Are laserdiscs worth getting or am I better off with DVDs?

not sure how you rate those crappy vhs prerecord tapes (not Cheap either) with copy protection and think that peoples TVs were so poor it didn't matter ,Of course DVD surpassed both formats ,But your idea of saving money and preffering tapes seems after the fact of dvds, Much like the people who save money on Blue Ray ,and might buy the next format ,and then say Blue Ray and dvd are the same

 

Unfortunately, the only Star Trek laserdisc I still have is Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

 

The Phantom Menace LD is one of the best looking, non-Squeeze, Laserdiscs issued. I believe it has better audio than any other LD issued, including DTS. The X9 and S9 play it very, very well.

 

There are a bunch, particularly when it comes to obscure Japanese releases, but there's one that always immediately comes to mind before any others:

 

You've never seen it before? It's a modern classic!

 

Spot on. As long as one's expectations are realistic, with a good player and scaler a well-mastered LD is still enjoyable. I love Blu-rays on my Oppo BDP-95, but there's still a place for LDs in my setup as well.

 

My friend has The Stones "Let's Spend The Night Together" on LD. Is this on DVD or Blu ray?

 

I have never seen it. I've seen Valley Of The Dolls, which was a yawn fest outside of the great theme song. The DVD is OOP. I saw the LD and liked the cover. I'll probably have it in a few days.

 

Yes, you're right. It was mastered quite well.

Too bad it's "The Phantom Menace"...

 

Exactly, it's kind of fun to pull out the old tech and get a feel for how high a level of performance was available before everything went digital. I have a vintage quadraphonic sound system in my den, and I really enjoy listening to it; the old quad records could give you some pretty convincing surround sound. I have no illusion that the old quad formats can even approach DVD-A, SACD, or DTS in clarity and separation, but it is remarkable just the same. Interestingly, some of the logarithms that were used for the Columbia SQ quadraphonic system were later incorporated into Dolby Surround for motion pictures. (Though Dolby Surround is mono in the rear channels, whereas SQ was stereo.)

 

Too bad that movie is a turd. I think one of the best looking discs I had was the Criterion CAV box of Se7en. I made a DVD of my laserdisc of NATURAL BORN KILLERS as that was the last format to have the theatrical cut, which I prefer. Also made a copy of my Pink Floyd Delicate Sound of Thunder. I'm glad laserdisc happened.

We still transfer them every now and then at work. The last one we got in was a laserdisc recordable, which I didn't even know was a thing. Purple just like a DVD-R.

 

This hurt my brain, including the comments. Enjoy.

 

The guy's shooting a video off a monitor, and the picture on the right is fattenized. I couldn't get :10 seconds into it.

Identical pictures on at the correct aspect ratio as screen caps, that's fine.

 

My favorite comment:

There ARE high definition laserdiscs. Yes, they do look better than bluray, even though they are both 1080 resolution.

You're confusing tiny pixelations for "sharpness". Bluray cannot be sharp by default, because it has pixels. It cannot focus on detail (definition of sharpness) because it's medium is in digital format, and cannot process the original film's frames. Therefore, standard definition laserdiscs STILL win over bluray, because you could zoom in on any part of any frame of any laserdisc movie and it won't be pixelated.

 

I'd love to see a demonstration of that one

 

What is your argument, exactly? A well transferred blu-ray will present a picture quality that is better, in every single way, than any prior consumer format. Hands down. Good grief, next thing I know we'll be celebrating 36" CRTs.

 

It wasn't his argument. If you took the time to read his post properly you'd see he's quoting someone in the comments section.

 

Where did I mention the word sharpness in my message? Where did you ever get the impression that something couldn't be sharp if it had pixels? There are 10MB pictures that still have pixels.

I was specifically talking about sizing, in that the image on the right is too wide by about 25% (typical 16x9 vs. 4x3 squeeze problem). Think football-shaped instead of a circle.

On second thought, I can't have a conversation at a level this low.

 

That was a youtube comment. It doesn't make any sense. I found it funny. That is all.

 

Never read the comments.

 

I think I'll ditch my blu rays and get a Mutoscope, you know that "real" pictures are used in those.

 

yea!

 

As has been mentioned before. Some title have never been transferred to DVD let alone blu-ray and many laserdiscs contain better mastering for the audio tracks than their DVD or blu-ray cousins. Is it so hard to understand why someone would want to have the best or only audio available for many live recordings. Good grief, why is it wrong to want to see/hear The Cure, Pink Floyd or Kate Bush videos? Maybe they are not of interest to you but they are to many people and I did think this forum was dedicated to fining the best sound available for releases.

 

Why is it that whenever we talk about Laserdiscs, people come in here thinking that we're talking about exclusively watching movies on Laserdisc?

 

That is understandable, but the OP and so many others seem stuck in the past (are Laserdiscs worth getting into? wowowow). Generally, DVD and Laserdisc is the junk that fills up landfills. There are exceptions.

I suppose I keep thinking back to the late 80s/early 90s and watching movies at home which were presented so terribly compared to what anyone with a reasonable budget can achieve today. And yet, here we are pining for "the good ole days".