Laserdisc - Exploring the World's First Pioneer Laserdisc Player - The Soundtracker 

Hah, yeah, the documentation from this player is pretty on-the-nose.

They saw us coming on the short bus. 😅

This is refreshing for me, I had almost forgotten renting a player was a possibility. My family wound up doing that once when we were between VCRs, and it was a similar situation, not a lot of money in the house and you only spend on what you need when you don't have a lot. I've started collecting a lot of formats because I've been interested in how home video has changed over the years, and it's easy to find working units that many are willing to part with because they want to declutter. I'm glad so many have still kept working, and it's a real bonus to find documentation as well :) I'm curious, do you still throw a CED on every now and then?

@@OfficialSoundtracker Hi Glad It made You remember the time You had to Rent Machines and The Films. Yes I still watch films on CED, as some of the titles never came out on anything else so far. I had a Sony C7 Betamax Machine, but the heads went on It, Impossible to find replacements, pity I loved that player. I still have a Toshiba Super VHS 6 heads and still working.

Thanks very much!! I was surprised too when I first started reading about it, discs were In production from 1978 to 2001, when DVD took over the market. And that is awesome, I love hearing stories like this. I have a few other players that have similar cutouts, they play CDs, 12 inch (full size LD) And another size thst is less common, 8" LD. the 8" ones were usually promo material or Music videos, I have only come across one in my collection. Perhaps I should use it :)

Yeah. December 1978.

Thanks very much! And yes, the speculation amongst some groups that I've posted the video in seems to be that they wanted to have adaptors which was why the full unaltered video signal was being sent out of that port. I wonder what it would have been like if pcm also required an external demodulator like AC3, Do you think anyone would have bothered with an adapter, or just used the analog tracks? And same, part of what makes LD so interesting is the amount of effort put into the changes, and I'm glad so many made it to the format!

_"Ah, so that adaptor sounds like a demodulator They must have modulated the pcm signal on development discs, similarly to how they modulated AC3-RF for Dolby Digital."_ Well, yes and no. The "adaptor output" was for connecting the player to a PCM processor in the event you were playing a digital audio LaserDisc ... of a kind that was never made. Here's the deal: at the time that the VP-1000 was made, home video cassettes could be used to make digital audio recordings. However, using a VCR with a PCM processor to make a digital sound recording meant sacrificing the video signal, since the PCM signal was modulated into a form that could be recorded as a video signal. Therefore, the digital audio replaces the video. It was considered that digital audio albums on LaserDisc was possible in this manner, so the VP-1000 was made available with an "adaptor output" jack. All that such a jack was is a video output but without any video processing, such as video dropout compensation, as all that would do is get in the way of the PCM processor. This wound up being unused ... and obsolete ... once a way was figured out to encode digital audio in a subcarrier rather than replacing the video with it, which meant that digital sound was available alongside the video instead of digital sound replacing the video.

Thanks very much! I'm a big LD fan as well, and have a few other players I want to showcase, so there's a lot more Laserdisc stuff coming up! I'm curious, what is your main machine? Lately I've been using a Denon LA-2300

@@OfficialSoundtracker I'm in the UK so our top player was the cld-d925 which is my main, then I have a few backs ups a cld-s315 single sides and a PAL only cld-1200 :)

Agreed, it may lack a lot of features of modern players but it has very quickly become my favorite. And yes, it's like 40 lbs!

I've only ever seen them in photos, but I love the design of those as well, Pioneer made some great players.

I'm curious, what was the demonstration like? Did they have a rep there or just a player showing a demo disc?

@@OfficialSoundtracker Can't remember seeing any reps there, but it was a special display stand with signage for the Philips Laserdisc. And it was showing on a large TV, the Death Star attack and blowing up scene from Star Wars. We had no intention of buying, as our family was already renting a VHS VCR.

Yep,the PR-7820 was technically their first LD player!It was branded as MGA at the time,but produced by Pioneer!It was released in 1978/1979.

You may be right, if I remember correctly there are PCM adapters for some VHS and Betamax machines, and the PCM signal is recorded onto the video band in those cases for the higher bandwidth available. Maybe early prototypes were trying to use the video band as the standard due to the other PCM Adapters on the market at the time?

​@@OfficialSoundtracker There are plenty of videos outthere on PCM adapters to use with VCRs. PCM adapters would generate a video feed for VCRs to record. The image almost resembled the "snow" you'd see, when your tuner hadn't been tuned into a station, but it would be contain elements in the picture, which the adapter would be able to read as digital data to use to recreate the sound recorded to the VCR. That is why you were able to see Zorro play on your TV - it's basically a video output intended for a PCM adapter. But since Compact Disc was already close to come to fruition, I guess there was no need to produce software for the VP1000 to play. Also, PCM adapters found a more fitting home with VCRs, since you were able to record your own material to tape. And it didn't matter whether it was a mono or hifi unit, as long as it could produce a nice, clean image.

Probably so, it's about 42 years old, and probably overdue for a servicing. I wish I had the equipment and the knowhow to take care of it, because I'd really like to see it in it's full glory. I'm curious, can you tell me anything about the "Replace the H.U. Block" towards the end? I mentioned finding paperwork with the player in the video, and I've been dying to know what that bit was that was replaced.

@@OfficialSoundtracker yeah the HU block is the laser unit. Helium unit block which was used in these early players. It could do with a clean re oil parts and capacitor check, they are the main things that can leak and cause damage. If it’s had it’s HU block change then it must of had a service, because you can’t just change it without it being set up on an oscilloscope if you know what one of them is ? But you need one to put a laserdisc player at tip top.

Thanks, I appreciate it! And sorry about that, I was hoping I could get away with the mic not picking up the chirp. They've since been replaced.

Hah, thanks :D And I needed to pick up new ones, the alarms are still beeping even with new batteries.