Monday, February 8, 2010

Anime on Laserdisc

The Place of Anime Laserdiscs in the DVD Generation

"If you really love to watch your anime, you've gotta get it on DVD!" You've probably heard something like this before. DVDs have broken into the anime market with a boom, and die-hard anime fans have always been eager to purchase their favorite titles on the very best format available. Yes, DVDs are definitely where it's at these days, but some of you may remember another video disc platform that has been with us all along before DVDs had even been invented...

That's right, they're called laserdiscs, and while they were never a hugely supported format in America, there have always been a wide range of anime titles available on laserdisc in the US. And in Japan, where the best video technology available is always quickly embraced, laserdiscs have been a widely used format for decades. What has this meant to the anime fan? Well, back before DVDs, if you really loved to watch your anime you had to get it on laserdisc!

Practical Reasons for Buying Laserdiscs in the DVD Age

Japanese LD printing of Urusei Yatsura TV vol. 1

It may be true that DVDs are now a large part of the anime market in Japan and the US, but nevertheless there are still many older titles that are not available on DVD in Japan or the US and probably will not be available any time soon. Let's say you wanted to purchase one such title. How would you buy it? You could most definitely find it on VHS, but is an old previously used VHS tape from the 80's or early 90's going to play perfectly today? And if I want to keep it in my collection forever, is it going to still play well 20 years from now? The answer to both of these questions is "probably not". In this case, the best way to go would be to buy it on laserdisc. If you want to buy imported titles, just about any anime released in the 80's or 90's was released on laserdisc. If you prefer to watch your anime subtitled or dubbed in English, there are still many titles that have been released in English on laserdisc, but not on DVD. AnimEigo, for instance, still has not even announced a date for any of their DVD releases they have been promising us for so long.

All this is thanks to the fact that laserdiscs have been around for a long time. The first laserdisc players appeared on the market in 1978, and were introduced around the same time as VCRs, and six years earlier than CDs! Considering how old a technology the laserdisc is, today's laserdiscs and players hold up remarkably well against DVD, but laserdisc players have come a long way since top loading Pioneer players were put in Dragon's Lair and Space Ace arcade machines. Numerous improvements have been made over the years such as digital sound, CLV freeze frame, double-sided play, digital sound outputs, and AC-3 surround sound. DVDs, however do offer better picture quality. The horizontal resolution of DVD is 500 lines while laserdisc is only 420. This is a 19% improvement, which is still remarkable considering how old laserdisc technology is. In the end, it is the seniority of the old LD player that has allowed so many titles to be printed on laserdiscs over the years.

Maison Ikkoku Complete Boxed Set

Another important advantage of laserdiscs in this day and age is price. If you look at the prices of anime laserdiscs on ebay today, you may find that many of them are selling for what would have been considered ridiculously low prices just a year or two ago. That is because so many people are "jumping on the DVD bandwagon" so to speak, and oftentimes selling all their laserdiscs and players in order to buy DVDs. A collector of anime laserdiscs can really get some great deals now that so many others seem to have completely forgotten about LDs. AnimEigo is also now clearing out their stock of LDs at $7.95 each! Good deals seem abundant in the laserdisc market. Of course, there are also titles which are still in high demand that will sell for high prices, but it seems if it's not a Maison Ikkoku complete boxed set, or a Miyazaki title, or something like that, you won't have to pay an arm and a leg.

Pioneer CLD-1070 laserdisc player--a player that can be purchased used for under $50.

Now, if you still have to say "but I don't have a laserdisc player!", that problem can be economically solved as well. A used entry level player can easily be found on ebay for $50-70 or less today. These players may not offer frills like AC-3, double-sided play, S-video, and CLV freeze frame; but you can at least get a fully-functional player that offers digital and analog sound, which will allow you to take advantage of bilingual discs. Of course if you're willing to pay more money there are better players available. There are even combination DVD/LD players if you want the best of both worlds on one player and are willing to spend a larger chunk of money.

Nostalgia and Collectibility Reasons for Buying Laserdiscs

You have already heard me use the term "collector of anime laserdiscs". They are most definitely still around, and some of these collectors have more reasons yet to buy anime on laserdisc. These reasons may sometimes not seem extremely logical to the practical mind, but I will attempt to explain them.

One of these reasons is LDs' perceived "collectibility". What makes something collectible? Well, lots of things, but one thing is packaging, and when it comes to anime you expect brightly-colored beautiful artwork to appear on the packaging. Laserdiscs come in huge covers with a much larger surface area than VHS boxes or DVD cases (American or Japanese) which allows for gigantic cover illustrations. Large full-color inserts which are too big to be included with DVDs are also usually included with anime laserdiscs. Moreover, if you have a boxed set of anime LDs and your friend has the same set on DVD, which one do you think looks more impressive as a collectible? Probably the LD set, because it will be several times the size of the DVD set, and the LD boxes sometimes even come with little toys and things that would likely never be included in a DVD box. It will probably look as if you spent more money than your friend too, even if you didn't. Yes, the sheer size of LDs make them an attractive collectible. It's quite similar to fans of older music who choose to collect albums on vinyl LPs rather than CDs. The standard LD is one foot wide, the same size as a standard LP record.

