The Virtual Light Machine (VLM) is a light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter

Jeff Minter

Jeff 'Yak' Minter is a British computer/video game designer and programmer. He is the founder of software house Llamasoft and his recent works include Neon , a non-game music visualization program that has been built into the Xbox 360 console, and the video games Space Giraffe , and Space Invaders...

 in 1990. It was installed into a number of electronics, including the Atari Jaguar CD

Atari Jaguar CD

The Atari Jaguar CD or Jag CD is a CD-ROM peripheral for the Atari Jaguar video game console.Late in the life span of the company, Atari released this long-promised CD-ROM unit. The unit hit shelves on September 11, 1995 and retailed for $149.95. The device sat atop the Jaguar console, snapping...

 and Nuon

Nuon

Nuon is a technology that adds features to a DVD player. In addition to viewing DVDs, one can play 3D video games and use enhanced DVD navigational tools such as zoom and smooth scanning of DVD playback. One could also play CDs while the Nuon graphics processor generates synchronized graphics on...

 DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 players.

The Virtual Light Machine is, basically put, very similar to what would later be seen in music visualization

Music visualization

Music visualization, a feature found in electronic music visualizers and media player software, generates animated imagery based on a piece of music...

s included with Winamp

Winamp

Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...

 and other Media players. When an audio CD

Red Book (audio CD standard)

Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc...

 is put into a VLM compatible device, the VLM loads, manifesting visualizations which appear on the screen that change with the music.

VLM versions

Three versions of the VLM software were released. VLM-1 is the version installed and developed for the Atari Jaguar CD. Nuon players featured version VLM-2. VLM-3 was to be the basis of the video game Unity

Unity (video game)

Unity was a video game being developed by Jeff Minter and Lionhead Studios for the Nintendo GameCube video game system. It was in development from the beginning of 2003 until its cancellation at the end of 2004. It was to feature Jeff Minter's trademark psychedelic graphical style, meshed with an...

, which was in turn upgraded to form the basis of the Neon

Neon (light synthesizer)

Neon is a light synthesizer developed by Jeff Minter and Ivan Zorzin . It was based on an enhanced version of the graphics engine originally to be included in Unity , which became an independent project after Unity was cancelled in 2004.A version of Neon is used as the default visualiser for the...

 light synthesizer, utilized in the Xbox 360

Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

 and Minter's Space Giraffe

Space Giraffe

Space Giraffe is an action arcade video game by Jeff Minter and Ivan Zorzin of Llamasoft. Space Giraffe visually resembles the arcade classic Tempest, an arcade game by Atari Inc. released in October, 1981, though Minter claims that it is not a clone of this game. The game was released on August...

.

A prototype dubbed VLM-0 was demonstrated at several concerts and rave

Rave

Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...

s but was not made widely available.

VLM in Nuon DVD players

Every Nuon player used the same version of VLM; however there were differences in the number of effects available between players.

The player released by Toshiba

Toshiba

is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...

 only featured 8 VLM effects, less than the Samsung

Samsung

The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...

 DVDN-2000. The Samsung DVDN-2000 featured a higher resolution than the Toshiba player. The Samsung DVDN-501 has the most VLM effects (about 150) but these effects were presented in a lower resolution than the DVDN-2000.

RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

also released 2 Nuon DVD players that also featured VLM but these RCA players are missing many of the Nuon features that the Toshiba and Samsung players contain.