Twin Laser DVD Player - Wassit mean ?

[Tempest]

Noticed some adverts for new Sony DVD Players, mentioning they have Twin lasers. Apart from the obvious (they have two lasers) what does this actually mean ?
Why two lasers etc etc etc.......

[splobber]

One is for DVD playback and the other is for music playback.

[Tempest]

Originally posted by splobber
One is for DVD playback and the other is for music playback.

So that means a Twin Laser player is Better as it has a dedicated Laser for each task rather than trying to do both with 1 laser ?

Is this common, or only the better models have it ?

[kcxdev]

i think alot of the pioneers (including the cheaper ones) have 'em

[Urban Tiger]

Originally posted by Tempest


So that means a Twin Laser player is Better as it has a dedicated Laser for each task rather than trying to do both with 1 laser ?

Is this common, or only the better models have it ?

Having twin lasers is good, but it still depends on the electronics in the box. DVD players with twin lasers can still make good music sound awful.

As always, listen to anything in a demo before you buy it

[splobber]

Yes, as each laser is optimised for each particular function. I've seen twin laser pickups on some sub £200 players too (Philips had it on the 711)

[Tempest]

Thank's for the answers Guys...

So, Twin lasers is better generally, but can still be bad.. :D

Something to look for anyway....

Cheers

[LV426]

Of course, the quality of output from both DVD and CD will depend on a number of factors. A twin laser player has, as others have said, one laser optimised for DVD and another optimised for CD, whereas single laser players are only optimised for DVD. Single laser players will read commercial CDs, but aren't optimised. So, to start with, the data "read" quality will be better on a dual laser player. This means more accurate data for the circuitry to process. So it's likely to be better.

BUT

The main thing here is that homemade CDs or VCDs (on CD-R blanks) are normally unreadable by single laser players. So, arguably the main benefit of twin lasers is the ability to read CDRs.

[Cable Monkey]

LV426 hit the nail on the head. The main bebefit of twin lasers is the ability to read different types of media, such as CDR, CD-RW etc. Sony are highlighting the twin laser feature on the latest players because their previous players were hamstrung by the single laser design they employed, making home recorded VCD's and CD's virtually useless.