MUSE Hi-Vision Laserdisc: The Blu-ray of 1994
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2018
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1080i in 1994. Wow. Really, perhaps as early as 1993, but it seems the first player was released in 1994. Anyway, what better way to end the saga on Laserdisc than by talking about MUSE Hi-Vision discs. And some other stuff, too!
Here’s a link to the entire Laserdisc playlist:
• The Story of Laserdisc
Technology Connections on Twitter:
/ techconnectify
Here are many sources for your eyes to see:
www.nhk.or.jp/strl/aboutstrl/...
--This source has a lot about how MUSE works-
ura.caldc.com/stannum/hivision...
www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/las...
www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/...
Most importantly, the forum posts!
www.avsforum.com/forum/114-hdt...
forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f...
www.avsforum.com/forum/37-vide...
www.cedmagic.com/forum/viewtop...
forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f...
forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f...
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/ technologyconnections
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Many years ago, I worked at Pioneer Video Manufacturing in Carson, CA. I mastered many of the Pioneer Laserdisc Karaoke discs you mentioned. And since we were Pioneer, we had a prototype and original LD-R machine, where we would make "one off" LD-R discs as customer proofs before mass duplication. Thanks for covering this topic, was a great trip down memory lane.
Imagine having a stack of LDRW disc's on your desk instead of cd rws when burning movies off lime wire
@@pepeshadilay if LDR and LDRW actually existed in the consumer market, laser disc would have beat VHS in every single department possible, and would've saved it from being exclusively high end format. also if CLV discs should've needed to hold 2-4 hours and CAV discs to hold one to two hours for convenience sake. i know it's super unrealistic but it would've helped laser discs tremendously for the masses.
It's an important part of modern human society. We need a truely permanent data storage medium. One with a half life in the tens of millions of years. How else will we preserve our consciousness and Facebook memes in the distant future?
@@matt.willoughby i agree tenfold when the internet eventually dies out, the aliens that find this planet would have something to see and learn from after were gone.
That's very cool
"The Laserdisc of Laserdiscs" just killed me LOL
The laser-y-est!
weehawk Yeah me too, that’s brilliant.
how about the sound of that thing turning on? lol...omg, next to that little tv lol
Because it was a disc moving at 95 miles per hour
I never want the LaserDisc series to end....
I wished there was more, and there is. But some are not entirely LD and not part of the series. Like Video CD (VCD), Philips CD-I (Digital Video with optional DV cartridge).
NUON the DVD with games capability. And everyone's favorite rare duck the Panasonic 3DO with optional VCD module.
Ahh the 80s through the early 2000s, a great time for experimental formats.
Laserdiscs are my entire childhood.
Back in the day some friends were dealing with a group that was experimenting with cutting laser disc glass masters. Really heavy stuff being spun at high speeds as they were being encoded. The tech my friends knew was watching the disc with a scope as they asked questions about the stability of the system when the tech said something like "Funny, it just went gray." at that point one of the people grabbed him and everybody dived for the ground.
Glass was embedded into the concrete wall all around them.
Later visits the device was encased in bullet proof lexan.
Holy Hell, that's pretty insane.
To think in only a few years that something like that had become a novelty, is both sad and impressive.
You know what they say about experimenting with freebase laser discs!
Holy shit! 😱 That's f---ing scary, and so lucky that people were on top of their sh-t well enough to get everybody safe! Whoa.
This is why CD-R capped at 52x. The discs that went faster than that sometimes went to shrapnel mid-burn so they pulled them from the market. I remember seeing 64x in stores for a few months, then they vanished.
Wild Blunt Hickok there was a 72x speed one made by kenwood
This series is how I discovered this channel. As a teenager, I was (and still am) really interested in the history of anime, so LDs come up a lot.
Now that I have acquired a Laserdisc player from a local thrift store, I have returned to this series of videos. It made me pretty nostalgic.
Never stop explaining technology to me! I may not understand most of it, the the humour is spot on for me haha
I remember watching on a hi-fi store, circa 1994, a widescreen CRT TV playing Terminator 2 in very high resolution (well, at least compared to VHS). Only years later I became aware that it was a MUSE LaserDisc.
ganymedeIV4 Actually, 1080i CRTs aren’t that good for old 240p games. They are still far better than LCDs though. What you want is a good, 1990’s Trinitron.
Hernán Álvarez Were you in Japan when you saw it? Then it might have been a MUSE LaserDisc. If it was outside of Japan, you just saw regular LaserDisc. They were still a lot better than VHS.
Just Another CZcams Channel my old 32 in Trinitron weighed probably near 200 lbs. it was advanced at the time, but as soon as I got an HDTV, I said I’m never moving this tv again and so left it in the apartment when I moved out.
David I completely can’t blame you for that, they are stupidly heavy. I’ve only got a little 21-incher 4:3 set and it is nearly the limit of what I can’t carry, but even bigger sets are monstrous. My family has a 2002 576i SD Widescreen Trinitron, which was also like 32-inches, but it wasn’t HD. It cost 2 grand when brand new, but was one of the heaviest things ever, and it took half my family to move it. We carried it up the stairs when we moved it from the living room, and then moved it down again years later, and eventually chucked it. I wish we hadn’t thrown it away now since I love Trinitrons, but damn was it heavy.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel "What you want is a good, 1990’s Trinitron."
