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LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United States in 1978 under the name DiscoVision, a brand used by MCA. As Pioneer took a greater role in its development and promotion, the format was rebranded LaserVision. While the LaserDisc brand originally referred specifically to Pioneer's line of players, the term gradually came to be used generically to refer to the format as a whole, making it a genericized trademark. The discs typically have a diameter of 300 millimeters (11.8 in), similar in size to the 12-inch (305 mm) phonograph record. Unlike most later optical disc formats, LaserDisc is not fully digital; it stores an analog video signal.
Many titles featured CD-quality digital audio, and LaserDisc was the first home video format to support surround sound. Its 425 to 440 horizontal lines of resolution was nearly double that of competing consumer videotape formats, VHS and Betamax, and approaching the resolution later achieved by DVDs. Despite these advantages, the format failed to achieve widespread adoption in North America or Europe, primarily due to the high cost of players and their inability to record.
In contrast, LaserDisc was significantly more popular in Japan and in wealthier regions of Southeast Asia, including Singapore, and Malaysia, and it became the dominant rental video format in Hong Kong during the 1990s.[3] Its superior audiovisual quality made it a favorite among videophiles and film enthusiasts throughout its lifespan.[4]
The technologies and concepts developed for LaserDisc laid the groundwork for subsequent optical media formats, including the compact disc (CD) and DVD. LaserDisc player production ended in July 2009 with Pioneer's exit from the market.
A LaserDisc game is a video game that uses pre-recorded video (either live-action or animation) played from a LaserDisc, either as the entirety of the graphics or as part of the graphics. The first major arcade laserdisc video game was Sega's Astron Belt, a third-person space combat rail shooter featuring live-action full-motion video footage (largely borrowed from a Japanese science fiction film) over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed.[12][13] Developed in 1982,[14] it was unveiled at the September 1982 Amusement Machine Show (AM Show) in Tokyo and the November 1982 AMOA show in Chicago,[15] and was then released in Japan in March 1983.[16] However, its release in the United States was delayed due to several hardware and software bugs, by which time other laserdisc games had beaten it to public release there.[13] The next laserdisc game to be announced was Data East's video game adaptation of the Japanese anime film Genma Taisen (1983), introduced in March 1983,[17] with the game released internationally in June 1983.[18][19] It introduced a new approach to video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cutscenes to develop a story between the game's shooting stages; years later, this would become the standard approach to video game storytelling.[20] Bega's Battle also featured a branching storyline.[21] In the United States, the game that popularized the genre was Dragon's Lair, animated by Don Bluth and released by Cinematronics.[13] Released in June 1983,[22] it was the first laserdisc game released in the US. It contained animated scenes, much like a cartoon. The scenes would be played back and at certain points during playback the player would have to press a specific direction on the joystick or the button to advance the game to the next scene, like a quick time event. For instance, a scene begins with the hero, a knight named Dirk, falling through a hole in a drawbridge and being attacked by tentacles. If the player presses the button at this point, Dirk fends off the tentacles with his sword and pulls himself back up out of the hole. If the player fails to press the sword button at the right time, or instead presses a direction on the joystick, Dirk is attacked by the tentacles and crushed. Each unsuccessful move, however, would produce a few moments of black screen, when the LaserDisc switched to the scene showing the death of the character, which interrupted the continuous flow of gameplay found in other video game graphic systems of the time; this was a common criticism of some players and critics. There were generally two styles of laserdisc games that emerged. Those that followed the lead of Astron Belt integrated pre-recorded laserdisc video with real-time computer graphics and gameplay, making them more like traditional interactive video games. Those that followed the lead of Dragon's Lair integrated animated cartoon laserdisc video with quick time events, making them more like interactive cartoons. The latter style of laserdisc games were generally more successful than the former. |
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