Could Laserdiscs hold non video data? - see James Bond license to kill pics

[yoda313]

Ok I have a question - in the 1989 James Bond A License to Kill movie there is a scene with the Timothy Dalton Bond using a cd-rom inside a Laserdisc unit (I am assuming its a laserdisc unit - it says ld in the top corner and the pull out tray could hold a laserdisc in the full outside ring away from the cd-rom disc he puts in shown in pic 2.

My question is could laserdiscs hold file data instead of just video? I was under the impression that laserdiscs were analog in nature (though they could hold dolby digital tracks if I remember correctly).

Would this work like the old tape backups they used to have from iomega?

Or in this particular case was the unit bipolar in that only the cdrom portion could handle data and the laserdiscs were strictly video in nature?

Also this movie was released in 1989. When were "consumer" cd-roms available? Actually I should say cdrs as this appears to be something someone would have created themselves as they are being used to look up suspects in the movie.

Thanks for any insights.

[img]james bond laserdisc 1.jpg[/img]

[img]james bond laserdisc 2.jpg[/img]

[intracube]

This is where HD caps help

As you can see, it's a LaserVision VP 415 ROM disc drive. More info about the system here:
http://www.microcomputer.org.uk/projects/domesday-lvrom.html
http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/domesday/LVROM.html

So a regular Laserdisc machine wouldn't play these data discs, and they're are also incompatible with today's CD-ROM technology.

[yoda313]

@intracube - thanks!

Well that screen cap was from the special edition dvd so I think its a pretty good cap consdering the source

WHen I have some more time I'll read a little more.

So this is kindof a hddvd of its day huh? Trying to get a jump on disc storage before a standard was set.

[lordsmurf]

I doubt it was supposed to be accurate.

[intracube]

I doubt it was supposed to be accurate.

True. The player was probably chosen by the art department, looking for something 'exotic'.

CD-Rs weren't available in 1988/89 - which is the only sticking point to the set-up in the film being inaccurate.

[yoda313]

CD-Rs weren't available in 1988/89 - which is the only sticking point to the set-up in the film being inaccurate

I'll have to watch it again but it looked like a writeable disc.

Was it a hollywood job (sorry pinewood studio job) doctored up to look like something that wasn't available yet?

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A side note - I still remember Demolotion Man where Sandra Bullocks character was talking about watching some movie on laserdisc - it was supposed to be in 2020 or some future date. Boy what a misstep on that. I don't know how much longer after that movie came out that laserdiscs were already deep-sixed or they may have already hit bottom.

[El Heggunte]

A side note - I still remember Demolotion Man where Sandra Bullocks character was talking about watching some movie on laserdisc - it was supposed to be in 2020 or some future date. Boy what a misstep on that. I don't know how much longer after that movie came out that laserdiscs were already deep-sixed or they may have already hit bottom.

I can only say, not all fiction writers are very-good at "looking into the future". Do you remember "Lost In Space" Mechanical wrist watchs? OTOH, Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" described *portable computers with LCDs* And in "The Gods Themselves", water on the moon.

[yoda313]

I can only say, not all fiction writers are very-good at "looking into the future".

Very true. I seem to remember some of the background on the back to the future 2 dvd with the creators talking about not liking to make up the future for this reason. THough I may be misremembering this.

sorry I don't know those other references.

Of course I have heard of Lost In Space and saw the pathetic 90s movie "reimagining" - on video of course not in the theaters

And I obviously have heard of Isaac Asimov but not about those references.....