Is laserdisc better than VHS? — Page 2

I'd go for either the Definitive Collection boxed set or the individual 'faces' discs.

There were only ever a handful of anamorphic laserdiscs released, all now collectors items. No Star Wars, I'm afraid. You can find a list of released titles here.

I have a question about LD players with an auto-flip function: that means that the laser mechanism itself swings around from top to bottom when need be, right? Not two lasers - one on top, one on the bottom - in it, right? Were any made with two in it?

I don't remember any machines with two lasers but i'm not an expert.  My machine (Pioneer CLD-3070) does the flip, but no matter what you get, it's not seamless.  Aside from the mechanism having to physically move, the disc itself has to come to a complete stop and get up to speed spinning in the opposite direction, too.

negative1 said:

also what about VHS? i've never owned a videotape or VCR.... surely something must

have come out in letterboxed format for it??

 

 

Yes, a large number of VHS tapes were letterboxed.

Just for the SW Trilogy alone there were at least 3 or 4 letterboxed  VHS sets released. I own two separate letterboxed editions of original SW Trilogy - the "faces" VHS set from '95 (which was also available in Pan&Scan) and the "hologram" letterboxed  VHS set from '93 (which was sort of a VHS companion to the Definitive Collection LD set).

I used to also have the letterboxed VHS of Phantom Menace, but I never opened it and ended up taking it back to the store.

 

Moth3r said:

I'd go for either the Definitive Collection boxed set or the individual 'faces' discs.

 

iRantanplan said:

But be aware that there is a Definitive Set out there missing the Leia wielding scene.

 

The Definitive set is also very prone to laser rot- the "faces" discs aren't.

Quite frankly, unless you're planning on collecting a bunch of laserdiscs, I wouldn't go to the expense of buying a LD player just to play the OOT LDs on. I did that about 5 years ago, and had I known that the GOUT DVDs were coming out, I wouldn't have because it would have saved me several hundred dollars. :-/

Mielr said:

I used to also have the letterboxed VHS of Phantom Menace, but I never opened it and ended up taking it back to the store.

Ha! :) I have the letterbox Episode I in the Toys 'R Us exclusive box. A neat little keepsake, I suppose. I have the fancy one with the film cel in it, too. Man, what was I thinking?

iRantanplan said:

But be aware that there is a Definitive Set out there missing the Leia wielding scene.

Pardon my naivete... what is the "Leia wielding scene"?

Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:

iRantanplan said:

But be aware that there is a Definitive Set out there missing the Leia wielding scene.

Pardon my naivete... what is the "Leia wielding scene"?

It's the scene where she's wielding a welding torch. ;)

Ripplin said:

Mielr said:

I used to also have the letterboxed VHS of Phantom Menace, but I never opened it and ended up taking it back to the store.

Ha! :) I have the letterbox Episode I in the Toys 'R Us exclusive box. A neat little keepsake, I suppose. I have the fancy one with the film cel in it, too. Man, what was I thinking?

 

That's the one I had, too (the one with the film cel). :-) I got it as a gift. I never even opened it to see which cel was included. :-P

Mielr said:

Quite frankly, unless you're planning on collecting a bunch of laserdiscs, I wouldn't go to the expense of buying a LD player just to play the OOT LDs on. I did that about 5 years ago, and had I known that the GOUT DVDs were coming out, I wouldn't have because it would have saved me several hundred dollars. :-/

Sounds familiar :o) and if it's just about SW you're right. The GOUT DVDs are better than any LD playback, X0 included. But media fanatic as I am, SW led me to the world laserdisc and I now have 3 players and over 300 discs.

A couple of posts back I read something about closed caption decoders. I still don't have one for my player, and in Europe no-one has ever heard of closed captioning. I see the occasional decoder passing by on ebay, can anyone tell me if all those decoders are suitable for laserdisc cc decoding, or do you need a special breed?

I guess I have to add my 2 bits:

So far we've covered:

(1) competition (which was between Beta and VHS - laserdisc was like the snotty art-critic uncle sitting in the corner). Does anyone remember when POPULAR MECHANICS was first talking about dvd?  I remember telling my friends about this "semi-transparent disc the size of a CD" holding a movie on it... their response was like "yeah right, whatever".

And then it came out (Funny thing is, I've known about the possibilities of a blue-laser reader for 10 years now.  In fact, someone at IBM figured a way of using fibre optics to transform a red laser and compress it into a blue laser... about 10+ years ago.... took 'em long enough).

(2) image quality: ahh, BLADE RUNNER comes to mind.  Putting it in for the first time on my 27" tv... the expression was always the same: "WOW!  That looks WAY better than (vhs)!   And it sounds better too!"

Then came that first dvd release of BR, and we said: "WOW!  That looks WAY better than (laserdisc)!   And it sounds better too!"

And then came the blu-ray release: "WOW!  That looks WAY better than (dvd)!   And it sounds better too!"

Has anyone been demo-ing THE ROAD WARRIOR for their friends?  I can't believe how many times I've watched that on my 65" Toshiba.  I think most of the comments went like "HOLY SH**!  LOOK AT THE ASPHALT!"  Now it's just... well, that looks pretty good... yup.  (Sigh) How quickly we get used to things...

(3) problems: isn't it funny how some (like myself) will complain about a $25 blu-ray, when back in the day we were paying $150 (yes, that is 150 one-dollar bills) for just ONE movie.. like SCARFACE or BRAZIL?

And then there's laser rot, where all those wonderful multi-colored lines start showing up in the image due to the lamination starting to come off on the inside of the disc.

I think Babs has something just for this occasion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEcQS4tXgQ&feature=related
(sniff, sniff...)

^I've never heard of laser rot. Interesting, and sad!

It's true how we get used to certain things and the wow factor dissipates. And that whole new format/old format thing. The only time it ever bugged me was when I wanted to show a kid (well, he was around 15 at the time) something on a VHS tape, as I didn't have it on DVD and it wasn't even available on DVD, but he wouldn't watch it because it wasn't on a DVD. Moron!

He's the same type that will go into a video store, look at the new releases section, then leave if he doesn't see something. Forget the fact that there are thousands of other titles on the shelves; if it wasn't released this year, what's the point? :p He has a lot of growing up to do!

This comes from someone who's favorite film growing up, even before I saw or heard of Star Wars, was The Day the Earth Stood Still. How many four-year-olds' favorite movie is from 1951? Heh heh. I wasn't even into sci-fi until a few years later.

Is it worth it to go and find letterbox laserdiscs of the OT and a player? The GOUTs just don't seem to do it for me. I've lived off my fullscreen tapes for too long. Is laserdisc really miles ahead of the letterboxed VHS tapes?

Laser is ahead of tapes, or was at the time.  Now, unless you want to do some kind of preservation/restoration project, it's generally not worth it.  With the GOUT specifically, those are taken from one of the last LD masters produced, so you're not really gaining anything by hunting down the original LDs.

For the 97 SEs, lasers would be the best copy to have, right? The VHS set I have is good, but I'm considering a laserdisc version for preservation. I just want a good version to hang onto.