No, what you want is a 1990s or 2000s CRT with an ordinary spherical tube which has an ordinary RGB triad shadow mask, which is the same type of tube that nearly everyone actually had when those games were new. Trinitrons, with their cylindrical or flat tubes and aperture grilles instead of shadow masks don't look right with classic ~240p games.
For classic consoles I use a 32" RCA 32V430T TV that I bought new in 2005 (and it's still like new because I've never used it all that much) which looks spectacular. It looks great with VHS tapes or DVDs too, especially DVDs because it has component (YPbPr) inputs, though you need a DVD player than can output 480i over component because it's a standard ~15 kHz TV (my DVD player can).
"Imagine this but 50% faster"
Me, watching the video at 1.5x speed for the lols": Done
I watch most non-music videos at 1.5x to save time. It's a good life hack.
Nice
Perfect for longer videos where you're watching to answer one question and you already know 90% of everything else being said
"Honey, where's the disc?"
"It's playing right now, why?"
// Disc tray open and window broken. Sirens in the distance //
"My God...."
"Surrender now or i will play this muse disc!"
I would love to have seen that, I am actually thinking about doing a similar thing if I can find one of my better motors to do that with (I have a lot of spare parts lying around on my desk and on work shop style shelves at home)
High speed (48x) CLV CD recorders has been known to shatter the disks to pieces. Then variable speed recorders appeared on the market and the problem went away.
Yeah, but those discs were so solid that even if it were to crack, it shouldn't escape the player. I remember dropping a laserdisc on asphalt once and because it was two solid sides glued together, one side cracked, the other didn't.
Also I once had a CD explode in my CD-ROM drive and that was spinning faster than 50x (or at least sounded like it). I was sitting right next to it and nothing flew out. The inside of the drive got killed and I had to buy a new drive and CD-ROM disc, but that's about it.
The Slo-Mo Guys did a video about spinning up CDs until they exploded, and recently did a similar video with vinyl records.
I feel like I'm watching a PBS special. "This program was made possible by support from viewers like you. Thank you!"
As a kid i was always like "what is this Viewers Like You outfit? Seems weird, is it like a advocacy group or something?"
@@weatheranddarkness *an advocacy (because "advocacy" starts with a vowel sound)
Sony CRVs did indeed store component video. The BBC used them extensively to play the BBC One and BBC Two station idents (the bits that go between shows) both in London and the national and regional centres. The English regional centres also often used them to play their local news opening titles (and because the format was component you could do a good quality chroma key from them)
They were also extensively used by BBC News to provide the backgrounds for the early 'not-quite-virtual-reality' 1990s BBC News studio - which was all blue and cut glass. A number of CRVs were driven, alongside a Questech Charisma DVE, under external control to play foreground fill alongside key/matte rolls in sync, with the Charisma DVE inserting a camera shot into the end of the titles, in a frame accurately tracked box! All quite clever for the era. A daily finance show called working Lunch used them extensively for all chroma key backgrounds - allowing near-instant recall of numerous animated backgrounds, and nicely integrated DVE moves.
By the 00s the discs were beginning to suffer drop out, and by the mid 00s were replaced with solid state key and fill sources or video servers playing file-based media.
I worked in TC7 at BBC TV Centre between 2000 and 2005. We had a CRV player to play the fill (video) signal of the opening titles of BBC Breakfast, Working Lunch, Newsround and Newsnight. We also had a prototype hard disk player (serial number 0001) that would play the key signal for the titles.
(Edit - just noticed the name of the person posting above - we used to work together in TC7 and TC10!)
Laserdisc was one of those formats that I dreamed of when I was a kid. Like my own personal unobtanium.
ganymedeIV4
Mindblown
ganymedeIV4 My Dad was like that with audio. For the longest time, a pair of Bose 901 up front and 501s in the back. Nice 4channel setup with reel to reel, record player, cassette deck... just straight up 70’s hifi.
Same here but my father as many opted for practicality as opposed to the super cool thing.
Laserdisc, Neo Geo and one of those rear projection TVs.
The first time I heard of laserdisc was in college back in the 90's. A professor had one and played a movie with it. I never understood why anyone would want one. It's the only time I have ever heard of or seen one other than these TC CZcams videos.
So much respect for actually writing your own subtitles. Love all of the sassy descriptions
There was an amazing video on CZcams (which was recently taken down sadly) of a NHK broadcast of the 1988 Seoul Olympics in true high definition.
You could see the deficiencies of the MUSE format in that any part of the video in motion was quite blurry, while still images were quite good in terms of detail.
Plus there's the whole weirdness of looking at a scene from 1988 in HD...
There is a video from the year 1900 that is in hd but it has some film degradation but it still looks way better than 99% of videos from the 80s
You better have a channel full of malt liquor reviews......so much potential, drink more or something
I think the way MUSE worked was that each transmitted or recorded frame only contained a third of the actual lines of the image, and the rest were interpolated based on previous frames. Sort of an extreme version of interlacing. Hence a picture in motion would be limited to 345 lines of resolution.
