Magnavox VH 8005
Philips VLP 700

The FIRST one: the first consumer Laservision player and CD's indirect father and, hence, DVD's gran'pa.

Introduced in 1978 under a two-headed but single banner (Philips and Magnavox) but plagued by many problems due to the player design itself and the huge amount of defective discs - unauspicuous beginnings.
The european Philips version was replaced by the VLP-720 in 1981 but the USA Magnavox carried on until... 1983 ! By which time the 8005 already looked like a dinosaur while, paradox, its smaller sibling -CD- looked as futuristic as Star Wars if it were seen in 1920.

The five Magnavox versions (VH8000CH01 / CH02 / CH03, VH8005CH01 / 02) all proved to be quite unreliable beasts (as the stack of service bulletins I own clearly proves) and drove NAP to bankruptcy. Pioneer would then take the lead and save the format from oblivion. All Philips/magnavox versions were powered by a Helium/Neon tube and so was was Philips' intermediate VLP-720 ; both the 8005 and 720 sported IR remote controls.

Image quality-wise, unfortunately, I can't tell: both my 8005CH02 and VLP-720 are dead. But they sure look amazingly... confident. Confident in the future they did hold: optical disc-based formats would win. It took almost 40 years but they did - patience is a virtue.