Video CD a few years later) on each side. The Laserdisc provided picture quality nearly double that of VHS tape and analog audio quality far superior to VHS. Philips later teamed up with Sony to develop a new type of disc, the compact disc or CD. Introduced in 1982 in Japan (1983 in the U.S. and Europe), the CD is about in diameter, and is single-sided. The format was initially designed to store digitized sound and proved to be a success in the music industry. A few years later, Philips decided to give CDs the ability to produce video, just like its
Philips Classics Records Philips Classics Records Philips Classics Records was started in the 1980s as the new classics record label for Philips Records. It was successful with artists including Alfred Brendel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Mitsuko Uchida, Julian Lloyd Webber, Sir Colin Davis and André Rieu. A notable product released under the label is the 180-CD "The Complete Mozart Edition", featuring all works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart known at the set's publication in 1990–91 for the bicentenary of the composer's death. It has been re-released as the "Complete Compact Mozart Edition".