There's a video called "Good Night Tokyo" from 1992 in HD, but I'm not sure if it's MUSE or an early test for the HD format.
There's a 1992 episode of BBC's music show 'Top of the Pops' that was a co-production with NHK as a HD test. It was produced with 4 D2 format tapes running in sync, each one recording the fourth pixel along (tape 1 - pixel 1, tape 2 - pixel 2, tape 3 - pixel 3, tape 4 - pixel 4, tape 1 - pixel 5, etc). Really hope we see that some day (BBC are repeating every acceptable episode of the show - one of the hosts was a pedo so those aren't shown - but who knows if the HD version of that episode still exists and if they'll use it when they get to the correct time)
"The engines! They cannae tak' it captain!!"
"Warp 9.8 Mister Scott! I'll watch that movie it if kills us!"
"WE DONT. HAVE. THE POWEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!'
I cannae change the laws of fysiks captain!
I love how your Laserdisc videos take us "back to the future" of home entertainment.
"The CRV other than being a midsized crossover" omg I died 😂
Techmoan has just brought a CRVdisc machine, so we might be able to determine if it does operate with component signals rather than composite. *EDIT:* I just watched his video, and yes, it does use YPbPr component to store video rather than composite.
This brings back memories of early 1990s Japan... I vaguely recall chest-height TVs in cabinets (sometimes on wheels) with Laserdisc jukeboxes below them that took up most of the remaining space between the TV and the floor. They could be found in karaoke boxes as well as many one-room bars/clubs. Customers could browse all available titles (there were a lot) in a multicolor brochure. The video quality was pretty decent, audio was excellent, and access time wasn't bad either - I seem to recall it taking no more than 30 seconds to queue up a title. I don't recall, but I think they could play a karaoke version of the audio as well as a version with the original singer. And yes, they had text on-screen, which I think was directly encoded in the video feed as opposed to a caption. If it was possible to turn off the text, nobody ever did.
And yes, I distinctly recall Pioneer logo all over the place at these karaoke / pubs.
New LDs were pressed for karaoke machines for a few years after the last movie was released on the format.
You should do a video about Blu-rays. I know the basic differences but your level of detail is so good the I'm sure I'll learn a lot.
can you imagine how much space a blu-ray the size of an LD could have?
I appreciate the mild Honda CRV pun you squeezed in there. 👌🏽🤣
Dude, you don't "suck at this", I like how you're not cramming social media down our throats. You're channel is refreshing in that it doesn't adopt the 'standard format' CZcams videos seem to follow these days. Just keep doing it how you do, it's great.
*Your (possessive)
you're = contraction of "YOU aRE"
The segment on widescreen reminded me of the time I was watching a DVD film with family. The disc was with letterbox but they insisted we watch it 'full screen' on their 4:3 TV using the zoom function on the player, the result? Something which resembled an NES game but they insisted we 'watch' it this way.
My parents used to do that
Of course the real reason why HDTV started taking off in 2005 was because as of July 1st, 2005, all televisions over 36 inches were mandated by law to include a built-in DTV tuner (followed by all TVs over 25 inches in 2006, and finally _all_ new TVs in 2007.) Prior to then, most new TVs -- even large-screen ones -- were only "HD Ready" and did not include a built-in HDTV tuner.
I've noticed that Americans tend to conflate widescreen, digital, and HD, presumably because they spread in the US at the same time. But they're not inherently related, as is demonstrable from the UK where digital TV was already widespread before HD started to make an impact. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you.
Where was I conflating any of that? The U.S. has had digital satellite TV since 1994 and digital cable TV since 1996. It's just over-the-air digital broadcast TV that took a lot longer to catch on here.
I would say at least one of the reasons why HDTV started taking off in 2005 is because of the Xbox 360. I know that's why I ended up getting an HDTV. Couldn't see the HUD and text in most games on an SDTV.
EDIT: Oh. Apparently by "HDTV", you actually meant HD broadcasts and not HDTVs (you know, the thing everyone thinks of when you say HDTV because that's what an HDTV is). Please get your terminology right, no wonder the other guy started talking about how Americans conflate things.
Oh, by HDTV you meant HD Displays and not HDTVs? (you know the thing everyone think when im being a youtube pedantic shit)
@@vwestlife Yes... but digital T.V. does not necessarily mean *_HDTV,_* as "digital T.V." - whether it be via satellite, cable or over-the-air - can still only mean *_SDTV (or_*_ _*_*Standard Definition*_*_ _*_T.V.)_* in digital (as opposed to analogue) form. Therefore, "digital T.V." has been around much longer than HDTV *_even in America!_*
From the late 90's many European televisions supported the anamorphic 16:9 picture format via the SCART-plug. This includes 4:3 televisions sets, that could squeeze the scanned lines into a 16:9 area.
The pin 8 of the SCART-plug was used by the video recorder or DVD-player to signal that it was playing. The voltage was 10-12V for 4:3 format and 5-7V for anamorphic 16:9. Most DVD players and set-top-boxes could be set up to utilize the anamorphic 16:9 format. The SCART-plug also included RGB chanels, which also was widely supported by DVD-players and TV-sets. This made a quite good picture, on both 16:9 and 4:3 TVs.
