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Is laserdisc better than VHS?

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I have never owned a laserdisc player, but it sounds like a primative form of DVD. It sounds like a better format compared to VHS to me because it contains data digitally on a disc so it doesn't degrade over time like film in a VHS tape. I wonder why VHS won the format war over laserdisc? Can people with more knowledge explain the pros and cons of VHS and laserdisc?  

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Guys be kind to Janskeet.

 

P.S. Why the 3 identical posts in general SW?

 

LOL Anyway I love the "non-digital VHS film" comment....

I love everybody. Lets all smoke some reefer and chill. Hug and kisses for everybody.

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VHS was inferior to LaserDisc, enough said about that.  As for the pros of VHS:
-Cheaper
-Much more easily accessible, seen in more stores
-Simpler in operation

Laserdisc pros (some of these I may pull out of my ass, please PLEASE correct me):
-Analog encode, like a record; meaning no compression.
-Less chance of wearing it out, however a chance they could warp.
-Multiple audio tracks

Laserdisc was never really "put out there" though, and was a niche machine for videophiles only.  In Japan, the machine was popular though.  Many anime got very good Laserdisc releases, including occasionally in the US here (I recall Tenchi Muyo being available in the format).  If anything, laserdiscs were just inconvenient; the size of vinyl records, which made it less easy to store.

I hope my limited knowledge is of some use!

A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em

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VHS DIDN'T WIN A FORMAT WAR OVER LASER DISC.  DVD KILLED LASER DISK.  IT'S A COMMON MISCONCEPTION.  THE PROBLEM WITH LASER DISC IS THAT IT WAS AN EXPENSIVE FORMAT.  

 

AS FAR AS QUALITY GOES LASER DISC IS BETTER THAN VHS.  THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE A LOT OF THE STAR WARS PRESERVATION MADE FROM LD TRANSFERS.  IT WAS THE LD MASTER THAT GAVE US THE OOT ON DVD THOUGH IT WAS STILL FAR FROM PERFECT.  ACCOUNTS OF THAT CAN BE READ ALL OVER THIS VERY SITE.

 

I HOPE THAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION.

"I'VE GROWN TIRED OF ASKING, SO THIS WILL BE THE LAST TIME..."
The Mangler Bros. Psycho Dayv Armchaireviews Notes on Suicide

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It was definitely higher quality from a technical standpoint. Like you said, it wasn't prone to magnetic decay like a VHS tape is. Also it was capable of higher resolution than the VHS.

So why did VHS win the format war? Good question. Perhaps people got tired of turning their laserdisc over halfway through the movie. Perhaps they just weren't willing to shell out the extra money; laserdiscs were more expensive than VHS tapes, and laserdisc players were quite a bit more expensive than VCRs. Strange but true: sometimes inferior products ended up with the corner of the market for various reasons that had nothing to do with the product itself. Like computers. The Commodore line of computers was vastly superior to the IBM line in almost every respect, but IBM won out quite soundly...

Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!

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Whoa, easy on the "Post" button there kid. There actually never was a format war between VHS and Laserdisc. Laserdiscs where impractical for the common consumer. They came at a later date after the VHS was already a standard. They were huge like records, and required players that were pretty expensive in comparison to a VCR. Which is why it only ever became a format for hobbyists and collectors. Also VHS had the added plus of being recordable, which made it more appealing to the average consumer; you couldn't tape the upcoming football match on a Laserdisc. 

Whoa, about a million people beat me to the punch. When I first started writing this there were no replies.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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Janskeet said:

I have never owned a laserdisc player, but it sounds like a primative form of DVD. It sounds like a better format compared to VHS to me because it contains data digitally on a disc so it doesn't degrade over time like film in a VHS tape. I wonder why VHS won the format war over laserdisc? Can people with more knowledge explain the pros and cons of VHS and laserdisc?

Short version, yeah, LD is the basis of what DVD is now.  Same basic technology, just in an earlier form.

As for the "format war" of VHS vs LD, at the time, LD couldn't record.  CD-Rs were just starting to evolve, and they were limited to computers.

From a technical quality standpoint, video in those days was measured in horizontal lines of resolution, since everything was limited to what is now considered "480i" vertical resolution.  Under that standard, VHS was about 240 lines where LD and S-VHS were around 400.  This was back when widescreen and HDTV were still just ideas being experimented with in R&D labs.

S-VHS was a hybrid of LD quality recordable on VHS-equivalent tapes, but the tapes weren't electronically backwards compatible with standard VHS machines - you had to have an S-VHS machine to play it.  You could put an S-VHS tape in to a regular VHS deck, but the picture would be all bright and streaky.  VHS tapes could go into S-VHS decks without a problem though, but S-decks were considered "high end" at the time, just like LD.

