MUSE Hi-Vision Laserdisc: The Blu-ray of 1994

You can support this channel on Patreon! Link below
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/...
--This source has a lot about how MUSE works-
ura.caldc.com/s...
www.laserdiscar...
www.hdtvmagazin...
Most importantly, the forum posts!
www.avsforum.co...
forum.lddb.com/...
www.avsforum.co...
www.cedmagic.co...
forum.lddb.com/...
forum.lddb.com/...
You can support this channel on Patreon! Patrons of the channel are what keep these videos coming. If you’d like to support the channel as well, please check out my Patreon page. Thanks for your consideration!
/ technologyconnections
And thank you to the following patrons!
Charlie Quigley, Dakota Williams, Adam Erickson, Kevin Terrell, Tommi Hares, Trevor Smith, Thomas Fuchs, Callum Brieske, Tomas, Chuck Floyd, Eitan Tal, Emil Gilliam, Andy Copsey, Bitcore, Filip, Per 'Zapro' Jensen, Ward Sutherland, Örn Arnarson, Alberto Amatucci, etho624, Chris Giddings, Tomasz Kolinko, Carles Codony, Samuel Plainfield, Jason McMillon, TeaChest Media, Michael Pacheco, Jason Ganiatsas, Mike Gerow, Marc Schroth, Andrew J Thom, Samuel Blakey, Mrpirate707, Frank Harris, Joseph Spiros, Patrick Meister, Sergey Kiselev, Clara Latter, Ashley Grant, Scott Emmett O'Donnell, Tianyu Ge, jeekl, rozboris, Kelly Rose, Paul Fisher, Stephen Vrazel, Applied Science, Peter ford, Sophie Haskins, James Id, Brendan Sheehy, Jay Foreman, Rich Theobald, Kyle Olson, Bryan Reid, Quinton Wilson, Jeremy DeGuzman, Sean Spark, Lucas Hartbarger, Taylor Cuzela, David Lastres, Granger Meador, Jeremy Kitchen, Jason Wellband, Shane Belaire, Paul Emmerich, Matthew Rossi, Paul Craigie, Alex Smith, Nick, Tyler, Paul Williams, Steven Hidy, Fredrik Grufman, Kollin O'Dannel, RJ Kent, Yona, Kevin Strehl, Tony DeSimone, Mike Bailey, Maggie Brown, Howard Kraut, TM, Mark Nicholas Wales, Jason D., T.J. Steckbeck, Pavlo Pravdiukov, Tobias Faller, Marco Anastasi, Peter Byrd, Trix Farrar, Matthew Razza, Mitchel J. Mullin II, Jakob Strande Langgaard, Jan StavÄ›l, Paul Walton, Matt Falcon, Steven First, Denver Alexander, Conor Hennessy Sykes, FinaleGrande, Christopher Dickey, OnlyOneSolutionTBHFam, Matt Sackett, Tim Juchcinski, Wayne Marsh, Ernie Smith, foophoof, Stein Strindhaug, Hank Eskin, Brady Brown, Giacomo Scaparrotti, Winfield Trail, Luke Biddle, Marc Ethier, Joseph Hill, John Semander, Bill Basch, Robert Toth, Magnus Tranum, blouerat, PK, Richard Lindsey, Lars JJ, Patrick Musson, Matt Taylor, Johan Schoeman, Thomas Jew, Josef Citrine, Marcus Schwartz, Ryan Cozzubbo, Christopher Bassett, Julian Rapoport, Ed Hall, Jason Portwood, Jesse Cardone, Michael Snowden, Drew McClain, Boh00711, Jon-André Haraldstad, The8TrackKid, Daniel J Schless, Sebi Jecklin, Casey Kikendall, Craig Leverenz, Charlie Hankin, Andres Plaza, Revenge, Matthew Baron, André, Gerald Monaco, Tab Patterson, Jason Weathered, h.drew foy, Roger Beal, Gantradies, Chris Hartl, Steve Stone, Brian G. Shacklett, Colton Aubrey Hooke, Paul Mills, Christopher Luna, Kotanu, Brendan Terrett, Techmoan, Mike Mason, Elijah Reeds, Christopher Jett, Justin Talbot, Steven Metcalf, Verysofisticated, Lolucoca, John McLusky, Ashleigh R, Stephen Bell, Logan Beenken, Eric Wood, Stephen Pick, BlancoGrande, Matthew Giraitis, James Ryan, Robert Joscelyne, Ellis M. Eisen, Francis Fisher, Kedar Deshpande, Lukas Komischke, Dave Anderson, Felix Freiberger, Dane Peterson, Brent LaRowe, Aerospyke, Kieran Cox, Hunter Schwisow, Logan Kriete, Rafał Wiosna, Adam D. Ruppe, Audin Malmin, Eric Hansen, Noah McCann, Jason R Scheuren, Rufo Sanchez, The War Academy, Yaniv, neko, Daniel Ch, Lee Wallbank, Grayson Lang, Neil Bronner, Carl Yazbek, Jeffrey Grajkowski, Christopher Splinter, Eric Merrill, Stefan Berndtsson, Michael Sims, Seth Kneller, Clint Eisinger, Jesse G. Donat, Christopher Leidich, Mike Friedman, Svante

