I've been spending some time with a Laseractive for the past few days and I've learned a lot. There is SUCH a dearth of info on this machine from people who actually know anything about LDs or Sega CDs that its just weird. They seem to all be owned by jackoffs who collect other failed systems and don't know WTF they are talking about.
The extremely repeated groupthink on this machine is that its a shitty LD player, and that for the $1000 that this thing cost you could have bought a Sega CD and a better LD player. This...is mostly not true. The LA is one half-ass machine. Its obvious they ran out of time/budget over at Pioneer because there are all sorts of stupid flaws in it that are not uncommon on high end stuff from Japanese companies that is aimed at overly-monied customers who don't care about such thing and just want the features.
There are two problems with LD quality, one that effects all LD movies and one that only effects LA games. The cause of both is the PIECE OF SHIT genlock they built into this thing.
A word about LD players and recording modes circa 1993:
There are two kinds of LDs, CAV (standard play, 30 minutes per side) and CLV (extended play, 60 minutes per side). In
theory both are the same quality, although to be honest there are a few reasons why CAV often looks better. I won't go into that here. The main difference is that since CAV stores exactly one frame of video per revolution of the LD, and the LD spins at the same RPM all the time. CLV discs store each frame end to end along a huge spiral and the LD slows down as it gets closer to the end since the physical area of the LD is larger and not as much speed is needed to cover the same ground.
What does this mean? Well, in the earlier days of LD this meant that only CAV discs could give you a freeze frame. The laser could just...stop, basically, and read the exact spot on the LD over and over again. This is a VERY high quality freeze frame for the time, very stable and clear. CLV discs couldn't give you this since one lap of the LD meant nothing. It might be 2.4 frame per lap, or 5 frames per lap, all depending on where the laser was. Keep in mind that this is fully analog video tech from 1977 here. There is no capacity for saving a frame in memory. Also, since CAV discs are always spinning at the same speed the access time is very good. To go from one spot on a CLV LD to another you have to spin the (rather heavy) LD up or down so that it would be the right speed when the laser gets there. With a CAV disc the LD is always spinning the same speed so it can render frames as soon as the laser gets there. This combination of very good seek time and freeze framing allows for the "Multi-Speed" options that allow you to use A-B repeat to almost seamlessly loop video at very high or slow speeds. Obviously LD games are recorded in CAV so that Dirk the Daring can show you his death animation for the 300th time without you having to wait very long.
OK, so by the early 90s digital video technology had advanced enough and had become cheap enough so that you could build a simple digital frame buffer into an LD player for not too much money. I've even seen at least one VCR with this feature. With a frame buffer one could now freeze frame CLV discs! This was a HUGE feature. Why? Why didn't everyone just make/buy CAV discs? Because flipping every 30 minutes or less kind of sucks. Keep in mind that you can't just put a side change anywhere you want either. I have the Fantasia CAV ver. and one side is only 15 minutes long! This is because the movie is made up of multiple musical sequences and they didn't want to break any of them up. With a digital frame buffer an LD player could now offer multi-speed with either kind of disc. It also would keep a freeze frame instead of a blue screen when you switched chapters (or sides, if this is an AB player).
For reference, in 1992 or 1993 I bought a Pioneer CLD-S201. This player had much of the same physical shit in it that the LA has, but a lot less of the technical stuff. It was the cheapest LD player ever made at that point and cost me $380. The S201 did not have a digital frame buffer, a comb filter (ie: s-video), any capacity for LD+G, multi-side play, dual disc play, a headphone jack, digital audio output, and the remote was crappy. It lacked every high end feature except for the (basically useless) dedicated CD drawer.
