Pioneer Laseractive CLD-A100

The Pioneer Laseractive is probably one of the most complicated home consoles ever to grace the videogame market. The reason for its grandeur is that the Laseractive was the only console ever to play not only play laserdisc movies but also audio CD, graphic CDs, karaoke CDs & laserdiscs and play Sega Genesis carts, Sega CDs, Turbo Grafx 16 HuCards, Turbo CDs, and special laserdisc videogames that were specially produced for the Laseractive, all while costing more than a month’s mortgage. How much do you think the privilege to play all of these different formats on one system would cost? More than the PS3 asking price. Yeah, it was that expensive.

You see, the Laseractive started off at around $969.99 but that was for just the core laserdisc player. To access the different functionality for this diverse setup, you the consumer must purchase separate PAC to unlock the privilege to play Genesis and Turbo Grafx 16 games or just turn the player into a karaoke machine with the karaoke PAC. It was a novel idea but the incredibly high sticker price prevented the console/movie player from penetrating the mass market. This thing was too expensive for Joe-Six-Pack and there was no way my parents were sending this kind of scratch for a non-recording movie player. Each game PAC cost more than their respective console systems with their respective CD attachments.

For example: the Genesis and TG16 PAC cost around $599.99 each and the cheapest PAC being the karaoke module at $349.99. So if you wanted to harness the power if this fully operational laserdisc gaming console hybrid then you would have had to shell out over $2500 (plus tax).

Pioneer did not sell too many Laseractive systems and like everything that sells poorly, it’s now another sought after rare gaming console for geeks, like myself, to get all excited over. I learned of its existence a year ago during my search for a new laserdisc player. I have bad luck with the dead format and if I was going to spend more than $100 on a used one, I wanted it to be special and not short bus special but wicked cool kind of special. I became more interested in the concept of one console system could basically allow competing companies to basically share the core console and releasing their own games. It sounded weird and looks like a big ugly black box but I needed to get one.

With the Sega PAC, the Laseractive can play 16 bit Sega games. The Genesis carts are placed directly into the PAC and the Sega CD games are placed into the CD slot that separates from the Laserdisc tray. There are Laseractive specific games call Mega LD that can only be played with the Sega Pac installed. The same can be said with the NEC PAC that also plays Turbo Grafx 16 HuCards, Super CD-Roms and propriety laserdisc games call LD-ROM2, but sadly I don’t have one of those (yet).

I wanted one right away but after learning about the high 2nd hand market price, I was almost sure that I would never own one. Well luck smiled on me because I found one at the right price right when I cashed out a week’s vacation and quickly procured one off of eBay for around $380, the rest went to buy the Mrs. a new Macbook. Now I’m poor and can’t afford much else but the Laseractive is sweet. Granted $380 is a lot of money to spend on a game console that may not work but there was a few driving forces that made me justify this exorbitant purchase to myself:

#1) I was in need of a working laserdisc player and I’ve gone through 3 players in the past 2 years because I refuse to pay any more than $50 on a dual sided player. Well, with a $50 budget you basically can only buy yourself a rundown old piece of junk and since I’ve obtained a huge collection from my old boss (for free ^_^), I at least wanted a decent player to watch them on and besides, most of these laserdiscs are movies that I refuse to ever purchase anyway but are still guilty little pleasures, like Point Break.

#2) It came with the Genesis PAC and one person can never have too many Sega Genesis’s. I’m currently a proud owner of 4 Sega Genesis now and between the 4 Genesis, that would make 3 Sega CD consoles. It’s always good to have a redundant collection for backup players. At least that what I keep telling myself when I go to bed at night…

#3) It’s a rare console and I’m a weak person who wants that ultra cool gem in my collection. Who am I trying to kid anyways, I’m weak, so very weak.

When I finally received my Laseractive player, I spent a good hour and a half redoing the rat’s nest of wires that was my home theater setup. I finally got everything setup and properly installed I tested the player with several Sega Genesis carts and Sega CD games. To my surprise they all worked flawlessly even some early Megadrive games, but sadly, the Genesis PAC re-enforces region block so no Bare Knuckle II for me or any Mega-CD games. I do want to note that the Sega CD load time is a little slower than my JVC X’Eye, but slightly faster than my Sega CD model 1 (?) It could just be my misperception and one day I will test my hunch but only when I’m really bored with a stop watch.

The laserdisc movies all look nice or should I say as nice as 430 lines of pure analog horizontal lines of resolution on my 1080i digital HDTV. I do want to note that the player is lacking the bells and whistles that were common in my previous players, like jog shuttle or digital display. What you don’t what what jog shuttle or digital display is? Pfft, look it up. It’s only a one sided player so when the laserdisc needs to be flipped, you (G*A*S*P!) have to actually get off the couch and flip the disc which isn’t too big of a deal when the movie is in CLV (60 minutes on each side) but like my Star Wars movies in CAV (30 minutes on each side) you have to get up 5 times to finish the movie, which can get a little annoying. I use to have a huge problem with this but from what I’ve learned the single sided players are just more reliable due to less moving parts that could go wrong, I sucked up and took it like a man. An overweight man who likes old videogames and who doesn’t like getting off his ass to flip a disc. Correction, a large ass disc. It’s a bitter sweet compromise, but the picture looks clean even though its defiantly not the best that I’ve seen from my past players, when they were working.

Another lacking feature that may turn off the videophiles away from this player as their primary movie player is that the Laseractive does not have an s-video port. This may have been a big deal back in 1993 but with current HDTV’s they have really good digital filters to make the analog signal look as well as an analog signal can get on a purely digital display. You see laserdisc was an analog player and looks best on standard resolution CRT displays that were designed to make the picture look better than it really was. That’s why your old Nintendo looks worst on a HDTV than your old 19″ TV. In a nutshell: the digital display makes the flaws more apparent and the movies look very grainy and the colors aren’t as vibrant, but install this into an old analog TV, the difference is huge.

Even with the limitation of the player, the Laseractive has become my best player that I’ve owned only because of all the cool things the player can do. One of the nicest features is that with the Sega CD PAC installed, all of the audio sound crystal clear through the player’s toslink fiber optic port. The games come off with a nice pseudo surround sound effect that makes immersion that much easier. I’ve always been a fan of analog sound because of the full body sound that I can feel and hear. The Laseractive player excels in the audio department with the toslink fiber optic port, but the audiophile would be a little disappointed because there is no AC3 port. For the price I paid for the Laseractive, I got a comparable movie player, amazing CD player, and an awesome Genesis/Sega CD player. I haven’t really tested out the Mega-LD games yet, but I have a couple of games on order so I can’t wait to give them a spin.

I haven’t regretted any of my gaming purchases but I was a little afraid about this recent big one and after playing with the Laseractive for a few hours I’m glad I made the leap of faith. If you ever come across one at a thrift shop or perhaps cheap on eBay, then you might want to pick it up. It is a well built piece of gaming machinery that will eventually go into some weird retro gaming museum that will eventually be located in my game room. Excuse me while I pick up my old 12 inch movie disc of the future and play my old physical media and laugh at everyone with DRM issues with their iPod and Xbox 360′s.

Check out the ads for the laseractive below. Damn aren’t those people having the time of their lives?

–Jangofatt (clutching to the past)

[ninja theft all pictures from cyberroach because I'm too lazy to take pictures]