[@TomHansonKNVPStudios]

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.

[@pepeshadilay]

Imagine having a stack of LDRW disc's on your desk instead of cd rws when burning movies off lime wire

[@memphischeshier3035]

@@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.

[@ChillingCrowley]

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?

[@memphischeshier3035]

@@ChillingCrowley 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.

[@lamecasuelas2]

That's very cool

[@video45000]

"The CRV other than being a midsized crossover" omg I died 😂

[@ModMINI]

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.

[@irtbmtind89]

New LDs were pressed for karaoke machines for a few years after the last movie was released on the format.

[@m0rthaus]

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.

[@PeterMathis792]

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.

[@mapesdhs597]

Tron on LD back then?? Glorious! 8)

[@sebulia1]

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!

[@irtbmtind89]

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.

[@jeffkleist9679]

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.

[@tunelowplayslow5623]

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.

[@Aldrasio]

Another great video. Keep making these, and keep having as much fun as you're having when you make them. It really comes through.

[@dfpytwa]

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.

[@alecjahn]

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!]

[@kaydreamer]

When I was around 10 years old my parents would drive me out to the only pub in our town which would allow minors onstage to sing karaoke. (In Australia, most karaoke is found in pubs. You get a free audience, so it’s great for practicing stagecraft and performance confidence.) I still remember the karaoke guy having all this massive equipment for playing laser disks, which were basically unheard of in late 90’s lower middle-class suburban Australia. For many years, I thought those massive CD’s were some weird karaoke-only format. I was really surprised, years later, when I learned they were the precursor to DVD, and that some people watched movies from them!

[@MarphitimusBlackimus]

But is the "ray" in "Blu-ray" capitalized?

[@TechnologyConnections]

No. No it is not. Time to change the title :)

[@patemathic]

That profile picture is my favourite at matching the comment.

[@AlphaDaddy01]

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?

[@DarthHater100]

That's what I've been saying! Never capitalized! Also, the "Blu" is pronounced Bl'uh, not Bl'oo.

[@midge_gender_solek3314]

Hello. Do you think cockroach AI programming in modern games should be important?

[@HerecomestheCalavera]

My elementary school had laserdisc players, and at the time I thought they were just something that schools used. It wasn't until around 2002-2003 that I realized that basically every movie ever made was on Laserdisc. When I found that out I bought my first laserdisc player and ended up with a collection of around 50 movies. At that time most movies could be had for around $5 so it was a much cheaper solution to buying DVDs. I was getting big into watching older movies and LD was perfect for that. One example, I remember the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy being around $70 on DVD! While they could be had on LD for $15 or so. It was alot of fun collecting and watching laserdiscs at that time.

