Videodisc (or video disc) is a general term for a laser- or stylus-readable random-access disc that contains both audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog or digital form. Typically, it is a reference to any such media that predates the mainstream popularity of the DVD format. The first mainstream and official Videodisc was the Television Electronic Disc (TED) Videodisc, and the newest digital form of Videodisc is the 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Disc. As of September 2023, the active video disc formats are 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc, Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and in other regions because of the price difference from DVD, Video CD (VCD) and SVCD.
History
Georges Demeny on 3 March 1892 patented a 'phonoscope', designed in 1891, that can project chronophotographic pictures on a glass disc.
Eadweard Muybridge used his zoopraxiscope to project chronophotographic pictures on a glass disc in 1893.
E & H T Anthony, a camera maker based in New York, marketed in 1898 a combination motion picture camera and projector called "The Spiral" that could capture 200 images arranged in a spiral on an 8-inch diameter glass plate. When played back at 16 frames per second, it would give a running time of 13 seconds.
Theodore Brown patented in 1907 (UK patent GB190714493) a photographic disk system of recording approximately 1,200 images in a spiral of pictures on a 10-inch disk. Played back at 16 frames per second, a disk provides around one and a quarter minutes of material. The system was marketed as the Urban Spirograph by Charles Urban, and discs were produced - but it soon disappeared.
John Logie Baird, created the Phonovision system in the early 1930s, which mechanically produces about four frames per second. The system was not successful.
P.M.G. Toulon, a French inventor working at Westinghouse Electric during the 1950s and 1960s patented a system in 1952 (US Patent 3198880) which uses a slow spinning disc with a spiral track of photographically 1.5 millimeter wide recorded frames, along with a flying spot scanner, which sweeps over them to produce a video image. This was intended to be synchronously combined with playback from a vinyl record. It appears a working system was never produced. It has similarities with the tape based Electronic Video Recording system, which was released for professional use.
Westinghouse Electric Corporation developed a system in 1965 called Phonovid, that allows for the playback of 400 stored still images, along with 40 minutes of sound. The system uses a standard record player, and builds the picture up slowly.
The Television Electronic Disc, a mechanical system, was rolled out in Germany and Austria in 1970 by Telefunken. The 12-inch discs have a capacity of about eight minutes; however, it was abandoned in favor of VHS by its parent company.
In Japan, the TOSBAC computer was using digital video disks to display color pictures at 256x256 image resolution in 1972. In 1973, Hitachi announced a video disc capable of recording 15-colour still images on a disc. The same year, Sony announced a video disc recorder, similar to the Sony Mavica format.
In 1975, Hitachi introduced a video disc system in which chrominance, luminance and sound information are encoded holographically. Each frame is recorded as a 1mm diameter hologram on a 305mm disc, while a laser beam reads out the hologram from three angles. It has a capacity of 54,000 frames, with a running time of 30 minutes for the NTSC color standard or 36 minutes for PAL/SECAM.
Visc is a mechanical video disc system developed in Japan by Matsushita subsidiary National Panasonic in 1978. The 12-inch vinyl disc is spun at 500 rpm with each revolution holding three frames of color video, with a total of up to an hour of video on each side of the disc. Discs can be recorded in either a 30-minute-per-side format, or a 60-minute-per-side-format. A later incarnation of the system uses 9-inch discs in caddies capable of storing 75 minutes per side. The system was abandoned in January 1980 in favor of JVC's VHD system.
The DiscoVision system was released in America in 1978. It is branded as before the LaserDisc or LaserVision format. It was rebranded to LaserVision/LaserDisc in 1981. It was the original name of the LaserDisc format.