Late 90s North American Trinitrons also had squeeze mode! you had to select it in the menu
The SCART plug was magical.
I was really hoping to see a live demonstration of the picture resolution and quality... But I suppose you are excused in this case :D
Yeah. Machine seems to be broken.
I think in his older videos, that specific player is not one of the higher definition players. It's just a model he's wanted since he saw a picture of it in an ad he saw long ago. He has one now, but it doesn't work, as that model is supposedly easy to break.
Well, this is kind of it czcams.com/video/-3wTaixrdB4/video.html
My first introduction to Laserdisc was at an AV fair my dad went to, they had an 80 inch tv playing the Michael Keaton Batman as a demo. At the time, 30 inch CRT’s were big, and VHS was the best we’d ever seen.
@@ShogunGin0 Yes, the player on his desk is an early-model regular LD deck with the unreliable gas laser.
Thanks for this! I binge watched this playlist and loved every second of it.
You are easily one of my favorite content producers on CZcams. Keep on rockin'
Man, your delivery, professionalism, videography, it's all so spot on, so consistent. You are one of my favourite CZcamsrs.
I have really enjoyed these. Please make more videos on whatever interests you.
very informative. I love your channel because I learn so much from each and every of your videos. Your channel is truly a treasure on CZcams.
I just finished watching your "Story of the LaserDisc" series. Very informative and a few things that even I didn't know. I adopted the LD format in the early '90s after finishing college. My mom and dad bought me a Pioneer machine (the model info is not handy) for Christmas. It was one of the dual side capable players. I really wanted the one that had the two LD trays but it had just come out, I think, and was really high priced so I settled for the one that I got. I certainly didn't want to have to get up and flip the disc over. One thing that I didn't hear you mention was the fact that film buffs were a main factor responsible for the LD format lasting as long as it did. I, like many other buffs at the time, was extremely hungry for films to be presented in their original aspect ratios. For me it was from seeing "Lawrence of Arabia" on a special 'widescreen' collector's edition VHS. Also, the exclusivity of some of the content, as you mentioned, that have never been issued on any other format. I still have my copy of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" special collector's edition that included the 'work print' with the alternate "Be Our Guest" scene. One other thing I wanted to mention was that I DID rent LDs. There was a high end AV store in town that rented them out and may have had around 150 titles. I also rented some thru the mail from a library that specialized in renting obscure and collectable releases like documentaries, art films or Criterion titles. It was a good thing too, I was able to rent The Criterion Collection release of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", getting to see the different versions and other behind the scenes footage. It was never priced to where I could afford to own a copy.
Some years ago I managed to bag a player and large disc collection for 70 quid from a charity shop, which included Close Encounters, SW trilogy and The Abyss (among others).
Do you have the T2 LD special edition? Pretty sure it's the most uncut version, though it may be the same as the VHS "T1000 Edition".
@@mapesdhs597 Yes, I have that edition of "T2" still in my collection but I also have the theatrical/director's cut releases on Blu-ray. I could sell off my LD version but I don't think the same supplementary material comes on the Blu-ray release.
@@thedvdking6455 That's what I wondered, whether the LD version had additional extras by comparison. Is the BR director's cut any longer? I can't watch the theatrical version anymore, too many bits I really like are missing, though that might be because I also read the book which is rather good as it includes details which line up nicely with the extended edition, especially with regard to how the T1000 actually works.
It was the LD version I saw in a Richer Sounds store (hifi place mainly, TVs aswell later), their fancy separate-room setup for showcasing surround sound. My bro & I watched it for a bit and realised, hey, this has scenes we've not seen before. Was so glad to get the same version on VHS later, despite the lower quality, but surprised it took so long for the same to appear on any digital format (was it ever on DVD? I suspect not). I don't have it on BR yet.
I found your channel while looking for a laser disk documentary. You rock
As a kid there was no tech that memorised me more than LD. Thanks for the series, Alec. Your videos contain so much info, it reminds me of watching a tsunami surge in progress. Just when you think the main surge is over, another info surtge is already lined up and waiting. Damned excellent work.
*mesmerised
memorise = to commit something to memory
Another great video. Keep making these, and keep having as much fun as you're having when you make them. It really comes through.
I've just discovered your channel, have just watched all of your laserdisc clips and have enjoyed them thoroughly. Thank you for your great, well researched content.
Techmoan did a great video about recordable LaserDiscs, going into their history in the broadcast TV world with some UK examples. Definitely worth a watch if you're more interested.
Thanks for the great content as always.
There better be a BONUS FACT on your next video
Great vid. Loved the whole Laserdisc series. Thanks for the great work!
Another rollicking Laserdisc video! Laserdisc is a really interesting format and this was the most surprise-filled installment in your excellent series
Excellent, as always.
as a european, i really appreciate that you give measurements in metric aswell.
As a Brit who was only ever taught Metric and gets totally confused by "English" measurements; I do, too! ^_^
@@ddragon8154 An oddity to consider though: road signs in the UK are still Imperial. I was curious as to whether there was ever a time in your schooling when this was explained.
