Talk:LaserActive

New editor
If nobody has any objections, I intend to expand this article as much as possible. I'd appreciate any help/comments from experienced users, as I have never done this before. orporg

Format Nomaclature
I sincerely hope that we can expand a bit on this article, especially when it comes to explaining the different formats the LaserActive used. We have terms like "MEGA-LD", "LD-ROM", LD-ROM2" all over the place with no explaination as to how they distinguish themselves. I hope that a more knowledgeable person will edit or that we can come to an agreement as to what they are.--Kevin586 18:13, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

Love Hotel Systems?
I was recently on an import gaming shop that had LaserActive games listed under the section "Love Hotel Systems" (all other sections were console names...). Does anyone here know what this is about?
 * "Love Hotels" are rent-by-the-hour hotels in Japan and some other Asian countries. Check out the Wikipedia entry on Love Hotel. In that entry is says that the rooms may contain Karaoke machines. LaserActive systems (with the K1 pack) function as Karaoke machines capable of playing LaserKaraoke disks. I think that's why you might have seen LaserActive under the "Love Hotel Systems" header.
 * Cyberroach 04/01/2008 @ 23:12 PDT —Preceding comment was added at 06:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Competitors
The reason I had the longer title is that you can't just say "Competitors" alone. These were competitors in a very specific market segment. If you we want to leave this shortened, then there needs to be an added qualifier as a sub-subheading for CD-i & 3DO. BcRIPster 18:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The reason I removed the stuff is that it is assumed by that point that they are direct competitors in the same market segment. The market segment, meanwhile, should be articulated higher up in the article.  SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, but that request could generate a whole article in and of itself that covers different market segments, how they are defined, and how Pioneer as well as other companies were competing with each other, and why they were doing it. I'm not sure if that much information at that high of a level is appropriate within the scope of this products description. I'll have to see how to approach this. BcRIPster 21:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, I honestly think the best approach is this for now until a full blown explaination of the market segment can be added either here or as a stand alone page (which is really what it should be), unless one already exists. If we can find another page (or create one) to expand the subject, the we could revise this block on all of the platform pages that reference it. These company's all had lots of other competitors beyond these in lots of other markets and just leaving it simply "competitors" over simplifies what's being said and may be confusing, or compel people to expand the list to include every VHS manufacturer that ever existed. BcRIPster 07:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The LaserActive was competitive in the High End A/V market as well as the top end of the Consumer A/V market (which included VCRs), and with the gaming additions crossed it over into competiiton with video game consoles so you can't just call these three systems competitors. The High End A/V market was the only place their there competition intersected. I'll go ahead and break it up and add a second market to help.BcRIPster (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about rv of revised title list
This edit was reverted as "rv uncited". What was the expectation of a citation here. That's the list of published games and their product IDs. Would it help ever every one of them was set to point to the LDDB? Would that be enough of a citation? What's the deal? If you didn't like the guys external link you could have simply removed that.BcRIPster (talk) 23:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirect question
Does not the redirect (even in the absence of an article related to it) from LaserActive to Pioneer LaserActive cause issue with the existence of the LaserActive video distributor? For the moment I believe it probably best to disambiguate the original link until someone gets around to covering the distributor; one of the larger Chinese film distribution companies. Lostinlodos (talk) 14:12, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Specifications
One of the big things missing from this page is any sort of specifications. Size, weight, power requirement, input/outputs, and media playback compatability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.2.101.108 (talk) 10:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Digital optical citation regarding Sega module
I don't think this is going to be citeable unless we can find someone who has done an exhaustive evaluation of all Sega Genesis systems and their derivatives. Which would be a pointless exercise because the Genesis hardware only output analog stereo. In fact Q-Sound was Sega entry to expanding stereo sound performance to provide a faux surround.

The only reason why Digital Optical is even in play here is because the A-100 had an internal Anaglog->Digital converter for audio output (isn't this standard for LaserDisc players with optical outs?) and both the PCE and Genesis modules run through that hardware to get their sound output, therefore they get that feature as a benefit by default.

Again, I don't think this could ever be citeable at this point, so either remove the citation request or reword the feature to reflect the implementation... which I might take a stab at if I can find some spare time here.BcRIPster (talk) 20:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you used a Laseractive and gotten digital audio from the Sega PAC? Mine doesn't output digital audio from games, only from movies - I strongly suspect this whole thing is a major misunderstanding by people who think that because the hardware has a digital out it must therefore be able to output all of its audio by it. Unless we can find a definite citation from someone with the hardware who's gotten it to work, I'm going to remove that statement altogether. Vlcice (talk) 16:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

No I haven't as I didn't have a receiver around that handled a optical input when I had the chance to check out one of the players. My comments were based on my general understanding of that era of players of which I do have one, and you can run all audio (music CDs, movies, etc...) over the optical connection only if you want. So it only stood to reason in my mind. This is why I posted my thoughts above.BcRIPster (talk) 21:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That certainly makes sense. The reason those other things work is because they originate as digital signals, however. The Laseractive has a DAC, but it goes the other way - it converts digital signals to analogue so all audio can go out the RCA jacks. Music CDs and most movies play over the optical connection because they're stored digitally; the Laseractive (possibly other LD players too) can't play analogue audio tracks through the optical connection, or any other audio that originates as analogue. The Genesis's YM2616 wasn't designed with this kind of thing in mind, so it doesn't actually have any digital out lines - it only outputs analogue. Vlcice (talk) 04:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

MYST
I added MYST to the list of LaserActive software as well as a reference link about the MYST prototype. Please note that according to Brian Rice (president of Brian Rice Inc. (1981 - 1995) who oversaw the conversion of MYST in 1995) MYST was never released due to a hardware bug in the LaserActive system.

If people think this will help I will be happy to upload a photo of the MYST prototype. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberroach (talk • contribs) 07:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Life of Console
So, in Nov., right after Thanksgiving 2009, my unit died after almost daily movie use since 1994. (Yeah, it also my Genesis and Sega CD as well for many years. Then I bought a 32X and discovered it needs a regular Genesis/Sega CD set, costing me more money.) I'm curious, but based on, let's say, four days a week on average, with 2 hours a day for movies, since mid-1994, should calculate the hours of life operation at 6000 or so? I don't know. Also, I think Pioneer will still service the unit since I registered it with them. Nothing much to add to the article, though. Coffee5binky (talk) 17:49, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Region free statement
All research I have done on forums indicates that while Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games are region free, both Sega CD and Laser disc games remain region locked. For example: https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?112877-Will-Laseractive-play-japanese-LD-roms-and-Laserdiscs 歳 (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm baffled because I just read through the thread you link and the posts clearly say the complete opposite of what you're saying: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games are region locked, and Laser disc games are region free. Post #4 is particularly straightforward: "My Laseractive was region free....it would play anything."--Martin IIIa (talk) 22:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Nearly two weeks now with no response, so I'm going to go ahead and remove the "dubious" tag 歳 placed. If anyone has objections, go ahead and post them here.--Martin IIIa (talk) 16:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC)