A Laserdisc player is an electro-mechanical device designed to play video (analog) and audio (analog or digital) stored on Laserdisc. Laserdisc was the first optical disc format marketed to consumers; it was introduced by MCA DiscoVision in 1978. In the 1990s, Pioneer and others produced a small number of a high-definition video player models, which employed multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding (MUSE) technology. In 1996, Pioneer distributed their first DVD player in Japan: A combination Laserdisc/DVD player, model DVL-9.