Patrick Arcee, AFs

Just after we thought the high-definition format war had come to a close, a new player has appeared on the scene. The Laserdisc, long assumed to have gone down with the VHS ship, is now poised to make a stunning comeback.

For roughly twenty years the Laserdisc existed as the aficionado’s alternative to VHS. Laserdisc offered superior colour accuracy, resolution, and alternate audio tracks, eventually even supporting 5.1 DTS. The format also pioneered the inclusion of director’s commentary, chapter skipping, and other features that DVD often takes the credit for. Sadly, the lack of recordable discs and the limitation of 60 minutes of video per side left Laserdisc sales in the VHS’s shadow. Now, after a decade in exile, the new laserdisc was revealed in an exclusive preview demonstration I was lucky enough to be invited to.

The new Laserdisc will use a standard Blu-Ray laser, but Laserdiscs are twelve inches in diameter, which gives nearly ten times the area of a standard-sized Blu-ray, allowing for over 200 GB per side. The developers at the unveiling this morning were glowing with pride as they explained the inspiration for the new Laserdisc:

“We decided this time to not see ourselves as the struggling underdog. Formats that offer convenience at the cost of quality consistently win-over the mainstream, and that’s understandable. But alongside the race to build a smaller Ipod we are also seeing DVDs released in mammoth-sized collector’s-edition boxes for movies that people feel should be celebrated and showcased.”

Rather than shamefully hiding more data layers in a single disc, Laserdisc will proudly stick with its traditional one layer per side. The range of available recording qualities will allow for anywhere from one hour to (more rarely) ten minutes per side. An eight-sided edition of your favourite movie with four sides worth of extras will look properly impressive on your shelf, not to mention in your hands as your friends watch you load it into your multi-disc player. Fortunately the players combine a healthy read buffer with a jukebox-style mechanism for flipping discs, so layer and disc change interruptions will be a thing of the past. The developers have been working with an undisclosed projection producer, so we should soon be seeing affordable eight megapixel projectors to take advantage of the format’s full potential at faster spin rates. We may have to wait a few months for highest-quality releases though, as the presenter made a passing reference to a staff injury involving the 10x speed discs, the thirty-eight inch disc circumference, and the sound barrier.

Nevertheless the single-speed releases already offer stunning performance, and the true strength of the format is actually in its expandability. First, developers have opted not to use specific sound formats that might become obsolete (Dolby EX 6.1 comes to mind). Instead, each sound is tagged on the recording as coming from a certain point in 3D space, and the player calculates in real time which speakers to use, much like computer games have done for some time now. The demonstration room was set up with a dome of 16 speakers (up to 256 are supported), and we could actually hear a missile leaving the ground, arc over our heads, and explode behind us. To keep this from becoming a nightmare to hook up, the players support wireless Digital FM transmission to each speaker. To simplify set-up even further, the wireless receiver attached to each speaker communicates the speaker’s physical location to the player via infrared.

The fine-tuning of so many speakers is kept manageable by a microphone on the remote control that listens to the quality and capability of each speaker. The hands-free speaker diagnostic mode tries hundreds of EQ and volume adjustments to make speakers compliment each other as best as possible. It also weighs speaker location against speaker quality, so you can trust the player to send the musical score to your quality speakers, but (for example) can stick some old 1970s speakers under the couch to if you want to feel the train wheels rattling beneath you.

Anyone who has suffered DRM-related headaches will be relieved to know it will not apply to the new Laserdisc format. As their presenter phrased it “Various media can be adequately stored digitally. However, a trombone is not digital, nor are the hues of a sunset. Photography enthusiasts still like to use film, many audiophiles still prefer vinyl records, and no art lover would replace a priceless oil painting with a ‘perfect’ digital copy. We are proud to announce that Laserdisc will carry on its legacy with a breathtaking new class of analog audio and video.”

Some appealing (undisclosed) improvements are in the works, but early adopters need not fear about their single speed players becoming obsolete. Manufacturer’s rebates will be offered to those wanting to upgrade their players, including owners of original laserdisc and videodisc players. Yes, the CED videodisc was a completely unrelated technology, but the developers all agreed that they “just felt bad for people who bought them.”

Finally we have a format that will not quickly hit a performance ceiling, and instead is only limited by how much we lovingly fine tune and explore its potential.

Patrick Arcee

April 1st, 2008
individualist279@yahoo.co.uk