Many Brits are a tad schizo when it comes to the two systems, it depends on the topic. Take temperature for example, specifically the weather. If it's hot then many people (especially those older than 40 or so) will use Imperial, but when it's cold, especially below freezing, those same people will switch to metric (I do this, for whatever reason it just seems normal to me). For DIY I use both, depends on what I'm doing, but when in a car the distances naturally come to mind in miles; switch to astronomy, it's back to metric and SI. :D
Btw, to add to the fun, there are metric units which are rarely mentioned, such as decimeter (10cm IIRC) and hectare, and it's odd how few metric-reared people know what a micron is, but then there are Imperial units which many older Brits either never use or have long forgotten about but which are still used in the US, such as the quart, plus of course some of the Imperial units are not quite the same, so to clarify I refer to the US system as Freedom Units. :D I recently sold a house on a Scottish island, its original 1957 property boundary description uses Poles.
TC should do a series on these systems because it's so much more complicated than most people imagine. My favourite was the attempt within certain industries to try and unify the two systems, such as the metric foot (10 inches; Kodak tried to use it, total disaster of course, didn't last long, employees on both sides of the Pond thought it was dumb as it just confused everyone). Beyond that, just fun facts like the below-freezing temp where C and F are the same number, where the F scale came from (he properties of formaldehyde or somesuch IIRC, not sure offhand), and how to make anyone's head explode by trying to explain aviation and seafaring units.
Doing some DIY recently, I was amused, when measuring something that needed to be exactly 50", to note that such on the tape measure was also exactly 127cm. Not surprising of course given the conversion ratio is 2.54, but it made me giggle.
My favourite Brit schizoid measuring oddity: milk jugs & cartons. Although in theory adopting metric in order to comply with EU rules (which we no longer need to do of course), the UK instead just showed both units but metric had to be more prominent. And so the standard larger milk jug ends up being?... well 2.272 Litres of course, because that happens to be exactly 4 pints. :D Likewise the 568ml carton (half-pint). We are quite the batty country and I love it.
So when next on the road somewhere, feel free to glare at those road signs which remain stubbornly Imperial. :D Unrelated road fun: red signs that say "WORKS EXIT" in the middle of nowhere on motorways are usually access points for military bases. Check on Google Maps and usually the land next to such locations is blank. Another giveaway is that sometimes one can see far enough along such roads to spot the first stage guard post and barrier crossings, which would be complete overkill for anywhere that was nothing more than a civilian buiding site.
Btw, I never understood why so many find it hard to convert weights, ie. for kg to lbs, just double the number and add a tenth, easy. Likewise, for F to C, it's just five nineths of F minus 32. Maybe though my school days were the closing era when some effort was made to enable pupils to be comfortable with both systems, since in the real world of the UK one kinda needed to be.
Hmm, I wonder if UK road signs are manufactured using metric or Imperial units? I should check sometime. Would be hillarious if the production is actually via metric. :D
Watched and enjoyed all your videos on Laserdisc. Keep up the great work.
I learn something every time I visit your channel. Thank you.
One video on this channel is more informative than 10 LinusTechTips + 10 Techquickie videos
My morning dump is more informative than a LinusTechTips video.
Yeah, they have gone the way of a lot of channels, so self referential with idiot guests stars from other pointless channels
There's nothing wrong with TQ videos, they just get hated on because of the main channel.
"Yeah, they have gone the way of a lot of channels, so self referential with idiot guests stars from other pointless channels"
How appropriate that the day I find this comment is the day they uploaded a video with iJustine in it.
mjc0961 How the hell is she still relevant?
After watching this playlist on laserdisc, its so satisfying to finally watch you get to the point where you got a better mic, a better set, better, funnier script writing, and doing the whole video while comfortably sitting down
For a second, I thought you had somehow transferred the playlist onto a Laserdisc and watched it on the laserdisc
Been waiting for this one, love your videos!
Thank you for the LD series. Very informative and somewhat educational... at the very least to be archived in the historical records! I've seen a few players in my my life... VERY few. I think my Uncle had one, but he was always the buyer of new to the market stuff to be "cool". Anyway, I can't imagine how much research you do before 1 video of an antiquity, let alone a 5 video series. Again, thank you for your in-depth look at the history of mankind's technological achievements over the past 50 years!
No muppet outro again!!!
Sorry wrong channel
LMFAO! 😂
Why?
Gilbert TheRegular Techmoan.
The muppets make it better
The best part is, you knew it wasn’t right. You didn’t even edit
I actually saw MUSE at the Tezuka museum in Kyoto. They had a custom installation and documentary. The success in Japan was not just due to karaoke feature, but because tape doesn’t survive well in the humidity of East Asia. VHS was very much a rental format for most people only. Along with the ease of piracy, this is why video CD was also a successful, more affordable, but much worse quality format, limited to 352x240 and low bitrate MPEG-1.
I always wondered about these and I am so glad you did a video on them. Nice and concise; superbly interesting stuff!
[An F-1 AND a T90!]
I used to own a laserdisc system; had it for nearly 20 years (1986-2005 or so), and I've never even heard of MUSE; thanks so much for your meticulous research on your video!
Did I just learn about some weird video format that techmoan hasn't already covered?
