
You know, with efforts to resurrect "dead format"S like cassette tapes, vinyl and even polaroids, I'm surprised their hasn't been a big push to resurrect the LD. I know, DVDs would even be superior, but people love old formats.
The only person I know who primarily watched movies on LD was my friend's A/V geek dad (who has of course kept up with the times and now wants 4K, Dolby Atmos, HDR movies). They're neat to collect if you never want to watch them since you get the big physical piece of art, but composite video quality, flipping discs over, and being big and heavy as hell are pretty inconvenient.
At least vinyl people can pretend their old crackling and new digitally mastered records "sound better" and old tapes at Goodwill are cheaper than buying an MP3
I watch LDs fairly often. And most players will automatically flip sides on a disc. The discs themselves are only heavy in the aggregate. The quality is not that far off of DVDs and LDs have a few advantages over DVDs. Just depends on what one expects from a format.
I never saw VCD. Those were the ones that were one complete piece, you insider it, and then the inside was ejected into the player with the case coming out like a cover? I know that description is horrible but I don't know how else to describe it.
Laserdisc I love, though. I should buy more movies. What is the movie that you own, OP?
Tokyo Pop, 1988. The movie has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray, likely due to both obscurity and licensing costs for the soundtrack. It's about a female musician who goes to Japan and starts a band with a J-Rock musician (who was a real musician himself over there). It was only released on VHS and LaserDisc and I got the latter for best quality, hoping to find a local transfer service than can transfer it to DVD, but none of the local businesses I called have the capability to do LaserDiscs (I own the LD legitimately, so making a DVD copy would be no problem legally, otherwise I would've just pirated it from the internet).
Also, do current Blu-ray players (including PS3) still support VCD or has that functionality been removed? I know VCDs were based on the MPEG format, and classic DVD players supported them since they were made with home-made discs in mind. Let me know.
I have a boatload of VCDs. My player doesn't work so I have never been able to watch them. I would say LD has better quality.
Virtually any computer with an optical drive can play them.
For LD I only have "Driving Miss Daisy." Even though my LD player auto-flips, it doesn't play in one position so I have to flip manually.
FYI: LDs are composite video encoded right on the disc. Any LD player with S-Video uses a comb filter to generate a new S-Video signal, so whatever additional detail S-Video would have had is still lost. The only advantage is that S-Video will better preserve the signal from interference to retain the composite picture quality over longer cable runs or through a noisy setup.
I have a boatload of VCDs. My player doesn't work so I have never been able to watch them. I would say LD has better quality.
Virtually any computer with an optical drive can play them.
For LD I only have "Driving Miss Daisy." Even though my LD player auto-flips, it doesn't play in one position so I have to flip manually.
FYI: LDs are composite video encoded right on the disc. Any LD player with S-Video uses a comb filter to generate a new S-Video signal, so whatever additional detail S-Video would have had is still lost. The only advantage is that S-Video will better preserve the signal from interference to retain the composite picture quality over longer cable runs or through a noisy setup.
Hmmm. Nevermind. I am misinformed. I guess the correct name is VideoDisc, not VCD. They are basically videos on a record. I own 0 VCDs.
VCDs were the Cheapo option of the time while laser discs were the premium option. VCDs are pretty much crap quality. I would say worse than VHS although CHS degrade much worse. They hold an entire movie in < 700 MB
VCDs were popular because they were cheap and super versatile, anyone with a computer can make one or copy one.
They are still a common choice for the cheapest bootlegs. They were much more popular in Asia, and many of the asian video stores here would have some.
I always avoided VCDs like the plague, because they were always associated with bootlegs. I only have a few VCDs worth having. One is a set of episodes from an anime I like (Cyborg Kuro Chan) that had an english dub overseas but never aired in the states, and isn't available on DVD either in Japan or elsewhere. That, and I have an official South Korean VCD of Aachi & Ssipak, a very raunchy animated film that did get a Region 1 release with a dub, but took enormous liberties with the script and basically butchered the original so as to make a completely different and inferior product. The VCD in question is the original korean film with english subtitles. I don't think the R1 release even offered a 'purist' version.
a good vcd is on par with a retail vhs. they have roughly the same resolution and vcd has the benefit of being digital as well as supporting progressive scan video. vcd is specced to match cd audio bitrate, so you can fit 64/70 minutes on a typical disc. you'd be hard pressed to get a whole movie on one disc at proper bitrate.
This thread makes me feel old. I never owned a LD but I remember seeing one once when we stopped at a coworker's of my dad. It was the first projection tv I saw back in the 80s too. They both blew my mind compared to VHS. I remember for a while a lot of obscure but popular films were only on LD and you'd see bootlegs at the comic convention. That's how i discovered Heavy Metal and Rock N Rule.