It also just seems pretty cool when I'm using such a huge disc to play anime. There's just something magical about a giant disc that only holds up to 2 hours of video. It's as if I love this anime title so much, it warrants being played on a foot-wide disc. Now that's spare-no-expense high quality anime viewing! (As it would seem.) This all goes along with the old "bigger is better" logic, which is outdated when it comes to electronics, but some of us still believe in this concept nevertheless. And of course there is also the nostalgia that comes with the laserdisc format. It's been around for so long, some of us even grew up with it! And most of us can still at least remember when laserdiscs were considered to be the only premium choice for anime viewing. Now you can own a device that you always wanted (but couldn't afford) when you were younger for just a small amount of money.

Advantages and Disadvantages of LD vs. DVD

I've already told you that LD offers slightly less horizontal resolution than DVD. Laserdiscs do, however, offer the same vertical resolution, unless the title is letterboxed, in which case DVD offers higher vertical resolution. Other video factors such as chroma resolution luma dynamic range are also much higher on DVD which mostly serves to make pictures sharper and colors richer, and both are very important when watching anime. I've met a few laserdisc collectors who refuse to believe it, but trust me everybody, DVD offers better picture quality period. There's no argument about it. If you compare the same title on laserdisc and DVD on two TVs placed side-by-side you will immediately see the difference. The only valid argument against the picture quality on DVDs, is the "trails" or "artifacts" often left behind by fast moving images and quickly flashing bright lights on DVD video due to its MPEG-2 video compression. It may also be noted that the video encoding method in laserdiscs and DVDs is completely different; LDs use nothing like MPEG-2. The only thing the two formats really have in common is the fact that they are both encoded on digital discs and read by an optical laser. That's why combination LD/DVD players are so expensive, because unlike DVDs and VCDs, DVDs and LDs use completely different technology.

Overall, I'd say that DVDs offer better picture quality for anime titles especially because of the enhanced color and sharpness. LDs don't handle solid colors nearly as well as DVDs do, which is really important for anime! Still, the gap in quality between LDs and DVDs is much much smaller than the gap between VHS and LDs. VHS has much lower resolution than LDs and really handles color poorly. Of course there is also S-VHS...

Now that we're done with picture quality, I can go on to say that DVD offers several audio channels along with one video signal while LD offers only 2, and DVD players have built-in systems for displaying subtitles while LD players must utilize the close-captioning system on your TV. Both of these things are very important to anime fans who do not watch their anime in Japanese! Also, the interactive menus in DVDs are very good for offering extras such as information or artwork from the series, while LDs only have a system that allows still pictures to be displayed and is hardly interactive in its usage. However, the laserdisc format is completely devoid of the region coding that DVDs have, which makes imported laserdiscs much more simple to play. You won't have to worry about your American player not accepting your Japanese laserdisc. Any LD player purchased anywhere in the world will play any laserdisc regardless of where it was manufactured or sold. This is also an important factor for anime fans who buy imported discs.

Record of Lodoss War Japanese LDs, known to be a common victim of 'laser rot'.

Of course DVDs can hold much more video than LDs. LDs have a maximum of one hour per side, which means unless you have a player that reads both sides, you will need to do a lot of disc flipping when watching a movie over an hour long. (Of course a lot of anime movies are only an hour long anyway.) For example, Hayao Miyazaki's "Mononoke Hime" ("Princess Mononoke") fits completely on just one side of a DVD, while the LD version is contained on 2 discs and 3 sides. Because laserdiscs are always constructed of two separate sides which actually need to be glued together at the factory makes them sometimes difficult to be manufactured properly. If air pockets are present between the two sides, the infamous "laser rot" can occur. This causes the video quality of the LD to gradually degrade. Laser rot will first appear on your screen as small dancing black dots and eventually become "snow" until the disc is no longer playable. Some certain anime titles are infamous for laser rot such as "Record of Lodoss War" and "Video Girl Ai vol. 2" (both Japanese releases).

Now that you have heard the many disadvantages of laserdiscs, please keep in mind the advantages I mentioned earlier. It is also important to note that while anime laserdiscs are no longer printed in the US, there are still some titles being released in Japan. For instance, "Sakura Wars Gokakenran 5" was just released on 9.25.2000 and "Turn A Gundam 12" is still due out on 11.25.2000. The number of titles released on laserdisc in Japan is much smaller than it was just last year, but since they have been such a highly supported format for so long it is still indefinite when the format will die out completely in Japan.

Although laserdiscs may not be the future of anime, we must remember how long they have been around and how they have carried us through the decades as a premium medium for buying anime. What would the technology-savvy otaku have bought anime on before DVD if it weren't for laserdiscs? What would fansubbers have used to make their productions? And what would the collector have today to collect older anime titles on? Laserdiscs, you have done so much for anime fans over the years, we salute you! JF

Quotes from Laserdisc Owners:

"So laserdisc is a dead or dying format, so what! There are MILLIONS of copies of laserdiscs out there! Not just anime but live action films, documentaries and mini series, musicals and karoke. Most of which will never be repressed on DVD for one reason or another."

"Did you see the list on ebay? About every 2 weeks, for the last few months, there has been just about every Sailor Moon LD from the TV series put up for auction. Most of them had starting bids of only $9.99. And there's always otaku.com. ^-^"

"I can't speak for everyone, but I enjoy the LD medium because it's a quantum leap above VHS, for starters. Many offer the choice of Japanese and English soundtracks, which are all I need or care for. Several of the titles out on LD aren't available on DVD, and I also like the large jackets and informative inserts that come inside them. The jackets themselves make great wall hangings!"