I'm pretty sure Techmoan did mention Hi-Vision and recordable discs in his video about LaserDisc, although not in such detail -- as did the Oddity Archive.
I think he covered it one and a half months after this video - and he actually got a player, decoder and discs, although the player died before he could finish his tests. Still, he definitely went above and beyond to actually try the format. Spent quite a bit of money, too, as these things (probably due to their rarity) aren't exactly cheap.
That Techmoan hasn't stolen from other channels*
And Techmoan revealed that the format used four fields per frame!
MUSE was more of an industrial policy thing, it never had high adoption rates (the TVs cost as much as a car) and only NHK implemented it (and only on satellite, it didn't work well OTA). Mainstream HD adoption in Japan actually lagged the US by a few years.
There was a MUSE VHS format too, called W-VHS. Nicovideo (japanese site) has some demos.
Always a great pleasure to watch your videos.
You do a great job of covering the history of technology. Honestly, I don't think I've seen anyone really do that much before for anything create in the last 50 years. Much of the stuff you're talking about I lived through. From my perspective you've gotten it all pretty much right.
I feel like this and lazer disc were more common in a television store show room to persuade you to buy a tv, then you would get home and hook your vcr up and wonder why the quality didn't look as good as it did at the store.
That was a-MUSE-ing
grunt
Ba-dum pshh!!!
Thanks for boiling down all that information. That's great research work!
Great job, loved this series!
I'm going to watch the playlist now
"Because that's what it's called." Alright, that made me laugh, caught off guard.
Great video! Always one of the laser disc player since I was a kid, and now as an adult eBay has granted that wish with an archive of LaserDisc videos. Keep up the good work and thank you for talking about the LaserDisc. I might have to be finding a Pioneer 700 or Muse machine to add to the collection.
Did you ever find a Muse or P-700? 8)
Love your channel. So informing! Laserdisc forever!
If you think 2700 rpm is much, what do you think about the 10,400 rpm of a 52x CD-ROM drive? Yes, the CD is smaller, but still, the linear speed at the circumference is around 145 mph. Since the centrifugal force scales only linearly with radius, but quadratically with rpm, the forces on the CD are much higher. I've personally had a CD explode in the drive, it's quite an event. Ripped the tray about halfway out, and some pieces of the CD went flying even though the drive was fully enclosed (typical internal CD drive).
Some computer hard drive can reach reach 15k rpm. I only had 10k rpm hard drive and it wasn't loud at all. HDD platters are probably much heavier than CD, so I think forces should be even higher.
blahfasel2000 That sounds insane; a disk exploding in the drive.
The peak forces probably are higher, but the platters are metal. Also, I suspect the manufacturing tolerances are much tighter on a hard disk, so it would never be out of balance as much as a cheaply produced plastic CD.
@@MJ-uk6lu 1. the HDD platters are either metal or glass, not plastic
2. they are made to far, far higher tolerances - the only way that an HDD head tracks the disk is a cushion of air under it, the active components only do left-to-right tracking
@@666Tomato666 That's even worse. It will be much heavier and therefore has to stand much worse centrifugal forces. Plus it can't vibrate and velocity with air is high. Also stress on bearing will be much higher and spin up time will be longer, which will make random writes more sluggish. Noise at higher than 15K rpms will not come from bending of disks, but from air turbulence (or helium turbulence), other vibrations, motor, faster head movements and etc.
But is the "ray" in "Blu-ray" capitalized?
No. No it is not. Time to change the title :)
That profile picture is my favourite at matching the comment.
Marph, what are you doing here? Is for research about some mythical copy of HL on LaserDisc that was only used in the JP market, played on karaoke machines?
That's what I've been saying! Never capitalized! Also, the "Blu" is pronounced Bl'uh, not Bl'oo.
Hello.
Do you think cockroach AI programming in modern games should be important?
Really enjoyed the series, thank you!
Thanks for finally posting this! I've scratched my knuckles to the bone looking for it since you mentioned it a month ago. lol
CDs shatter at high RPMs, presumably laserdiscs are thicker and, therefore, stronger, but even so, if one DID shatter at that speed I would expect that a trip to a hospital would be next.
My old Sony Trinitron had a 16:9 mode.
I was the lead video tech for the team that implemented prototype Sony HiDef laser discs in the three Mission Bermuda Triangle simulator rides at SewWorld, Orlando in 1993. The players were $32,000 each! But the system was cheaper to operate that the film loops originally proposed.
The CRV joke wrote itself in my head at exactly the same moment you said it. I never get tired of your sense of humor.
I remember when you had 17K subscribers. How do I keep forgetting that last number from it!?
Huh...a half pound lazer disc traveling 95mph launches. Yeah. I do not want to be hit by that. Reason why there are lids on those machines.
They wouldn't really "launch" since all that inertia was rotational and balanced. If they failed the disc would break apart and throw fragments out in a circle like a grenade.
ToastyMozart Oh, well, that's a relief! 😄
Fantastic! Really informative stuff! Subbed.
I remember seeing NHK trialling Super Hi-Vision in the 2012 Olympic Games, that blew me away at the time! Another tidbit about Laserdiscs is that modified ones were used by the BBC to playout their onscreen presentation (such as idents and continuity slides) on modified Laserdisc machines from 1991 to 97'..
