Laserdisc facts for kids
A Laserdisc was a special kind of disc that could play movies and videos. It was like an early version of a DVD. Laserdiscs offered much better picture quality than old VHS tapes. However, they were a lot bigger than the DVDs we know today. To watch a Laserdisc movie, you needed a special machine called a Laserdisc player.
Laserdiscs first came out in 1978, made by a company called MCA. They became quite popular in the 1980s. But when DVDs started to appear in the late 1990s, movie companies stopped making Laserdisc movies. Even today, some of the best Laserdisc players can still sell for a lot of money, sometimes over $1,000 USD!
How Laserdiscs Work
Laserdiscs work in a similar way to a regular CD or DVD. The surface of the disc has tiny bumps and flat areas, like a secret code. A special laser inside the Laserdisc player shines on these bumps. The laser reads the pattern of bumps and flat areas. This pattern is then turned into the pictures and sounds you see and hear on your TV.
Most Laserdiscs could hold about 30 minutes to an hour of video on each side. This meant a single disc could play a movie that was one to two hours long.
Laserdisc Player Technology
The very first Laserdisc players used a special type of laser called a Helium-Neon laser to read the discs. Later on, newer models started using infrared lasers. The first players with infrared lasers sometimes had small problems. These included the video skipping, strange color spots, or blurry pictures. Luckily, these issues were fixed in later versions of the players.
Some of the newer Laserdisc players were designed to do more than just play Laserdiscs. They could also play regular audio CDs! In Japan, one of the very last models ever made was even more advanced. It could play DVDs, CDs, and Laserdiscs all from one machine.
Images for kids
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This picture shows how video and audio are stored as tiny bumps on a Laserdisc.
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An old-fashioned top-loading Laserdisc player made by Magnavox. You can see the lid is open.
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A Pioneer player that could play CDs, CDVs, and Laserdiscs.
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A fun image of the LaserDisc Turtle.
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A smaller 20-cm Japanese LaserDisc used for karaoke.
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A Pioneer LaserRecorder, which could be connected to a computer or video.
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A CRVdisc next to a VHS tape, showing how they compare in size.
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A Recordable Laser Videodisc shown with a DVD-R for size comparison.
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See also
In Spanish: Laserdisc para niños
