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Anyone still watch the LD releases?

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Having a laserdisc player on the way, I'm thinking of just sticking to the LD versions once I buy the movies on there. Mainly to have the OOT, and for collections sake. Anyone else watch them on actual LD?

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Thinking of buying the OOT movie each seperate, mainly just to save me some money so I can buy the star trek movie boxed set.

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I have not watched any LDs since the Gout came out. I'm considering selling most of my LDs and my LD player now.

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Look for them on ebay in the near future...;-)

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So far the only LD's I got are Blade Runner (Theatrical cut), and the crow. Just got into the LD scene as I have my first player still in the mail.

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I've got a question. Does a Laserdisc have better resolution than a pristine never-been-played-or-exposed-to-the-elements VHS, or are they about equal?

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Never had a lasedisc player, but for anyone who has the Star Wars LD Set  and the GOUT, which version would you say is better on an HDTV?

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DuracellEnergizer said:

I've got a question. Does a Laserdisc have better resolution than a pristine never-been-played-or-exposed-to-the-elements VHS, or are they about equal?

LD is quite a bit better than VHS in any quality VHS could have.

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CO said:

Never had a lasedisc player, but for anyone who has the Star Wars LD Set  and the GOUT, which version would you say is better on an HDTV?

Why would you want an LD player on an HDTV?

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Laserdisc player prices seem to be all over the place on ebay. What's a reasonable expectation for a decent unit?

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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True Story:

The first (and so far only) time I ever actually used an LD player was three years ago. The media center in the basement of my university's library had a viewing room and some of the tv's had LD players hooked up to them. They have a collection of about 250 laserdiscs. I wanted an excuse to both 1) use a laserdisc player and 2) watch Ben-Hur (which I'd never seen before). So I went up to the desk and gave the girl the call number and she gave me the set, a pair of headphones and a remote control. The booth I'd been assigned to was a 20-inch sony crt.

Yes, I realize that's about as far from ideal a format for that movie as you can get without watching it on pan n' scan vhs, but believe it or not it was actually a pretty cool experience.

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Must have been an older LD, most newer ones are wide screen.

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I still have the 1995 THX and 1997 SE laser discs. I had the pre THX lasers prior to getting the THX versions, but they had developed video problems from too much use so I had to get rid of them. They where basically unplayable. To really enjoy these older versions you need to use your Laser disc player through a video processor. Todays sets have crappy analog comb filters and color decoders.

Do a google search and find one that fits your budget.  I still have over 100 laser discs, and I still watch them periodically.

Venerable member of the “Red Eye” Knights

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 (Edited)

I had a massive library of laser disks, many of which still haven't come out on dvd, also worked for a few years in a store that sold them.  A couple years back I bought a dvd player/recorder and started to burn copies to DVD+R (which I have since converted to high quality DIVX files). The player/recorder had a 90 day guarantee and it died literally on day 91 with about 10 LD's left to convert, which I still have.  The only exception is the Director's Cut of Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society.''  I foolishly parted with that thinking that if it was out on LD that it would surely come out on DVD.  

To the poster asking if the picture quality was better, basically a laser disk had more lines of vertical and horizontal resolution being presented than tape did.  Some folks even used line doublers to try to make the picture even better.  Anyhow, horizontal resolution was over 400 lines LD and just over 200 VHS.  Earlier disks are subject to something lovingly called laser rot, the two aluminum disks were glued together and the glue essentially eats its way out from the inside, destroying the data that the laser reads.  Only had one disk out of many fall prey to this, a copy of a Julian Temple long form music video for the UK band ABC called ''Mantrap.''

I wouldn't sink a ton of money into laser disk, if you weren't there when it was in it's heyday it's essentially no more than a fetish product like collecting 8 track tapes or super-8 mm digests of movies.

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bigmonkey2382 said:

Must have been an older LD, most newer ones are wide screen.

..... It was widescreen. Still, it's almost as far away from ideal for that movie as you can get without watching it on pan n' scan vhs (that's all I meant).

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Try it first if possible. LD is about 420i and VHS is about 240i IIRC. I have grown to really enjoy LD. You can't beat the Digital soundtracks. My player is a Pioneer CLD-D702 that I picked up via craigslist for $25.

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captainsolo said:

Try it first if possible. LD is about 420i and VHS is about 240i IIRC. I have grown to really enjoy LD. You can't beat the Digital soundtracks. My player is a Pioneer CLD-D702 that I picked up via craigslist for $25.

Can't wait for my pioneer CLD-980 someone told me it's a really sturdy model.

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AuggieBenDoggie said:

I had the pre THX lasers...but they had developed video problems from too much use so I had to get rid of them. They where basically unplayable.

Can't happen. Like regularjoe said, it was probably laser-rot.

regularjoe said:

Earlier disks are subject to something lovingly called laser rot, the two aluminum disks were glued together and the glue essentially eats its way out from the inside, destroying the data that the laser reads.

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regularjoe continued:

laser disk [is] essentially...a fetish product like collecting 8 track tapes or super-8 mm digests of movies.

That describes about half the people here.

 

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bigmonkey2382 said:

captainsolo said:

Try it first if possible. LD is about 420i and VHS is about 240i IIRC. I have grown to really enjoy LD. You can't beat the Digital soundtracks. My player is a Pioneer CLD-D702 that I picked up via craigslist for $25.

Can't wait for my pioneer CLD-980 someone told me it's a really sturdy model.

I have one of those. It's a plain model, but it gets the job done.

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          If you want Nice, go to France

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Davnes007 said:

bigmonkey2382 said:

captainsolo said:

Try it first if possible. LD is about 420i and VHS is about 240i IIRC. I have grown to really enjoy LD. You can't beat the Digital soundtracks. My player is a Pioneer CLD-D702 that I picked up via craigslist for $25.

Can't wait for my pioneer CLD-980 someone told me it's a really sturdy model.

I have one of those. It's a plain model, but it gets the job done.

Comes with damn near everything except for the original box.

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If collecting LD's is a fetish, does that make one a pervert? ;)

I got my Pioneer 704 repaired and refurbished earlier this year by these guys...

http://www.laserdiscservice.com/

I had almost written off my player as scrap before I found them. I actually think it runs better now than when it was new!  (The THX-1138 LD capture I sent to myscamore has benefited from it too.) They also sell refurbished machines. Well worth checking out.

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