This was really after DVD, though it came and went during its life. I remember the demos set up at Circuit City back when HDTVs were typically small CRTs or projection so people would swear that they couldn't see a difference.
This was really after DVD, though it came and went during its life. I remember the demos set up at Circuit City back when HDTVs were typically small CRTs or projection so people would swear that they couldn't see a difference.
In terms of USA retail release, that is true, but the D-VHS technology was invented in Japan in 1993, DVD was not invented until 1995. In terms of the actual invention, D-VHS came first (there is a Youtube video using the format on a camcorder in New York City in 1993) DVD retailed in 1997 and D-VHS retailed in 1998 so they were pretty close together.
This was really after DVD, though it came and went during its life. I remember the demos set up at Circuit City back when HDTVs were typically small CRTs or projection so people would swear that they couldn't see a difference.
In terms of USA retail release, that is true, but the D-VHS technology was invented in Japan in 1993, DVD was not invented until 1995. In terms of the actual invention, D-VHS came first (there is a Youtube video using the format on a camcorder in New York City in 1993) DVD retailed in 1997 and D-VHS retailed in 1998 so they were pretty close together.
Those were primarily small-sized tapes used by camcorders for SD content, like a digital version of VHS-C. I used to have one. Full-sized D-VHS for pre-recorded HD movies inside home players didn't happen until 2002 with D-Theater on D-VHS. I have DVD releases from 1996, so it's use as a format for retail sale of prerecorded movies was significantly later.
Of course, the only VCDs I've ever owned were Dragon Ball Z movie bootlegs from Asia, which were in crap quality with crap artifacts and the like.
Not sure if any "good" VCDs exist outside of that in my experience, but if anyone can get one that's close to DVD quality, then I'll still have to say that Laserdisc wins. Because analog > digital.
Comments
Since the encoding in analog, I'd assume that the playback of the LD has the potential to be far superior.
Laserdisc I love, though. I should buy more movies. What is the movie that you own, OP?
I never saw VCD. Those were the ones that were one complete piece, you insider it, and then the inside was ejected into the player with the case coming out like a cover? I know that description is horrible but I don't know how else to describe it.
Those were CEDs - (Capacitance Electronic Disc) - those had a lot of flaws (due to the mechanics of the system) and the quality wasn't nearly as good as LD.
Interesting, I may be unfamiliar with this format entirely. They're the size of standard cds?
The same size - I don't think they were ever released over here - but they were very popular in many parts of Asia.
To confuse the issue there was also a CD-Video format that some Laserdisc players could play - they would have one music video and three audio tracks on a cd sized disc. They never caught on and are a collectors item now. (And there were a series of 8" lds that were music ones - generally 4 music videos to a disc that were more popular - I have a bunch of them.)
I only wish I could find a new used LD player here locally, even time I do I miss it by a few hours...
You know, with efforts to resurrect "dead format"S like cassette tapes, vinyl and even polaroids, I'm surprised their hasn't been a big push to resurrect the LD. I know, DVDs would even be superior, but people love old formats.
The only person I know who primarily watched movies on LD was my friend's A/V geek dad (who has of course kept up with the times and now wants 4K, Dolby Atmos, HDR movies). They're neat to collect if you never want to watch them since you get the big physical piece of art, but composite video quality, flipping discs over, and being big and heavy as hell are pretty inconvenient.
At least vinyl people can pretend their old crackling and new digitally mastered records "sound better" and old tapes at Goodwill are cheaper than buying an MP3
You know, with efforts to resurrect "dead format"S like cassette tapes, vinyl and even polaroids, I'm surprised their hasn't been a big push to resurrect the LD. I know, DVDs would even be superior, but people love old formats.
The only person I know who primarily watched movies on LD was my friend's A/V geek dad (who has of course kept up with the times and now wants 4K, Dolby Atmos, HDR movies). They're neat to collect if you never want to watch them since you get the big physical piece of art, but composite video quality, flipping discs over, and being big and heavy as hell are pretty inconvenient.
At least vinyl people can pretend their old crackling and new digitally mastered records "sound better" and old tapes at Goodwill are cheaper than buying an MP3
I watch LDs fairly often. And most players will automatically flip sides on a disc. The discs themselves are only heavy in the aggregate. The quality is not that far off of DVDs and LDs have a few advantages over DVDs. Just depends on what one expects from a format.
I never saw VCD. Those were the ones that were one complete piece, you insider it, and then the inside was ejected into the player with the case coming out like a cover? I know that description is horrible but I don't know how else to describe it.
Laserdisc I love, though. I should buy more movies. What is the movie that you own, OP?
