La Carrera Panamericana, digital laserdisc rip?

[Krickis]

Hello, got a question regarding the La Carrera Panamericana rip (or rips, as the case likely is; there are bound to be multiple). So laserdisc contains both digital audio at 16/44.1 just like CD as well as analog audio for support in players that don't have digital out. Video is always analog, but is not what I'm after right now anyway. I'm currently listening to a release that the lineage states it's a Laserdisc rip, but not how it was ripped. The sound quality is lacking to me, not just because of sound effects and talking over the tracks, but it has weird dips that seem indicative of either a VHS transfer or perhaps a poor laserdisc analog transfer. Do we know for sure that any of the existing rips are digital? I own the laserdisc, but don't own a player (yet), would certainly be open to making the rip myself, but I don't know if it's needed yet. Obviously, just looking for the soundtrack in the highest possible quality right now.

Thanks in advance for any info on this!

[daemonspudguy]

Not all Laserdiscs have digital audio, either. A lot of the cheaper ones (and all of them from before the mid-80s or so) only have the analog audio. The ones that do have a digital audio track, especially ones that are gold and marked CD Video (not to be confused with Video CD), have long since suffered near-total disc rot on the digital layer, because that's the first layer on the disc. I don't know if the Laserdisc for La Carrera Panamericana is a cheap one or one of the enthusiast ones with digital sound, but if it's a cheap one it might not even have a digital audio layer because that was still expensive in the early 90s.

[Krickis]

La Carrera Panamericana does have digital audio, and disc rot is a commonly misunderstood thing that is not likely to impact a 1991 laserdisc (it's much much more common on older laserdiscs than newer ones). In fact, most laserdiscs that have digital audio are likely to not have disc rot because they tend to be later than the disc rot era of laserdiscs.