[@CJdude22]

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.

[@SO_DIGITAL]

My very first time seeing a Laserdisc was at a friend's house in about 1991. His dad was a software developer. In his home was a test setup of a computer, TV monitor and an industrial LD player. The monitor was touch screen. The CAV Laserdisc provided the images for a virtual tour of a house. Also in the late 80s a local mall installed self serve kiosks with an interactive store directory. One of these were open one day. I peeked inside and there was another industrial LD player and a computer.

[@BenHelweg]

If you're interested in early HD, the 1992 Bob Dylan 30th anniversary concert (and others) were filmed with the new sony HDVS system at the time which aligned with the HiVision LD 1125 line system. There is footage online, in HD of the concert which is a treat to see. For me it is interesting because some of the cameras used in the concert (and at the time) were the HDC-100 (or perhaps 300) that were still using the tube-based saticon pickup systems instead of conventional CCD. That is, a high definition signal originated from a completely analogue source. If you look closely in some shots you will see the comet trails when the camera pans past a bright light. Sony was using complex and expensive HDVS tape units at the time that had to be strategically swapped throughout shows like this due to the short durations permitted by the tapes. Crazy! I believe there was a genesis tour done in this fashion as well, but might only be available on LD or DVD.

[@JustaPeriod]

Oh my god you got me so hard with the mid-size crossover joke.

[@sperzieb00n]

Under/band-pass sampling is a digital signal processing method that can be used to either sample signals that are beyond the sample rate, or to frequency shift a narrow band signal in real-time without affecting its time domain. Under/band-pass sampling can even be used in specific situations to isolate transients, to invert frequency domains, to compress/extend frequency domains, or to frequency shift wide band signals (though the latter is rarely exploited and limited to small shifts; the transformation is linear so on top of shifting it also warps the frequency domain).

[@RadioMartyT1B]

I learn something every time I visit your channel. Thank you.

[@Anacronian]

That Magnavox player is a beautiful piece of tech.

[@timothystockman7533]

I save a Hi-Vision player in operatin at the Smithsonian in the early 1990s. It WAS amazing!

[@Zizzily]

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.

[@TechnologyConnections]

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.

[@ucitymetalhead]

Might be smaller but is like a bullet Versus a brick bullet is smaller but no less deadly.

[@Zizzily]

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.

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

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.

[@LaurenGlenn]

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.

[@jimmyligion]

fun fact: living in Shanghai China through the 80s and 90s, we were pretty familiar with the LD. a few richer folks had the machine, and we refer to the format as 大碟 (big disc). back in the days, the big disc is considered to have the better quality compare to DHS, the VCD or theater shot versions. go to any movie stand on the street, they will assure you their VCD or DVD discs are the big disc version (meaning copied directly from the LD).

[@mrrobotnica]

Disappointed you didn’t have a Top Gun LD. Still the reference LD for audiophiles running on high end analog amps. Really interesting time in the confluence of hifi’s, our setup at that time ran on Yamaha Amp and preamp, Nakamichi self flipping tape deck (that was a technological marvel, the 505), Lynn Sondek turntable, and a Yamaha reference CD player. The Pioneer LD hooked up to the pre amp as an aux input, and we had huge JBL speakers that pumped out the sound. Watched it all on a Mitsubishi rear projection TV. That Top Gun LD to this day is still the most memorable home audio experience I have encountered these last 30:years.

[@vladg5216]

Great vid. Loved the whole Laserdisc series. Thanks for the great work!

[@MickeyD2012]

I wanna play a Dragon's Lair arcade cabinet, just once. I only ever had the Sega CD version.

[@kyleolson8977]

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.

[@carlospulpo4205]

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.

[@MickeyD2012]

Too bad, that player is worth a small fortune now. Probably couldn't have known it at the time, though.

[@RCAvhstape]

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.

[@RBzee112]

@@RCAvhstape I felt the same way.