Tokyo Pop, 1988. The movie has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray, likely due to both obscurity and licensing costs for the soundtrack. It's about a female musician who goes to Japan and starts a band with a J-Rock musician (who was a real musician himself over there). It was only released on VHS and LaserDisc and I got the latter for best quality, hoping to find a local transfer service than can transfer it to DVD, but none of the local businesses I called have the capability to do LaserDiscs (I own the LD legitimately, so making a DVD copy would be no problem legally, otherwise I would've just pirated it from the internet).
Also, do current Blu-ray players (including PS3) still support VCD or has that functionality been removed? I know VCDs were based on the MPEG format, and classic DVD players supported them since they were made with home-made discs in mind. Let me know.
There is also a small forum attached to it - not terribly active though.
http://www.lddb.com/index.php
Depends on the encoding of the VCD. I've seen VCDs that have been DVD quality.
probably SVCD, which used the same codec as dvd's, mpg2, plus support variable bit rate. VCD is only mpg1 and constant bitrate.
I have a boatload of VCDs. My player doesn't work so I have never been able to watch them. I would say LD has better quality.
Virtually any computer with an optical drive can play them.
For LD I only have "Driving Miss Daisy." Even though my LD player auto-flips, it doesn't play in one position so I have to flip manually.
FYI: LDs are composite video encoded right on the disc. Any LD player with S-Video uses a comb filter to generate a new S-Video signal, so whatever additional detail S-Video would have had is still lost. The only advantage is that S-Video will better preserve the signal from interference to retain the composite picture quality over longer cable runs or through a noisy setup.
I have a boatload of VCDs. My player doesn't work so I have never been able to watch them. I would say LD has better quality.
Virtually any computer with an optical drive can play them.
For LD I only have "Driving Miss Daisy." Even though my LD player auto-flips, it doesn't play in one position so I have to flip manually.
FYI: LDs are composite video encoded right on the disc. Any LD player with S-Video uses a comb filter to generate a new S-Video signal, so whatever additional detail S-Video would have had is still lost. The only advantage is that S-Video will better preserve the signal from interference to retain the composite picture quality over longer cable runs or through a noisy setup.
Hmmm. Nevermind. I am misinformed. I guess the correct name is VideoDisc, not VCD. They are basically videos on a record. I own 0 VCDs.
VCDs were popular because they were cheap and super versatile, anyone with a computer can make one or copy one.
They are still a common choice for the cheapest bootlegs. They were much more popular in Asia, and many of the asian video stores here would have some.
Laserdisc to DVD ~ Dreamcast to Xbox (original)
VCD to DVD ~ 16-bit to 32-bit system
Laserdiscs weren't popular because they were bulky and costly, but the jump in quality to DVD, was not all that much.
VCDs were more popular at the time, because they were much cheaper, and easier to be pirated, thus more widespread use.
Even more obscure was D-VHS which was better than all of them pre-DVD
This was really after DVD, though it came and went during its life. I remember the demos set up at Circuit City back when HDTVs were typically small CRTs or projection so people would swear that they couldn't see a difference.
Originally posted by: CZroe
Originally posted by: Trj22487
Even more obscure was D-VHS which was better than all of them pre-DVD
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This was really after DVD, though it came and went during its life. I remember the demos set up at Circuit City back when HDTVs were typically small CRTs or projection so people would swear that they couldn't see a difference.
In terms of USA retail release, that is true, but the D-VHS technology was invented in Japan in 1993, DVD was not invented until 1995. In terms of the actual invention, D-VHS came first (there is a Youtube video using the format on a camcorder in New York City in 1993) DVD retailed in 1997 and D-VHS retailed in 1998 so they were pretty close together.
Even more obscure was D-VHS which was better than all of them pre-DVD
This was really after DVD, though it came and went during its life. I remember the demos set up at Circuit City back when HDTVs were typically small CRTs or projection so people would swear that they couldn't see a difference.
In terms of USA retail release, that is true, but the D-VHS technology was invented in Japan in 1993, DVD was not invented until 1995. In terms of the actual invention, D-VHS came first (there is a Youtube video using the format on a camcorder in New York City in 1993) DVD retailed in 1997 and D-VHS retailed in 1998 so they were pretty close together.
Those were primarily small-sized tapes used by camcorders for SD content, like a digital version of VHS-C. I used to have one. Full-sized D-VHS for pre-recorded HD movies inside home players didn't happen until 2002 with D-Theater on D-VHS. I have DVD releases from 1996, so it's use as a format for retail sale of prerecorded movies was significantly later.
Of course, the only VCDs I've ever owned were Dragon Ball Z movie bootlegs from Asia, which were in crap quality with crap artifacts and the like.
Not sure if any "good" VCDs exist outside of that in my experience, but if anyone can get one that's close to DVD quality, then I'll still have to say that Laserdisc wins. Because analog > digital.