When was the first laserdisc

These discs usually stored movie extras or bonus material because of its smaller storage capacity. Since these discs gave the user the ability to reference content frame-by-frame, they proved to be a hit with film students and critics. Pioneer experimented with higher capacity discs that could hold up to 70 minutes of content but they never made it to market. Up until the mids Laserdisc players used Helium-neon laser tubes to read discs, and when Pioneer came along they adopted consumer players with solid-state lasers.

The solid-state laser diode players had many advantages over the older players. The majority of players only supported single-sided playback, meaning owners were forced to get up and manually turn the disc over to watch content when one side finished playing.

In , Sony invented the Muse Laserdisc format for the Japanese market. Also known as Hi-Vision, the Muse format boasted high-definition video playback and required a 16x9 aspect ratio and a dedicated Muse player. During its time on the market, Laserdisc went head-to-head with VHS competing to become the first widely adopted standard for home entertainment.

LD had a far superior picture over VHS horizontal lines vs. Since LD video is not digital like DVD, it did not experience playback issues such as artifacting and color banding. LD disadvantages were obvious. LDs could only hold 30 to 60 minutes of content. Storage capacity was inferior to the competition; VHS could hold up to 3. Other LD problems include laser-rot and crosstalk.

In addition, the hardware was expensive and only the very serious video buff were purchasing the home laserdisc format. The average user was very happy with videotape due to its recording capabilities. Betamax had been released in by Sony and VHS by JVC in , so when it come to choosing a video format consumers were spoilt for choice. Despite a last push from the format to showcase its superior video and audio capabilities as well as upgrades to the standard which brought in AC3 digital sound, Laserdiscs were largely been superseded by the DVD format which was based on a two layer CD.

Today Laserdisc is often considered a forgotten format only supported by a loyal group of videophile collectors. Quality used players is often sold at crazy prices as working hardware gets harder to find.

Russell, whose patents take up several pages at Justia , filed his "analog to digital to optical photographic recording and playback system" patent in , which was granted in The first public demonstration of the player and discs took place in and consisted of seven minutes of clips taken from 22 different movies.

When the Disco Vision system, now without the original hyphen, became available for purchase in , its discs looked like large CDs, were two-sided, and could hold 54, frames, or 30 to 60 minutes of playback per side. Corporate and educational applications followed with the Digital Equipment Corporation's Interactive Video Instructional System used for workplace training and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry's installation of an exhibit in which people searched the Chicago Tribune via disc.