[@Kwstr42]

my father had that Magnavox laser disc player when I was a kid, nostalgia abound

[@mgabrysSF]

I saw one of the recordable multi-write systems at TCI in Denver. They were using it for Random accessible archiving of broadcast material for news and other purposes. Compared to tape catalogs and quality the cost savings was immense compared to the cost of the RWLD.

[@timothystockman7533]

I own a couple (non-working) laserdisc players and a few dozen discs. I did actually see one of the Japanese HD laserdisc players in a Washington DC museum (it was playing, so I saw the HD image on a monitor). I had a friend who owned the arcade game Firefox. This game console actually had a Philips laserdisc player in it. We took the laserdisc out and played it in my player. It had clips from the Firefox movie, which were broken up into 1 second chunks. They had up to 4 story lines going at a time, 1 second of the first, 1 second of the second, 1 second of the third, etc. They game controller would send commands to the LD player to use the tracking mirror to seek to the next chunk during the vertical blanking interval so that it could play uninterrupted video from the story line being followed. An example of two story lines is that in the first, you would fly down a canyon. In the second, you'd fly down the same canyon, but the enemy base at the end would explode because you bombed it.

[@aaronjohnson4681]

this guy is a good storyteller, definately because I enjoy the many topics about tech he has opinions about

[@StephenGarnett]

Another great video, excellent explanation, as usual. (patiently awaits a 'co-op' video with Techmoan on quadrophonic.... )

[@frankgonzalez24]

How about making videos on the rise, use and fall of the BUD? You know, the Big Ugly (satellite) Dishes few families had. I was always curious about how they worked to get all those channels. And how the development of the small dish killed the BUD.

[@Bkoded]

I think the the coolest thing to me about the hi vision stuff is the existence of high definition tube sensors

[@Brushedmetal69]

There were actually high Def tubes made called harpicon they were never used in cameras though as the ones used in the early hi vision were the normal tubes. The harpicons though have actually better low light performance than CCD's.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Hang on, if Anamorphic Widescreen leads to stretched 16:9, then why would you want it? It’d make everything look awful like when you stretch a 4:3 SNES game to a 16:9 screen.

[@Rentta]

Laserdisc was surprisingly often used here in Finland as well for Karaoke (where Karaoke is or was probably only second to Asia when it comes to popularity)

[@xanx1234]

Really enjoyed the series, thank you!

[@nekochristmas]

when you said "bonus fact", I was like "ok calm down "today I found out" host" lol, very awesome video as always, I enjoy how well you know your tech

[@ZeedijkMike]

Always a great pleasure to watch your videos.

[@conradammon268]

I was really hoping for a special laserdisc format dedicated to high resolution videos of Muse concerts.

[@yoruneko34]

back in the middle 90s my VFX school gave us a backup of our movies on LD-R

[@mbvideoselection]

I nearly bought a CRV recorder on ebay about a year ago. I stupidly didn't bother bidding thinking it would get bid on through the roof, but it didn't. I could easily have afforded it. Another seller had one blank disc that cost just as much, mind you.

[@Cheese_1337]

Yay! You got Twitter! Let's celebrate this!! 😊😱👍🍻🍾🍰🎂

[@coastercrafter1productions300]

Whenever my crush is busy i watch your videos and later recap to her of what i watched with you

[@diegorivera2711]

I remember seeing some guys setting up a roller coaster simulator during the late 90's and loading some kind of video cardrige onto a player (supposedly the video was played inside the simulator). I wonder if that cardrige was a recordable laser disc...

[@sleeplessindefatigable6385]

goddamn... to give some context to that 2700RPM speed, a Cessna 152 cruises with its prop spinning at 2200RPM. That disc is spinning faster than a plane prop with the throttle rammed open. That's nuts.

[@TheLastAnalogJunkie]

Didn’t some burnable LD formats play a feature role in a scene from the Timothy Dalton-era James Bond movies? I could have sworn there was a scene where he burns some valuable data to a disc using an LD machine.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

Felix Leiter's computer in Licence To Kill used some large disc.