Japan also had a "Clear-Vision" format. It was a backward-compatible extension of broadcast NTSC, with support for full-res widescreen and progressive scan, all watermarked into and then recovered from a standard NTSC signal with a letterboxed picture. If you're using an incompatible TV, your only real tell that it's a Clear-Vision signal seems to have been maybe noticing a slight shimmer in the black bars of the letterbox, as much of the extended encoding was done into the colorbursts of those lines.
I saw a Blu Ray at the Atlanata Aqarium.
hey alec, what about mega-LD? SEGA tried to make it a thing for a little bit.
Although the technology was licensed by Sega, Sega did not support the format directly.
Thanks for a trip down memory lane! I was one of those the small percentage that loved laser disks.
Dude I love your videos, keep it up!
I wish I had a head of hair like his
I'm around al's age I got as much hair all be most of it grey I wish it was his colour again, just for men springs to mind
“CRV, which rather than being a midsized crossover”
Why do you always say what I’m thinking
My father was in the military and was stationed in Japan from 1979-1985. We had a laserdisk as well as CVR player in our home. This video brought back some good memories of the family sitting around the TV watching our copy of the original TRON in laserdisk format.
Tron on LD back then?? Glorious! 8)
I love this!! So much info! This and LGR are really sweet channels for old tech!
If you think that's scary, a 16X DVD±RW will spin at up to 9,120-25,600 RPM and the theoretical maximum for DVDs is 32,000 RPM.
True, but a DVD is nowhere near as large as a Laserdisc. A DVD weighs about 15g, so about 1/14th as much as a Laserdisc.
Might be smaller but is like a bullet Versus a brick bullet is smaller but no less deadly.
Yep. Though it's kind of interesting that I can't really find any evidence of LaserDiscs shattering, but CDs, and to a lesser extent DVDs, really had an issue with that, especially in the beginning.
52X CD speed also proved to be a bit too much for the occasional disc - that's about 10400 rpm or a bit faster than 16X DVD. I am pretty sure that operation at these speeds is always CAV so RPM doesn't actually go any higher, it tends to make quite the racket as-is!
Oh, missed a comment further down that was discussing pretty much just that.
I had an LD that fell out of the case onto asphalt once. Because it was two sides glued together, one side cracked (albeit barely), the other didn't. Even at those high speeds, the disc never shattered.
I wanna play a Dragon's Lair arcade cabinet, just once. I only ever had the Sega CD version.
The Sega CD Version was a bad version (very low quality video), but there are number of very reasonable ways to play.
You can get "Dragon's Lair Trilogy" of the PS4 for $19.99, and the video quality is actually better than the arcade. The Steam PC version is also good according to many people.
I obviously don't know where you're from, but if you search around you can find an arcade with the game, such as Ground Control on Portland, OR. Many Retro game fairs will also have the game on display for free.
The most exciting thing about the cabinet to me was always the attract mode. The game pulled you in like nothing else. Yes, we all knew pretty quickly there was no game play there, but when it was new it was irresistible, even though it cost 2 whole quarters.
I had the actual LD player from that game given to me from a arcade operator that was refurbishing the cabinet for a newer aftermarket game board. I remember it being a rather plain white top loading unit that had a warning on the lid that indicated that you must wait for the disk to slow down before opening the lid as he speaks about at 3:30.
I wound up destroying the unit to get the HeNe Laser tube from it. I didn't have a proper laser power supply and used a photocopier corona wire power supply and it ran it for a short time. But it was rather cool to walk around the neighborhood in the 80s with a portable laser running off a 24vvolt D-cell pack that was salvaged from a getto blaster... Ah the good old days.
Too bad, that player is worth a small fortune now. Probably couldn't have known it at the time, though.
I played it a few times in the arcades back in the day. I always thought it was overrated. More fun to watch than play.
@@RCAvhstape I felt the same way.
Love the videos, keep them coming.
Another great video! Thanks!
BONUS MEME 👍
8:54 ...so basically what most BluRay Discs are doing due to the 21:9 Aspect ratio. Those Discs essentially don't even have 1080p, but something around 900p.
Approximately 1920x800
Remember how we hated letterboxed DVDs and were thrilled when anamorphic DVDs came out? Well, now letterboxed video is cool again and for some reason non-square pixels are revolting since the Blu-ray format does not support them.
Actually, 2.39:1 "Scope" video in Full HD has a vertical resolution of just over 800 lines, not 900.
I'm actually still a bit mad that they didn't put the ability for anamorphic Scope content even on BD 3D or UHD-BR, but I imagine there are virtually no 3D or 4K anamorphic DIs anyway.
Edit: Simon Christensen beat me to it.
What about film shot in 2.39:1 with Panavision lenses?
They usually have full frame source material, but the digital intermediate usually has square pixels. From a resolution standpoint, 4K letterbox is plenty (plus, VFX are typically only rendered in 2K), and there are a dwindling number of theaters that actually project anamorphically, *especially* digital screens (there are actually no anamorphic options in the DCP standard, so you have to use non-standard playback equipment for digital anamorphic). So you would never really get to use the extra resolution. And since the much larger resolution of anamorphic video takes more time and ressources to process, why bother?
