Pioneer LaserActive
 Pioneer LaserActive
| |
|---|---|
The LaserActive with their gaming modules.
| |
| Manufacturer(s) |  /  Pioneer
|
| Release Date(s) | 1993-08-20
|
| CPU(s) | Unknown |
| Sound chip(s) | LaserDisc Analog, CD/DA (internal) |
| Music section | N / A |
Pioneer LaserActive is a Hi-Fi device made by Pioneer in 1993. The machine can be a LaserDisc player, LD-G player, CD Audio player (internal), and it can play LaserDisc games, Mega Drive, Master System (with dissembled Power Base Converter) and Mega-CD games, TurboGrafx-16 and TurboGrafx-CD games, and Karaoke discs (external, modules required). Their high cost on modules and in the LaserActive unit itself, it was discontinued in less than four years. Most of the LaserActive exclusive games makes use of the Mega-LD technology, a few ones makes use of the LD-ROM² technology.
Although Pioneer was stopped the LaserActive production in the mid-90's, Pioneer made LaserDisc players in Japan until 2009.
Launch titles 
- Quiz Econosaurus [LD-ROM²]
- Akuma no Shinpan: Konseiki Saigo no Shinri Game [LD-ROM²]
- I Will: The Story of London [Mega-LD]
- Pyramid Patrol [Mega-LD]
- The Great Pyramid [Mega-LD]
Sound
- See SN76489, YM2612, HuC6280, TurboGrafx-16, TurboGrafx-CD, Sega Mega Drive and Sega Mega-CD
Internally, the LaserActive has two ways to play sound: LaserDisc Analog, the only audio output of LaserDisc content, and the CDDA, commonly referred as Compact Disc Digital Audio, or just CD-Audio.
VGM Scene
There are no LaserActive emulators that emulate Mega-LD and LD-ROM² games. Most of Mega-CD emulators partially emulate the Sega PAC BIOS. Like the other BIOSes for the Mega-CD, the sound driver is a SMPS Z80. It have the same SFX of the other Mega-CD BIOSes, commonly played in the OPTION/MEMORY section. The Sega PAC cannot run the 32x, due to the lack of the port that connect in the back side of the MD/Genesis. So, no way to hear the PWM.
The NEC PAC BIOS (inside in a HuCard/TurboChip?) probably is not dumped. So, none of TG-16 emulators neither emulate the NEC PAC.
In future, you probably cannot log LaserDisc Analog and CD/DA data into VGM, only sound generated by the Sega and NEC modules (SEGA VDP PSG, YM2612 and RF5C164 in the Sega module, HuC6280 in the NEC module).