[@reeffeeder]

Not going to lie, came here for Muse (the band). Was disappointed...

[@TylerMelnychuk]

I remember 2004 as the scramble to get an HD TV for the summer Olympics.

[@stephendevore3902]

During laserdiscs decline not talked about was the quality of the laserdiscs were getting bad. Quality control was on a lunch break. Especially in Japan and Europe adding to people jumping to DVD. It was so bad that many of the laserdiscs would shatter while being played. What a mess. I had about 10 that were a bad pressing.I jumped ship to DVD in 1997 because of these problems.Good Video 🙂.

[@RaydenUMK3]

Great video, but you're wrong about the squeeze not being released outside of Japan. There was four released in US, The Fugitive, Free Willy, Unforgiven, and the one I don't have Grumpy Old Men.

[@LMacNeill]

Looking forward to seeing that MUSE machine working in a future video! :-)

[@kenshinflyer]

That CRV thing made me laugh out loud in the middle of the night...

[@harobikes3three3]

Would love to see a video done on DVDs & their evolution. Single Layer, Dual Layer, etc... & Blank media for DVDs has always been a gamble & some research on the topic would yield quite the interesting video. Same applies to Blurays. Lemme know!

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I’ve got an anamorphic VHS somewhere, so I’m sure anamorphic widescreen existed on VHS at around at least the same time as squeeze-LD.

[@FinalBaton]

Yep! indeed. some later standard def crt were able to do the squeeze operation themselves(compress the visible scanlines, leaving blanked parts on top and bottom), so no special VCR needed, it's all handled by the TV

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

FinalBaton Yeah, I actually own one! I’ve got this absolutely beautiful Sony Trinitron KV-21X5U, which is basically the best 4:3, Standard Definition PAL (although it supports NTSC) CRT ever, and it has the ability to squeeze to 16:9. My set is from the late 1990’s, but my family had a 16:9 version of a similar model when I was a kid, which was from 2002. The coolest part is that by compressing the scanlines it doesn’t lose any of them, it just has thinner scanlines.

[@FinalBaton]

@@justanotheryoutubechannel Cool! yeah that's so interesting how it's able to still use all scanlines, isn't it? Right now I don't have my crt that could do squeeze anymore (KV-36FV300), but I have a sweet set from 1986(KV-25XBR), the best non-flat consumer Trini released in North America. Funily it has RGB! There's also a curved Trini released here that has component(all flat Trinis here have component but almost none of the curved ones do) and it was released mid-late nineties, and I bet that one also has squeeze. I've seen the KV-21X5U mentionned in game forums I frequent before, looks like it's the best(or top 3 at least) european curved Trini. You got a great one. Top shelf consumer sets and lower tier PVMs are my fave because they look closer to an arcade monitor.

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

7:50 Funny thing about DVDs: None of the storage resolutions in the DVD specification even use an aspect ratio of 4:3 (the most commonly used resolution is 720×480 which is 1.5:1) meaning that on DVD in particular, both 4:3 and 16:9 content are technically anamorphic.

[@Peter-pu7bo]

Thank you so much! This is interesting stuff.

[@ToastyMozart]

Interestingly enough 4:3 DVD video is anamorphic too. NTSC DVDs store video at a resolution of 720x480 (3:2) and then squeeze/stretch it wider or narrower depending on the assigned Dynamic Aspect Ratio.

[@fluffycritter]

Just as a note, DVDs never have square pixels - their frame resolution is 720x480 which is a compromise between 4:3 and 16:9 (which would be 640x480 or 853x480, respectively).

[@mapesdhs597]

Not forgetting PAL of course. ;D Resolution standards are fun! :}

[@macbuff81]

This sounds like a airplane jet powering up. Scary

[@Kacpa2]

Or older car speeding up on the dyno xD

[@Carewolf]

Or like an early 1990s harddrive.. Those spun even faster, and louder.