S-VHS and LD worked on the same basic premise - video quality was improved by keeping the brightness and color portions of the signal separate, combining them only at the last second in the TV.  This eliminated cross-talk and interference between the signals.  That's where the S-video connectors started, and the Y-Pb-Pr (Red-Green-Blue) connection on DVD players now is an extension of that concept.

The public has always had this weird love-hate relationship with home video technology.  They want something better than what they've got but once they learn that it will cost them money, they change their minds.  Blu-Ray is the first time the concept of "new"="expensive" is finally sinking in, but it's still slow going.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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I remember when I was a little kid, probably in '83 or '84, I was about 4-5 by that time. A friend of my dad brought over his Laserdisc player and we watched The Empire Strikes Back and Indiana Jones. That's pretty much where my love of Star Wars began, even though I was aware before then, I never really paid attention to the movie until then. Great memories.

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Janskeet said:

I have never owned a laserdisc player, but it sounds like a primative form of DVD. It sounds like a better format compared to VHS to me because it contains data digitally on a disc so it doesn't degrade over time like film in a VHS tape. I wonder why VHS won the format war over laserdisc? Can people with more knowledge explain the pros and cons of VHS and laserdisc?

Short version, yeah, LD is the basis of what DVD is now. Same basic technology, just in an earlier form.

As for the "format war" of VHS vs LD, at the time, LD couldn't record. CD-Rs were just starting to evolve, and they were limited to computers.

From a technical quality standpoint, video in those days was measured in horizontal lines of resolution, since everything was limited to what is now considered "480i" vertical resolution. Under that standard, VHS was about 240 lines where LD and S-VHS were around 400. This was back when widescreen and HDTV were still just ideas being experimented with in R&D labs.

S-VHS was a hybrid of LD quality recordable on VHS-equivalent tapes, but the tapes weren't electronically backwards compatible with standard VHS machines - you had to have an S-VHS machine to play it. You could put an S-VHS tape in to a regular VHS deck, but the picture would be all bright and streaky. VHS tapes could go into S-VHS decks without a problem though, but S-decks were considered "high end" at the time, just like LD.

S-VHS and LD worked on the same basic premise - video quality was improved by keeping the brightness and color portions of the signal separate, combining them only at the last second in the TV. This eliminated cross-talk and interference between the signals. That's where the S-video connectors started, and the Y-Pb-Pr (Red-Green-Blue) connection on DVD players now is an extension of that concept.

The public has always had this weird love-hate relationship with home video technology. They want something better than what they've got but once they learn that it will cost them money, they change their minds. Blu-Ray is the first time the concept of "new"="expensive" is finally sinking in, but it's still slow going.

My outlook on life - we’re all on the Hindenburg anyway…no point fighting over the window seat.

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Laserdisc is better than vhs in so many ways.

 

The only thing i think is better with vhs is you don't need a seperate closed caption decoder for subtitled movies that are hardsubbed onto the vhs tapes and sometimes laserdisc.

 

Unsurpassed picture quality for the time many movies are near dvd quality on a standard definition tv set.

Uncompressed high fidelity digital audio tracks.

Theatrical cuts of movies the studios could not leave the fuck alone. etc

 

Vhs cost cheaper but you clearly get what you pay for.

Laserdiscs actually store the video analog since it is an analog format. The only thing ever digital was the soundtracks and that was added much later in the life of laserdiscs hence many earlier releases being analog only.

one feature i think was unique was cx noise reduction on analog soundtracks. As developed by cbs inc.

CAV format discs allowed stopping on a single frame and frame mode. Much more film like than vhs or dvd.

 

They had nice jacket art, covers and sometimes insert and liner notes. Criterion were the best to be had.

 

Biggest problems with LD:

-Cost

-Laser rot

- don't make movies on it anymore

-Amount of storage space required twice or 3 times that of dvd.

Those that have large vinyl collections would not be bothered by this though.

 

The same can probably be said of dvd but japan always had the superior laserdisc releases in terms of video and audio quality. 

We have gotten to the point where the HD-DVD titles and Blu rays here in america and japan are pretty much the same in standards of quality with a few exceptions.

“Always loved Vader’s wordless self sacrifice. Another shitty, clueless, revision like Greedo and young Anakin’s ghost. What a fucking shame.” -Simon Pegg.

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Laserdisc was also the first format to present a film in its correct widescreen aspect ratio, I believe. Wasn't the first widescreen LD the Criterion Bladerunner?

Ripplin said:

The real question is, what is better, VHS or CED? Haha.

I saw the OOT on CED at a flea market once. Can't remember what it cost. Would be cool to have now.

 

Do you have CED player? I used to see SW CEDs all the time on eBay, I'm sure you can still pick one up there. :-P

 

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VHS and LD were never really in direct competition with each other. The average consumer didn't know it existed, or confused it with RCA's CED videodisc format.

Laserdisc carved out it's own niche with the early home theater crowd. That lasted until DVD came along, but just about everything DVD is today is because of LD.