Your backdrop is really sharp. Great video, as always.
Thanks for this great series! Brings back many memories. I had 2 players (Pioneer and Panasonic) and close to 200 movies. I loved the picture quality and the packaging. Here's a story you might enjoy. I was in a music store looking through the laserdisc bins, and a young couple approached and the girl said "Oh look they still have albums!" It was all I could do to keep from laughing and saying something like "yeah but they're all movie soundtrack albums!" LOL
If standard LD is read better by the red laser, is there a good explanation on why DVD's are not using a single red laser for reading CD's as well? I don't think i've ever taken apart at DVD-sled and have found only a single laser diode.
It's funny you bring this up because my knowledge on MUSE laserdisc is exactly why I thought CDs are read with the red laser in a DVD player. I knew it was possible to read a standard LD with the red laser in a MUSE machine, so I figured it would extend to CDs as well. I think it might have to do with the analog nature of LD, but that's doesn't really explain it that well. Pits are still pits.
Perhaps it's a misconception that MUSE machines use the red laser for standard LDs, but everything I've ever read about them suggests they use the red laser for both disc types. Either everyone is wrong or Pioneer had some clever engineering at the time. It could be that it's just a lot easier to have two diodes than to use one, and Pioneer went the hard way. You remember the CLD-M301--Pioneer's a little crazy!
I'm no expert on lasers or optical discs. But I was thinking it may be related to the difference in pit size and distances (pitch) from DVD vs CD. The wave length of the red laser is shorter than the infra-red used for CD to allow for the smaller pits to be read from a DVD disc. If the DVD red laser would need to read the larger pits of a CD I imagine it would need to focus differently, requiring a more advanced lens / focus system. I think is was simply easier and cheaper to add to the DVD player a standard infra-red CD laser instead.
There's a relationship between the size, but more specifically the depth of the pits on a disc and the wavelength (colour) of the laser needed to read it. The pits are allmost as reflective as the parts in between. The player sees the pits due to destructive interference between the incoming and reflected beam. The pit dimensions must be such that the incoming and reflected beams interfere destructive at the pits, but not on the parts between pits. It's not just simple scattering of light.
CD's, DVD's, and Blu-ray's have their data stored a significantly different depths from the surface of the disk. This makes it difficult for the same laser to read the different formats. Instead different lasers with different focal lengths are used.
I assume the MUSE Laserdisc disks and lasers were configured with the same or similar enough focal length so that the same laser could be used for MUSE and regular Laserdiscs.
Bonus fact: HD-DVD was designed to use a very similar focal length as that used on standard DVD's. This made HD-DVD players less expensive as manufacturers could reuse a lot of the equipment used to build DVD players. But it also significantly limited the amount of data that could be stored on each HD-DVD (compared to blu-ray)
The ultra-thin protection layer of blu-ray was only possible because of stronger protection layer formulas.
Not going to lie, came here for Muse (the band). Was disappointed...
great content, thank you! I learnt a lot and enjoy it very much.
I came here for the previously unreleased Japanese only Muse live show in HD on laserdisc 😆, ended up learning a new (forced) acronym. Great series Alec.
The first time I sat through Star Wars was while watching it on one of those players. A nerdy friend bought one and his first disc was Star Wars. He was into the frame by frame feature where he could look at all the cutting and pasting they did to do the special effects. His next movie was Grease since it was his wife's favorite movie. I stayed away from them until they got bored of that one. Several years later the only rental place in town that offered those discs went out of business and retailers in the area no longer sold them. He sold the machine and his disc collection for pennies at a yard sale. I won't link this video to him since apparently it would be worth a fortune now.
As a teen I had worked part time for a small town theater as a projectionist when Star wars originally came out. I watched about 10 minutes of it, thought it was douchey, went downstairs and flirted with the concession stand girl until it was time to change reals then turned off the audio in the booth and read a paperback horror novel during the rest of it. The regular projectionist came back and played it for a few days then wanted me to cover for him for the rest of the week. I made up some BS about having to help my grandmother out for the next week to avoid that movie. He got me back though when Grease came out. After he ran that for a couple of days then suddenly got sick and was off for a month. I had to sit through that awful movie 3 times a day for the whole rest of my summer break since it was such a big hit with the hicks in my town who were coming to see it three or four times or more. The film we leased was thrashed too when we got it so I didn't dare take my eyes off of it, turn the volume in the booth down or off or leave the booth unless I wanted risk a lynch mob after me if the film broke or got jammed or jumping which was pretty often. That was the closest I ever came to suicide.
I am new to the channel and this video series is great.
Hi and thanks (as always) for great video! Pioneer VDR-V1000 (remembered at 10:27) was excellent machine! I worked as TV studio technician in 1996 and we had two of this beasts. The main benefit (thanks to two laser pickup mechanism) was seamless playback of multiple clips programmed in list. Far before first video file servers (like TEKTRONIX's ProFILE). Picture and sound quality was great, component IN /OUT, fully comparable to Betacam SP. We used "LASER" primary for jingles and commercials.
Another great video, excellent explanation, as usual. (patiently awaits a 'co-op' video with Techmoan on quadrophonic.... )