Laserdisc Discussion/Appreciation Thread
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:16 pm
From Wikipedia.org:
A discussion about LDs started in the "Walt Disney Treasures Wave X" Discussion on the Disney Forum, so I'm moving it here. So, I started collecting Laserdiscs in January of this year. I think they're great collectors items. The sleeves are beautiful. The discs are very shiny, and shiny things are always fun. I think I have about 15 LDs. I'd like to continue collecting. I'll post my list of LDs later. What do you all think of Laserdisc, and do you/have you own/owned any?The Laserdisc (LD) is a home video disc format, and was the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially marketed as Discovision in 1978, the technology was licensed and sold as Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Videodisc, Laservision, Disco-Vision, DiscoVision, and MCA DiscoVision until Pioneer Electronics purchased the majority stake in the format and marketed LaserDisc in the mid to late 1980s.
While LaserDisc produced a consistently higher quality image than its rivals, the VHS and Betamax systems, the laserdisc never obtained more than a niche market with videophiles in America. In Europe, it remained largely an obscure format. It was, however, much more popular in Japan and in the more affluent regions of South East Asia, such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Laserdisc was the prevalent rental video medium in Hong Kong during the 1990s.
The technology and concepts provided with the Laserdisc would become the forerunner to Compact Discs and DVDs.