SilverWook

The AG-1980 is supposed to have a built in head cleaner though. At least the early models were advertised as having it. My second generation model has some minor design differences from the one I bought in 1997.

There's also the "play a brand new blank tape all the way to the end" trick I learned in college. Unless someone has been putting greasy nasty rental tapes in the machine, the heads usually don't have major problems.

I've seen a couple 80's Laserdiscs that had the VHS Hi-Fi logo, (sans the VHS part) on the jacket somewhere. Right down to the Dolby NR logo for the linear tracks. That was really weird.

Some early Disney DVD releases have the "Digital Sound" logo unique to Laserdisc on the disc labels. (Often placed next to the Dolby Digital logo.) I wonder if Pioneer ever noticed?

I reread the LDDB entries, and then spotted a copy on Ebay where the seller thoughtfully photographed the back jacket, and I compared it to my copy. I should get the remaster in about a week. :)

evan1975 said:

Not only did the 3D release under perform, but none of TPM3D-related merchandise seemed to sell, either.  All the store shelves near me are still clogged with TPM action figures that don't move.

I'm waiting for Walmart to cut their prices so I can corner the Ric Ollie action figure market. Thanks to Frink, Ollie's coming back big time!

Bingowings said:

It not unusual for corporates to do that sort of thing, just look at SyFy and Blood And Chrome.

The late lamented SciFi channel has been slowly run into the ground by a bunch of idiots for years, but that's a discussion for another forum. ;)

Lucasfilm isn't a big faceless corporation like whoever owns the Universal media octopus these days. It's practically a family owned shop.

My ancient VHS copy of Raiders has no Hi-Fi markings, but turned out to have a Hi-fi track when I played it many years later. Paramount must have saved a fortune not updating video cover art over the years. ;)

The only way to identify the repressing of Grease is the price code in the upper right corner on the back. The original doesn't have it.

TPM3D probably didn't make the giant truckloads of money they wanted, but it wasn't a flaming disaster either.

The 3D release did push the total worldwide box office numbers over the billion dollar mark.

If the AOTC  conversion is finished and "in the can", it would be silly for them not to release it given the money already spent.

If you buy a used AG-1980, try a out a couple tapes you can afford to lose in it first. I wore out my first machine back in the days of linear editing, and it could go berserk and eat a tape sometimes.

Minor update. I was able to get side 2 to play on my 704 by time searching well past the first frame, where it was apparently getting hung up.

Only the pilot was released was released in Japan on LD.

I checked out the Japanese DVD sets for sale on Yesasia, and unfortunately they are 16:9 as well.

The Grease LD arrived today, but it's not the digital remaster. And for the first time in the 26 years I've been collecting these things, I've encountered a disc that would not play. (Even some of the worst rotted out discs I've ever owned will play.) Side 2 literally would not engage when my 704 tried to spin it up. I've heard about some early improperly encoded Discovision titles doing this, but I never thought I'd get one of those.

Fortunately, my ancient trusty PR-8210 just plays it anyway. I love this video antique as much as some guys love their old car.

I'm going to do a test capture, and try to put at least one song up so you guys can judge the audio quality this week.

I can also positively I.D. the remastered jacket now, and will be looking for a copy.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is even more of a niche than Superman, and nearly $50k was raised for it's restoration. They were hoping just to raise $10k.

If there ever was a bullet proof rebuttal to the "too expensive to restore" cop out, Manos is it.

I have the old Criterion LD, and it has always sounded pretty good even when all I had was analog playback.

Been looking into external capture gizmos, (as CD recorders seem to be scarce these days) and saw this on ebay...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ADS-Tech-RDX-150-EF-Instant-Music-USB-Audio-Capture-Dev-/221052353718?pt=US_Sound_Cards_Internal_&hash=item3377bf3cb6

Might this work for capturing the digital audio straight off the optical ouput?

I'll have to give it a more careful listen later tonight. Vimeo always seems to sound lower than youtube on my pc speakers, so I patch into my HT sometimes to hear it better.

I can hear the difference in the voices. The sync seems fine.

I must admit it's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I'm not sure which is the original voice of Mr. Taylor.

The second link isn't working for me. :/

The 1982 poster shows a Dolby Stereo logo...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FANTASIA-Movie-Poster-RARE-Walt-Disney-Mickey-Mouse-/320898849541?pt=Art_Posters&var=&hash=item4ab70fdb05

As does the 50th...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FANTASIA-Movie-Poster-RARE-Walt-Disney-Mickey-Mouse-/320898849392?pt=Art_Posters&var=&hash=item4ab70fda70

It is also possible that nearly 15 years after the SE's first came out, the average consumer doesn't know the difference anymore.

Interesting, I was thinking about this while watching the restored "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" the other night. There was some voice replacement going on in the restored footage for actors too old or long gone to redub the missing dialog. Why Disney felt they had to overdub all of Taylor I'll never understand.

Do you plan to use Burton to patch the missing Taylor parts?

Criterion has long been meticulous in keeping the original audio mix with their releases. It's too bad they no longer have the rights to some of the films they covered on Laserdisc.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Isn't this old news? I'm sure he's said something like this before.

Either way, it makes no difference; he's a spineless wuss who won't stand up for what's right.

Or perhaps he likes his job, and wants to keep it?

If Mark Hamill is going to be there, someone has got to get him to pose in the Rancor's clutches!

I often lament that we never got the Lost In Space reunion movie Billy Mumy had been trying to get off the ground in the early 80's. Irwin Allen and the somewhat splintered rights to the series seem to have been the stumbling blocks at the time.

Somebody at Fox should have been floating the idea of an LIS movie the minute the cash from Star Wars started rolling in.

Stuart deserves a lot of credit for Yoda, of course. I based my remark on the DVD commentary(?) where Lucas spoke of his frustration that Frank could not even be nominated for best supporting actor in Empire.

What else has ILM worked on lately? Could be that they were swamped with other projects at the same time.

So what will the end result of this endeavor be encoded in? Or is it too early to say?