Now the LA has a digital frame buffer. Its integral to the POS genlock that overlays the MD/PCE/karaoke bits into the LD bits. Because of this you can freeze frame CLV discs, and all that other stuff. There is a HUGE problem with this f*cking thing though. Its a TERRIBLE frame buffer. You can A/B test exactly how shitty it is very easily. Just play a movie LD and push the button the front that turns the thing on and off. You will INSTANTLY see the video quality turn to TOTAL SHIT. That in itself isn’t necessarily a problem. A shitty CLV freeze frame is still better than the blue screen the S201 gave you. The problem is that the LA has no capacity to overlay any video without using this POS genlock/frame buffer. Every time you have any kind of on-screen display it uses the genlock. All Laseractive games use the genlock. And what’s really really TOTAL bullshit is that even when you are playing CAV discs which are capable of FLAWLESS freeze frames...it STILL uses the crappy genlock/frame buffer. As far as I can tell there is no way around this. Because of this my normal player, which is from 1989 and doesn’t even play Digital Audio tracks, gives a vastly superior CAV experience. It should be said that as long as the frame buffer/genlock isn’t on the video quality is just fine. Absolutely comparable to the other non-s-video cheap decks at the time. Its no Elite or MUSE, but those cost thousands. Anyone who says standard movie playback in full analog mode is substandard is either talking out of their ass or their LA needs some work.
Regarding the remote: The remote that came with the LA is actually identical in form factor to the one that came with my S201 except that its inferior because all of the Multi-Speed buttons have been converted to numerals for direct track/time access. If you want Multi-Speed you need to get a better remote (almost all Pioneer LD player remotes work on almost all players) or access it from the MD/PCE pad plugged into the PAC in a really bullshit clunky way.
Another thing that effects video quality is the fact that the genlock, I think only grabs every other line of video. LA games are recorded with two video streams interlaced into each other to make the disc effectively twice as dense. The genlock just grabs every other line and then doubles them to make a full frame. The end result is a blocky mess not unlike what a 240p system looks like on a new LCD TV. This bullshit is partly to blame for the frame buffer in the LA sucking much worse than other LD players.
Regarding Price: the idea that you could get a better LD player and a Sega CD for the price of an LA is not really true. As I mentioned the cheapest player ever at that time was $380 (some places charged more, that’s what I payed from Fretter). A Sega CD was $300, a Genesis was...I can’t remember, maybe $120? An LA was about $1000 with one PAC. While you could GET an LD player and a Sega CD system for the price of a LA, I don’t think it would have been a “better” player. The next model up from the S201 at the time was a bullshit deck with a CD changer in it (the CLD-M401, my friend had it, it was the same as an S201 but with an even junkier loader mechanism) and the models above that, the ones with AB play, s-video, frame buffers, etc were $700-1200. People who are claiming the LA was freakishly overpriced evidently only buy stuff on clearance. Considering the features it had, and the fact that it was the only way to play LD games, the price was absolutely in line with other LD players. LD was on the market for 24 years and it was never ever cheap.
So, can anything be done to improve the LA’s stupid stupid problems? In a way, yeah. The main issue I have with it is that it robs me of the true CAV experience. The genlock in the LA evidently can only utilize Y/C separated video so there is actually a comb filter in this thing that serves no purpose except to convert the native composite LD format to Y/C for the genlock to do its terrible job. Because of this there is an s-video hack. I haven’t done it yet, but it should restore this, although it will remove all overlays for time, etc. Since the LA has no front display this is an issue, although a minor one. There is also an RGB hack described at Gamesx, but I still haven’t found anyone that has done it. This would, of course, give you VASTLY better video that the terrible terrible composite coming out of the Genesis PAC, but it wouldn’t include any LD video so actual Laseractive games would still have to be played over the OEM composite connection.
There is a chance though, and I’m pretty sure nobody on Earth has done this, that one could MUX the s-video LD hack and the RGB Genesis hack using an external genlock. I have a TelevEyes Pro genlock that I think can do this. The only thing that would be a problem is that I’m not sure it will sync to 240p video. I think it will since I’ve seen people using it with old-ass Amigas, but personally I’ve only used it with 640x480 PC video cards. This device will put RGB on top of s-video. That’s what its for, I’ve done it (anime fan subs, back in the day, yo) so I’m hoping to get this shit working. If the TelevEyes Pro won’t do 240p then a difference upscaler like an X-RGB will be needed to line double first.
EDIT: Fixed typos/mistakes. Added pic.