[@CC-ke5np]

In the late 1990s I had visited the back room of a TV repair shop where a Laserdisc was stuck in a drywall. It had penetrated it about an inch and a half. I wonder what a MUSE disc would do... It was not that uncommon that a CD player can launch a disc. Most brands have an additional safety switch on the tray disabling the laser when the tray isn't fully closed. When the switch turns wonky, the laser is shut down without the device noticing. The RPM is regulated by comparing the pulses from the laser with pulses from a quartz circuit. When the laser pulses are missing, early CD players will run the disc motor with full power. If you panic and press stop/eject repeatedly, the system thinks there is no disc (spinning) inside anyway and opens the tray with the disc at up to 200% nominal speed.

[@doubledarefan]

Laserdisc doing 95mph in the living room? Imagine what would happen if it ripped itself apart? Anyone have scratched-up or otherwise unplayable Laserdiscs? Send 'em to The Slo-Mo Guys! I wanna see them, just like they did with CDs and records, spin 'em up to literal record-breaking speeds.

[@RetroTechSelect]

Another fantastic video! You're informational while still being highly entertaining.

[@psychic_wolf]

Remember when CD-RW on desktop PCs were a big deal and you were so cool if you could re-write discs?

[@SFtheGreat]

A comparison of Squeeze LD and regular letterbox would have been nice. If Star Wars had been ever released they would have been the most expensive releases now.

[@Patchuchan]

Interestingly the first laserdisc players did use red lasers specially a hene laser tube.

[@mapesdhs597]

In the mid 80s I used to frequently find HeNe based players on my local landfill site, took them apart to get the tubes, transformer, driving circuitry, mirrors , etc. Turned one of them into a light show for parties (with smoke machine).

[@Max_I5]

Great series ty

[@Realmasterorder]

Very nice video of a really cool and way ahead of their time but very expensive laser HD disk player

[@dragonmaster613]

Those RPMs could slice fruit!

[@PandaXs1]

I don't think anamorphic widescreen was ever an automatic thing, this was a huge source of ire between me and my friends. "guys I don't think this video is right everything is squished, can we change the settings" "lol w/e it looks fine" thank god widescreen displays are the standard now.

[@zathrasadama8338]

I love Star Trek First Contact, nice thumbnail lol

[@DelphiTheDolphin]

I like the Dolphin in the lower right corner 🐬 :)

[@Zcooger]

Domesday86 project - making pit-perfect analog copies of LaserDiscs to the Hard Drive.

[@ashknoecklein]

Keep up the good work!!

[@__-to3hq]

3:45 holy shit the laser disc does not sound safe

[@swanseauk]

"Techmoan" did a full review of a MUSE system not long ago. It's very interesting

[@JC-bl9bo]

Oh man go over D-VHS/D-Theater. That would be a great one. I never understood why that was even released.

[@Patrick_AUBRY]

10:33 I saw that or a similar deck in a post-prod show in Montreal in 91 I think.

[@ashknoecklein]

"The Laserdisc of Laserdiscs" just killed me LOL

[@SDWNJ]

The laser-y-est!

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

weehawk Yeah me too, that’s brilliant.

[@Hashtag_Laser]

how about the sound of that thing turning on? lol...omg, next to that little tv lol

[@Scudmaster11]

Because it was a disc moving at 95 miles per hour

[@startedtech]

I never want the LaserDisc series to end....

[@deathstrike]

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.

[@jonathandogey5747]

Laserdiscs are my entire childhood.

[@metacross2826]

"Imagine this but 50% faster" Me, watching the video at 1.5x speed for the lols": Done

[@encycl07pedia-]

I watch most non-music videos at 1.5x to save time. It's a good life hack.

[@benjaminheeter3831]

Nice

[@jonathanryan2915]

Perfect for longer videos where you're watching to answer one question and you already know 90% of everything else being said

[@PacmansRevenge]

"Honey, where's the disc?" "It's playing right now, why?" // Disc tray open and window broken. Sirens in the distance // "My God...."

