Voyager Company

The Voyager Company was a pioneer in CD-ROM production in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was founded in 1984 by four partners: Jon Turell, Bill Becker, Aleen Stein, and Robert Stein in Santa Monica, California, and later moved to New York City. The firm took its name from the Voyager space craft. In partnership with Janus Films, the company published The Criterion Collection, a pioneering home video collection of classic and important contemporary films on LaserDisc. Voyager introduced the release of special editions on LaserDisc.^[1]

In 1986 it decided to make it company policy to only release widescreen films on LaserDisc in their original aspect ratio rather than pan and scan formats that was common for home media releases at the time. Many other labels followed suit.^[2]

In 1994, the partnership was diluted by selling 20% of it to the von Holzbrinck Publishing Group, a German holding company. In 1997, the Holzbrinck Group withdrew with its 20%, the name "Voyager", and half of the CD-ROM rights. Robert Stein took the other half of the CD-ROM rights and the Toolkit rights. This left the Criterion Collection in the possession of three of the original partners, each with a third: Aleen Stein, the Becker family, and the Turell family.