How much did laserdiscs hold?

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: McCarthy
From an old MCA DiscoVision specs guide:

"Information Storage:
The DISCO-VISION disc has the highest information density ever achieved on any medium. It is capable of storing approximately 40 billion bits per 12-inch disc. Random (fast) access to stored information is permitted by radial traversing of disc. The random access capability is accomplished automatically by use of the "in" and "out" mode control push button of the player unit. The rate of reading recorded information is greater than 30 million bits per second with the capacity to show in excess of 35,000 slides per disc.
The system permits, in addition to random access, program speed-up, slow-down, stills, reverse, or picture-by-picture replay."

Someone else figure out what 40 billion bits would be, I always screw up conversions.

Source site

Edit: Well, if a Gigabyte = 8,589,934,592 bits then it would be 4.65Gb per side of a laserdisc...approximately....in the Discovision standard...but close enough for our purposes.

Don't know how anyone would have "ripped" a LD, but the number came out about right oddly enough.

I have learned it is better not to ask too many questions.

Also check this site out:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/Ld/FAQ/

 

[Tostada]

I keep hearing about this wonderful quality DVD rip of the laserdisc version of SW:ANH, but I can't find the torrent anywhere... pissing me off... Maybe I'll just have to find some HK site selling it.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: Tostada
I keep hearing about this wonderful quality DVD rip of the laserdisc version of SW:ANH, but I can't find the torrent anywhere... pissing me off... Maybe I'll just have to find some HK site selling it.

LOL

Not looking hard enough? I found all 3 movies yesterday.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I have read that LD is still very popular in Japan, perhaps one of our members from the area confirm that?

Same as here, there is a 'cult' following, but like anything Japanese lately it's blown out of proportion.

OMG teh karaoke.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: Iron Woode

Originally posted by: GOSHARKS
laserdiscs were analog.

They held about 5 gigs. My friend ripped a LD movie and it came out to 4.3 gigs. So I figure a max is probably 5 gigs.

No, he's right. They're analog. The length of the pits encode voltage or something like that.

no, its digital, unless your going to call pcm analog. its just uncompressed.

 

[Mark R]

Laserdiscs are analogue. They use the pits and lands in the disc to reproduce an FM signal.

The picture is analogue in all LD formats. The audio was analogue on the oldest discs, but was replaced with uncompressed PCM digital (CD quality) for most discs.

 

[0roo0roo]

well its analog recorded as digital format correct? those bits are 0's and 1's, not different depth pits etc. cd's are uncompressed audio too, but they are still called digital audio right?

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
well its analog recorded as digital format correct? those bits are 0's and 1's, not different depth pits etc. cd's are uncompressed audio too, but they are still called digital audio right?

No.
http://www.access-one.com/rjn/laser/legacy/ld96.html

 

[0roo0roo]

hm guess your right.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I have read that LD is still very popular in Japan, perhaps one of our members from the area confirm that?

Same as here, there is a 'cult' following, but like anything Japanese lately it's blown out of proportion.

Sad but true. I read Star Wars was released on LD for them awhile back though because the format was so popular, and that the LD version has that fact to thanks for it's existance.

 

[Raincity]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I have read that LD is still very popular in Japan, perhaps one of our members from the area confirm that?

Same as here, there is a 'cult' following, but like anything Japanese lately it's blown out of proportion.

No lasers are still widely available in Japan. Pioneer did the last production run of players in May 02 while they stopped selling in the US in Sept 97.

 

[Arcanedeath]

I still have a Pioneer LD / CD player in my HT setup, it gets used mostly for watching the Star Wars Trilogy in orginal form (stupid special ed's!) and the movie Dragon Slayer =P, I have a pretty large collection of LD's I got from a friend who converted most of his collection to DVD, LD audio quality is very close if not better in some cases than DVD, video quality is much better on DVD though. I've got to say the LD Star Wars Trilogy is still the best cut of the films ever released and until the orginal ed. comes out in a widescreen DVD format my LD player is staying right where it is...

 

[TlitJ]

I have the original Star Wars on LD plus a pretty big collection of other movies. My LD player (Pioneer) went on the fritz awhile ago and I haven't been able to play anything for quite some time. I wonder if there is somewhere to get it fixed?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: Xernex
Haha funny i just got through watching the original 3 star wars films on our old LD player. Likely for the last time as once the DVD versions finally hit shelves in a few months we will no longer have a need for the LD player.

R.I.P LD.

If you don't mind Greedo firing first in SW, and Luke screaming like a scaredy-cat when he intenitionally lets go in the cloud city in ESB.

You mean intentionally letting go wasn't part of the script? It was supposed to appear accidental? Damn, now that changes the whole movie for me.

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Someone needs to inflict some blunt impact trauma therapy on Lucas.

Haha. 40 lashes with Jar-Jar's tongue.

Anyways, the LD versions of the Star Wars movies absolutely rock! I hope that someday, maybe, we will have home video-content reproduction systems with such quality in the future. Maybe Blu-Ray discs with uncompressed content?

 

[OCNewbie]

Can someone explain how the LD edition of Star Wars differed from other versions? The scenes in the movie are actually different, that's what I'm gathering?

 

[manko]

Originally posted by: OCNewbie
Can someone explain how the LD edition of Star Wars differed from other versions? The scenes in the movie are actually different, that's what I'm gathering?

The pre-special edition Laser Discs were the last, best quality releases of the trilogy as they were originally shown during their first theatrical run (not quite, but the closest we can hope for).

The 1997 and later Special Editions have numberous touch ups, additional shots, new CG effects and story/character changes (the Greedo scene). The upcoming DVD releases are rumored to have even more new changes.

complete illustrated annotation of changes made to Star Wars Special Editions

Some of us really enjoyed the original films and would like to be able to see them on video as we remembered seeing them the first time in the theater. Since the Special Edition films were released, Lucas has said he will never re-release the original films. He likes to say that every subsequent revision, be it the Special Edition, the DVDs or some future release, is the new final, definitive version that will be preserved for the future. He is on record as saying that he hopes all the existing VHS and Laser Disc copies of the original films will deteriorate in 15-20 years, leaving no trace of the earlier, original versions of the films.

Ironically, Lucas has been involved in supporting restoration and preservation of classic films by other filmmakers, but he refuses to release his original films for his most devoted fans or even for historical reasons (film schools/festivals).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: manko
He is on record as saying that he hopes all the existing VHS and Laser Disc copies of the original films will deteriorate in 15-20 years, leaving no trace of the earlier, original versions of the films.

Lucas has clearly been pulled over to the Dark Side.

The original stories/movies were very much "magic", watching them during my developmental years.

I would hate to have to put up with some new-age revisionist PC versions of those films.

Originally posted by: manko
Ironically, Lucas has been involved in supporting restoration and preservation of classic films by other filmmakers, but he refuses to release his original films for his most devoted fans or even for historical reasons (film schools/festivals).

That's truely sad. One of the really nice touches that I liked from the original movie releases, were the hand-done scene wipes. If you look carefully you can see them.

 

[sonambulo]

there's an urban legend that some laserdisc player had a top you could rip off and then you could scratch with the disc the same way you scratch a record

 

[AeonGrey]

Just happen to stumble across this thread and thought I'd drop you guys a few url's:

http://www.originaltrilogy.com - this site has a petition on it you can sign to try to get Lucas to release the original versions again...although I'm sure he's had them incinerated.

http://search.suprnova.org - the search site for a bit torrent site. If you go to it and type in "star wars ld rip" there should be some torrents for laserdisc DVD rips of the original movies. If you've never done bit torrents before...it can be kind of confusing, but I would hope most people on a forum like this would understand.