"This is the first:" The 16-Year Odyssey to Emulate the Pioneer LaserActive Overview In August 2025, Sega fan and emulator developer Nemesis released the first-ever emulator for the Pioneer LaserActive, ending a 16-year journey to preserve this unique and complex vintage console. The effort involved immense technical challenges, innovation in hardware and software, and a deep understanding of LaserDisc technology, which prevented earlier emulation attempts. --- The Pioneer LaserActive: A Unique and Challenging System Released in 1993 by Pioneer, the LaserActive combined a LaserDisc player with a modular console system. Modules allowed: Karaoke functions PC Engine functionality Sega Genesis/Mega Drive integration, including Sega CD and Mega LD game compatibility. The Mega LD format combined laserdisc video and digital game data, aiming for full-motion-video gameplay. The system was poorly sold (approx. 10,000 units) and ceased production by 1996. It represents perhaps the last vintage home console of note still un-emulated until this breakthrough. Emulation Challenges Analog LaserDisc video made digital capture difficult: LaserActive games use complex, fast, and interleaved video streams. No consumer capture hardware/software existed to properly record these signals. Digital side of the system was simpler and more understood, but video emulation was almost impossible. The discs are huge (dozens of GBs) as frames must be stored as lossless keyframes to accommodate interactive features (like instant seeks, multi-stream interleaving, reverse playback). --- Nemesis's Journey (2009–2025) Early Work (2009–2011) Began with childhood Sega Genesis/Mega Drive emulation experience. Purchased a LaserActive system and Mega LD module in 2004. Created custom tools to: Probe LaserActive hardware registers. Access and understand the BIOS and hardware behavior. Collaborated with others in forums to reverse engineer hardware registers. Discovered most capacitors and hardware components needed repair for reliability. Digital Game Dumping (2012–2014) Developed firmware and programs to rip digital data using USB-to-MegaDrive link. Used logic analyzers to capture inaccessible TOC data from Mega LD discs. Received game disc donations from the community to build a digital archive. Analog Video Capturing Problems (2014–2018) Built custom hardware to capture raw composite video. Tried to decode analog video streams with no ready solutions. Conventional capture cards compressed video poorly, causing artifacts. Capturing critical VBI data (vertical blanking interval) was not supported. Taking a Break and Return (2018–2024) Discovered the Domesday Duplicator project for LaserDisc preservation. Contributed to and pushed improvements in ld-decode, the software decoding LaserDisc video. Needed additional features for interactive disc requirements (e.g. TOC, VBI lines). Life events and the COVID-19 pandemic caused further breaks. Final Push (2024–2025) Created custom firmware mods and improved capture reliability. Enhanced ld-decode to fully parse digital audio/video and disc metadata. Successfully extracted playable disc images suitable for emulation. Emulated all hardware quirks by writing code in the emulator Ares, relying on existing Mega Drive support. Achieved full game compatibility mostly on the first try. Released Ares v146 supporting the LaserActive Mega LD games. Preservation Urgency Some discs affected by laser rot and degrade, making preservation urgent. Continued to seek additional discs for dumping. Plans to emulate other PAC modules like the PC Engine remain. --- Other Highlights Cowboy Bebop PS2 Game English Translation "Cowboy Bebop: Tsuioku no Serenade" (PS2), never released outside Japan, now has an English fan translation. Translator