How do laserdiscs work?

Question

Specifically, what processes are involved from playing the disc to making it appear on the television screen?

Answer 1

Laser disc is an older technology. It offered a better picture and better sound than videotapes, and it is comparable to DVD. But the laser disc format is analog; DVDs are digital, Laser discs are only used for prerecorded movies, and they are larger, about 12 inches in diameter, instead the 5-inch diameter of DVDs. The two formats usually can't be played on the same machine.

Laser discs, like DVDs, allow viewers to go to the exact scene they wish to see, and to freeze a frame or slow the picture. Laser discs can only hold an hour on each side, so you have to flip the disc to watch the second half of the movie.

Because of DVD compression techniques, DVDs can hold more data. You rarely have to flip a DVD to watch a whole movie. Laser disc players are noisier than DVD players, and they can sometimes suffer "laser rot" -- the aluminum side of the disc oxidizes, and the quality of the disc deteriorates. DVDs are less likely to have this problem, because manufacturing techniques have improved. As the popularity of DVD grows, laser discs are becoming harder to find.

But to turly answer your question. Bionary Code. You know One's and Zero's... Example:

01001001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101110 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01101101 01100001 01110010 01110100

That's what the laser reads. The example I gave was only text, but you get the idea.

After the laser reads the Infomation it is process and sent to a display. This can be done by many different means.

Composite video:

A video color format that combines all three YUV video signals into one channel. The first video signal to include color, composite video transmits brightness/luma (Y) and colors/chroma (U and V) over one cable. NTSC, PAL and SECAM television sets have composite video inputs. Most new sets also include S-video and component video connections, which provide a sharper image than composite video.

S-video:

(Super-video) A video color format that combines the three YUV video signals into two channels. Brightness/luma (Y) is in one channel, and color/chroma (U and V) are in another. S-video provides a sharper image than composite video, but is not as good as component video.

Component video:

A video color format that maintains the three YUV video signals in three separate channels. Component video provides a sharper image than composite video and S-video.

Edit:

I don't think there's room to explain how the digital data is process and them streamed to a video signal. And I don't know of a laserdisc that use modulation. They just didn't do that. OK at lease with the players I used and installed. but I can tell you it's the same as any video device. I just don't understand why you need to know how a Laserdisc process video. It's old technology. Even companies that build player know just take parts off the self to build player. But if you really want to know I would take a city collage course. To break down each step is just to much for this type of formate.

Answer 2

I'm assuming you're referring to the new read/writable discs available on the market today. The surface of the disc contains one long spiral track of data. Along the track, there are flat reflective areas and non-reflective areas. A reflective area represents a binary 1, while a non-reflective area represents a binary 0. The drive shines a laser at the surface  and can detect the reflective areas by the amount of laser light they reflect back. When you record the writing laser changes its transparency and the reflectivity of the disc. When this information is mirrored back it's 1's and 0's are decoded back into the original data, processed and sent out.

Answer 3

Nice answer chocolate.

I can read your binary code: If you can read this. Your smart