A few years ago, I was casually strolling down my local flea market when I found a very unusual, very beat-up Imation LaserDisc...
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Besides the fact that it was for Best Buy, the late manufacturing date and the implication it was a back-up for an HD master piqued my interest!
I just recently captured it and put an edited version up on YouTube:
It's a very, very high-quality 4:3 crop of an obvious 16:9 source. With the loss of picture, I'm not sure I understand what the purpose of a back-up like this is. Was it not a back-up and instead a distribution given to stores that didn't yet have a HD infrastructure?
Does anyone have any information on this disc, have information on the purpose of such a disc, or have similar, pressed HD-mastered "back-ups" on LD from the turn of the millennium?
_________________ I post ReelyInteresting things occasionally.
I used to work @ a Good Guys! store back in the mid 90's and we had our version of this disc playing on continuous repeat all day (that LD player really got a lot of mileage). The bad part about our disc is that it had the store's logo constantly fixed on the bottom right portion of the video and eventually it created burn in on all our CRT TVs'. Can't imagine how many of these TVs' eventually had to be sent to a service center for tube replacement (the company eventually realized how bad it was and had another disc made that removed the stationary logo).
Very impressed by the video quality of your capture; had retail LDs been mastered to this quality then the twilight days of Laserdisc may have been a very different story. A lot of possible explanations for why these exist but I have to assume that you are correct and they existed for demo purposes at locations that hadn't yet upgraded their A/V infrastructure.
I’m absolutely blown away by this also; I could understand if this was a Muse Hi-Vision LD but hard to believe its just plain vanilla SD, I really can’t imagine a standard DVD achieving anything like this quality - the mind boggles thinking about how nice LD transfers could have become had the format continued into the 2000s. This really shows what it was truly capable of when using a top class master.
I’m absolutely blown away by this also; I could understand if this was a Muse Hi-Vision LD but hard to believe its just plain vanilla SD, I really can’t imagine a standard DVD achieving anything like this quality - the mind boggles thinking about how nice LD transfers could have become had the format continued into the 2000s. This really shows what it was truly capable of when using a top class master.
saxcatz wrote:
Very impressed by the video quality of your capture; had retail LDs been mastered to this quality then the twilight days of Laserdisc may have been a very different story.
je280 wrote:
Agree with above, great quality.
Thank-you for posting
Thanks guys! The source is truly fantastic, and I'm happy with how it came out.
saxcatz wrote:
A lot of possible explanations for why these exist but I have to assume that you are correct and they existed for demo purposes at locations that hadn't yet upgraded their A/V infrastructure.
ldfan wrote:
I used to work @ a Good Guys! store back in the mid 90's and we had our version of this disc playing on continuous repeat all day (that LD player really got a lot of mileage). The bad part about our disc is that it had the store's logo constantly fixed on the bottom right portion of the video and eventually it created burn in on all our CRT TVs'. Can't imagine how many of these TVs' eventually had to be sent to a service center for tube replacement (the company eventually realized how bad it was and had another disc made that removed the stationary logo).
Yeah, I don't know. It's just the fact that it's labeled "back-up" that throws me off. I've seen other in-store demonstrations or whatever but I can't say I've seen one labeled as a back-up. Does back-up imply archival back-up? Was it just the name of the source tape used for distribution and it really was just like any other in-store commercial rotation disc?
Also, ldfan, I lol'd at that story! Can't believe that they wouldn't realize a static logo would cause burn-in! I guess if there's a way to learn, its through thousands of dollars of tube/display model swaps. Thanks for sharing!
_________________ I post ReelyInteresting things occasionally.
I used to work @ a Good Guys! store back in the mid 90's and we had our version of this disc playing on continuous repeat all day (that LD player really got a lot of mileage). The bad part about our disc is that it had the store's logo constantly fixed on the bottom right portion of the video and eventually it created burn in on all our CRT TVs'. Can't imagine how many of these TVs' eventually had to be sent to a service center for tube replacement (the company eventually realized how bad it was and had another disc made that removed the stationary logo).
I don't remember buying CRTs in the early nineties. I did buy one new at a Roses in like 2008 or something but were these the display models or the units that were sold straight. I mean was the burn in that only the stores had to deal with or did some customer get a TV with it and use the repair shop?
I don't remember buying CRTs in the early nineties. I did buy one new at a Roses in like 2008 or something but were these the display models or the units that were sold straight. I mean was the burn in that only the stores had to deal with or did some customer get a TV with it and use the repair shop?
These were always display models and we would sell a customer a new one from our stock room. Also, some of the TVs' were older display models that were already written off as semi permanent display units for demonstrating source components like your VCR, camcorder, and LaserDisc player. When a model year for a TV was coming to a close, then we would sell the floor display at a discounted price to get rid of it. In most cases, there may have been little to no burn on those so we sold it as is. If it was severe, it would go to a shop.
On another note regarding our demo LD, our disc never really looked all that great in the store. It wasn't because it had a poor transfer but mostly it was due to way we had the video distributed throughout the store. It ran through an RF Modulator on a UHF channel frequency so it definitely was downgraded from 400+ lines to 330 lines of horizontal resolution. Also, many of the coax cables were in need of replacement so of course it looked like crappy VHS on certain displays. So yes.... my stored needed a good revamp which it got later on but I was already gone by that time.
Very impressed by the video quality of your capture; had retail LDs been mastered to this quality then the twilight days of Laserdisc may have been a very different story. A lot of possible explanations for why these exist but I have to assume that you are correct and they existed for demo purposes at locations that hadn't yet upgraded their A/V infrastructure.
It's not just the mastering (but it helps) - reelyinteresting has an X0 which doesn't add ringing. (late players, lamentably, add it in the output stage - you can see it in the OSD)
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