The End Of LaserDisc

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Asahi: Last LaserDisc maker to end production
Pioneer Corp. will cease production of LaserDisc players in March, effectively sounding a death knell for the technology, which has been replaced by DVDs and advanced karaoke machines. It was the first Japanese company to make the products, which were widely used for watching movies at home and playing karaoke songs. With Pioneer's exit, there will be no company in Japan manufacturing LaserDisc players.

[AlbertSiegel]

I had no idea that anyone still made the players. I just watched Star Wars on laserdisc last night. Video quality is less than impressive after one is spoiled by bluray, but the audio is still great! The best part is being able to enjoy all the classics from the 70's and 80's before all the crappy updates and enhancements by Lucas or the berg. Greedo never shot!

[wuchan]

Fuck, I didn't know anyone made laser discs (or players) since 1996. Shit I have only seen a laser disc once in my life, and I remember the 8 track in my pops car!

[IkemenTommy]

They make great frisbee throwing at Yoyogi Park. What a shame!

[bolt_krank]

Big surprise to me too that they were still being made.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I was also surprised. I wonder what their primary market was?

[Taro Toporific]

I was also surprised. I wonder what their primary market was?

This isn't a crazy as it sounds. LaserDiscs are used in the Japanese karaoke market quite a bit.
[INDENT]Pioneer calls a halt to LaserDisc hardware production
14th January 2009 -- RegHardware.co.uk
...These days, LaserDisc has found a niche in the karaoke market - two of Pioneer's last three LaserDisc players are support the singalong technology. They're also DVD players.
While the information on a LaserDisc is read using a laser - just like CDs and DVDs - the video and audio information was analog not digital. Later LaserDiscs aquired digital soundtracks, including surround sound. Despite the analog video, LaserDisc still yielded a better picture than home videotape, thanks to its higher resolution. Fans argue the picture's better than DVD, because there are no data-compression artifacts...more....
[/INDENT]

[IkemenTommy]

You would think that karaoke has already moved on to something like DVD or recorded HDD data.

[American Oyaji]

I bought "The Phantom Menace" on LaserDisc

[xenomorph42]

I had no idea that anyone still made the players. I just watched Star Wars on laserdisc last night. Video quality is less than impressive after one is spoiled by bluray, but the audio is still great! The best part is being able to enjoy all the classics from the 70's and 80's before all the crappy updates and enhancements by Lucas or the berg. Greedo never shot!

In the early 90's while I was still living in LA, I used to work for a company called "The Good Guys" consumer electronics fairly mid to high-end and we always got the top of the line premiere stuff. I remembered when they told us in 1991 that there would be a smaller and better format of a LD(there wasn't a word yet for DVD)with superior audio and video capabilities that would put the LD to shame, imagine a movie the size of a CD in the palm of your hand. The first was the CDI or "Compact Disc Interactive" they tried to make the disc user-friendly, but it was more of pain in the ass than anything else. The graphics were less than impressive, the time lag from one chapter to the next was sluggish and the digital pixels were flying all over the place, the units were outrageously expensive and finally, the selection of the discs were just too darn boring, so the whole concept crashed and burned, but out of all that, the DVD was ultimately born.
I need to mention another system that bombed around that time was in 1992
this was Sony's highly anticipated MD and Philips DCC (Digital Compact Cassette)Guess we all know who won that one.
My...how times really have changed.