Digital sound, Dolby Digital, DTS, letterboxing, commentary tracks, supplemental material, even anamorphic widescreen all first appeared on those big shiny discs.

Laserdisc recorders did exist. But only in the expensive realm of professional broadcast gear. A blank disc could cost hundreds of dollars!

Lucasfilm's famous Editdroid system used LD too.

I should mention many VHS decks made in the late 90's onward have "quasi S-VHS playback", although it wasn't often mentioned as a feature. Simply put, they can play S-VHS tapes back but at regular VHS resolution.

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Where were you in '77?

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Mielr said:

Laserdisc was also the first format to present a film in its correct widescreen aspect ratio, I believe. Wasn't the first widescreen LD the Criterion Bladerunner?

Ripplin said:

The real question is, what is better, VHS or CED? Haha.

I saw the OOT on CED at a flea market once. Can't remember what it cost. Would be cool to have now.

 

Do you have CED player? I used to see SW CEDs all the time on eBay, I'm sure you can still pick one up there. :-P

 

No, I don't have anything CED related. I would've just gotten it for the curiosity/rarity factor. :) I don't think I'd bother buying it now.

 

My crazy vinyl LP blog

My dumberer blog

My Retro blog

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The first widescreen LD was probably Woody Allen's "Manhattan". He had the clout to demand it be letterboxed from it's first video release in 1984. This included VHS, Beta, and tv broadcasts of the film! (All these early video versions have gray instead of black bars.) I don't think a pan and scan version even exists.

 

Believe it or not, the honor of the first ever widescreen video release of a movie actually goes to CED!

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/amarcord.html

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Where were you in '77?

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I love cedmagic.com. :) I've read a ton of stuff there.

I've always been interested in obscure, obsolete technology. I love reading about Divx, too. Despite being Canadian, I actually got to see the big, fancy Divx displays at Circuit City when visiting Michigan back in late '98/early '99. Even then, I thought it was an interesting, yet extremely flawed, idea, despite not knowing nearly as much about it as I do now. Little did I know that even then, one foot was in the grave and the other was hovering above a banana peel.

Tons of very interesting info on Divx here (browse around, too): http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/divxgoodguys.html

My crazy vinyl LP blog

My dumberer blog

My Retro blog

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Threads moved and merged. There was no need to double-post.

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C3PX, Laserdiscs were on the market back in 1978, only a year after VHS came out. (And three years before CED.) It was originally called DiscoVision until the early 80's, but it's still the same format. :)

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Where were you in '77?

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will be getting a CED player shortly, and the OT,

will report back with more details soon...

 

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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I know I'm a little late to say this, but at the time I posted this, I was on break at work and the computer in the break room is one of those client types, but it's really cheap and freezes up often. Anyway, when I posted it in the General forum for some odd reason did it three times so sorry about that and thanks for your help on this question.

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I'm thinking about buying a laserdisc player and OOT laserdiscs. Do you know a good website to find them?

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Janskeet said:

I'm thinking about buying a laserdisc player and OOT laserdiscs. Do you know a good website to find them?

 

 i got mine from ebay dirt cheap.. $50 overall (unit+shipping) denon LD player,

in near perfect condition, and all the LD's are cheap (except the japanese special edition

set).... you can find the orignal OOT from fox, widescreen  and full screen, then the

re-released widescreen OT versions, and then the THX faces set, and also the definitive

CAV box set for very cheap prices...   CLV discs put more video on the disc, so you don't

have as many, and don't have to flip them over.. CAV discs have more video data per

side...so you have more discs, but better quality, and you step FRAME by FRAME through

them to... look into all the options...

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Mielr said:

Laserdisc was also the first format to present a film in its correct widescreen aspect ratio, I believe. Wasn't the first widescreen LD the Criterion Bladerunner?

 

 i don't think so, i was checking the CEDmagic site, and there were CED discs in widescreen format,

even though LD's came out first, i don't think the commercial releases were first..

 

also what about VHS? i've never owned a videotape or VCR.... surely something must

have come out in letterboxed format for it???

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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negative1 said:
Janskeet said:

I'm thinking about buying a laserdisc player and OOT laserdiscs. Do you know a good website to find them?

 

i got mine from ebay dirt cheap.. $50 overall (unit+shipping) denon LD player,

in near perfect condition, and all the LD's are cheap (except the japanese special edition

set).... you can find the orignal OOT from fox, widescreen and full screen, then the

re-released widescreen OT versions, and then the THX faces set, and also the definitive

CAV box set for very cheap prices... CLV discs put more video on the disc, so you don't

have as many, and don't have to flip them over.. CAV discs have more video data per

side...so you have more discs, but better quality, and you step FRAME by FRAME through

them to... look into all the options...

 

later

-1

So which version do you suggest I buy? Also, can I find anamorphic versions?