[@dan_loup]

"Surrender now or i will play this muse disc!"

[@refraggedbean]

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)

[@Alexagrigorieff]

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.

[@LaurenGlenn]

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.

[@bibasik7]

The Slo-Mo Guys did a video about spinning up CDs until they exploded, and recently did a similar video with vinyl records.

[@ALurkingGrue]

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.

[@Rikorage]

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.

[@StephenGillie]

You know what they say about experimenting with freebase laser discs!

[@becauseimafan]

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.

[@WildBluntHickok]

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.

[@Pepperoni_Toni]

Wild Blunt Hickok there was a 72x speed one made by kenwood

[@hpalvz]

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.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

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.

[@tookitogo]

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.

[@chincemagnet]

Just Another KZbin 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.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

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.

[@MaximRecoil]

@@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).

[@KittenRaptor]

"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!!!'

[@666Tomato666]

I cannae change the laws of fysiks captain!

[@stephenneal7373]

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.

[@richardholland7759]

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!)

[@janey4319]

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

[@MrVolksbeetle]

Laserdisc was one of those formats that I dreamed of when I was a kid. Like my own personal unobtanium.

[@p.graham7519]

ganymedeIV4 Mindblown

[@MrVolksbeetle]

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.

[@wendyokoopa7048]

Same here but my father as many opted for practicality as opposed to the super cool thing.

[@folksurvival]

Laserdisc, Neo Geo and one of those rear projection TVs.

[@invisibledave]

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 KZbin videos.

[@JonesNate]

I feel like I'm watching a PBS special. "This program was made possible by support from viewers like you. Thank you!"

[@weatheranddarkness]

As a kid i was always like "what is this Viewers Like You outfit? Seems weird, is it like a advocacy group or something?"

[@alvallac2171]

@@weatheranddarkness *an advocacy (because "advocacy" starts with a vowel sound)

[@SimonChristensen]

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

[@ataksnajpera]

Yeah. Machine seems to be broken.

[@ShogunGin0]

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.

[@voltazh]

Well, this is kind of it kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2TahZSfrdeXeJY

[@andysutcliffe3915]

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.

[@dunebasher1971]

@@ShogunGin0 Yes, the player on his desk is an early-model regular LD deck with the unreliable gas laser.

[@mubd1234]

There was an amazing video on KZbin (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...

[@belstar1128]

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

[@sunnohh]

You better have a channel full of malt liquor reviews......so much potential, drink more or something

[@Phredreeke]

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.

[@kingedwin]

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.

[@InsaneGamersOfficial]

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)

[@crumb_]

There better be a BONUS FACT on your next video

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

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.

[@wtpanos]

So much respect for actually writing your own subtitles. Love all of the sassy descriptions

[@vwestlife]

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.

[@andrewgwilliam4831]

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.

[@vwestlife]

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.

[@mjc0961]

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.

[@duraker1]

Oh, by HDTV you meant HD Displays and not HDTVs? (you know the thing everyone think when im being a youtube pedantic shit)

[@StevenVillman]

@@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!_*

[@overspray5281]

No muppet outro again!!! Sorry wrong channel

[@lancecombes]

LMFAO! 😂

[@gilberttheregular8553]

Why?

[@c0mpu73rguy]

Gilbert TheRegular Techmoan.

[@stonesy87]

The muppets make it better

[@isaacstretch106]

The best part is, you knew it wasn’t right. You didn’t even edit

[@nberedim]

Did I just learn about some weird video format that techmoan hasn't already covered?

[@vwestlife]

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.

[@JonasDAtlas]

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.

[@AureliusR]

That Techmoan hasn't stolen from other channels*

[@625tvroom]

And Techmoan revealed that the format used four fields per frame!

[@futur3gentleman802]

I have really enjoyed these. Please make more videos on whatever interests you.

[@speedyink]

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' KZbin videos seem to follow these days. Just keep doing it how you do, it's great.

[@alvallac2171]

*Your (possessive) you're = contraction of "YOU aRE"