Criterion Laser Discs

This morning, I picked up the following Criterion Collection laser discs at an estate sale ...

Forbidden Planet (1989) – Still Sealed
Swing Time (1990) – SS
Singing in the Rain (1988) - SS
Parade (Jacques Tati) (1990) – SS
Parade (Jacques Tati) (1990)
Lawrence of Arabia – Extended Play (1989)
Dr. No (1991)
From Russia With Love (1991)
Show Boat (1989)
8 ½ - Extended Play (1989)
Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati) – Full Feature Format (1987)

The open ones appear to be hardly played ... although I don't have a laser disc player, I pick up laser discs (music concerts, cartoons, Star Wars and Criterion) at estate sales for anywhere from $1 to $3 ... do the Criterion laser discs, in general (I suspect certain tiles are very collectable) have much collectable value?

 

The picture quality is really good!!!

 

I would think that if they are not yet on DVD, or have some really unique content, they would be worth something. Standard DVDs, though, probably aren't worth more than a couple of bucks each.

 

That is worth a ton!! My friend paid 10 bucks for his, and it is in so-so condition, and that was considered a bargan!!

I might add, that the picture quality, and the sound is really good!

Laserdiscs IMO, have much better picture quality than DVD. With DVD's, you can see aliasing. On laserdisc, everything looks much more film like.

 

I have these three....I don't know about collector value, but that whole pile would have cost you about $400 or more 10 years ago (The list price was roughly $40 per disc).

 

Film Reconstruction Credits

Reconstructed and restored by Robert A. Harris

Restoration produced by Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten

Special thanks to .... Martin Scorese, Steven Spielberg, Jon Davison and Sir David Lean

Videodisc Production Credits:

Produced by Charles Tashito

Film to tape transfer by Gregg Garvin, Modern Videofilm, Hollywood, CA.

Film to tape transfer supervised by Maria Croumbos

 

I was well into LD for about nine years, with a Pioneer 730 at the end. While I agree that the very best laserdiscs look very good, I can't agree that they have better picture quality than DVDs, generally speaking. If they do, the DVD was poorly mastered/authored/transferred. You can see MPEG-2 encoding artifacts on DVDs if you know where to look, but in my experience they're much less distracting than the softer picture and analog noise on an LD.

The linear PCM soundtracks on LD do, though, sound better than the compressed DD tracks on many DVDs. DTS, though, gives LD PCM a run for its money, and of course it offers discrete surround to boot.

All of that said, Criterion LDs are a joy to own, especially at those bargain prices. Some Criterion LDs have content that's never made it onto DVD. Licensing rights, etc.

 

Several of them have the original price stickers on the cellophane ...

Forbidden Planet (1989) – Still Sealed ... $99.95
Swing Time (1990) – SS ... $39.95
Singing in the Rain (1988) - SS ... $89.95
Parade (Jacques Tati) (1990) – SS ... $49.95
8 ½ - Extended Play (1989) ... $59.95

Glad I didn't start collecting laser discs when they were new ...

 

Even the DD on LD's sounded better than the DD version on DVD's. That was a very big early complaint of DVD. Of course DTS on LD blew everything away (the first DTS LD titles being "Jurassic Park", "Casper", "The Shadow" and "Babe").

I've got over 200 LD titles, but I'd say that most well done DVD's do have a much better pitcure - especially on my regular analog 50" RPTV. My LD player is a Pioneer CLD-704. I just recently compared the new DVD of "Aladdin" with my 2-disc CAV THX LD set in that cool blue gatefold cover. While I always thought the LD was very nice, after watching the DVD, the LD now looks nasty.

Now, some of those early DVD's don't have any advantage over the LD at all since a lot of them used the LD transfers for the DVD. Early Paramount and Fox titles did that a lot - like with some of the Star Trek movies ("Generations" and "ST-6: Undiscovered Country") and the first issue of the Die Hard films. But, that's not been the case for several few years now.

 

If you haven't seen it Steve, you should check out the Superbit DVD of this. Absolutely breathtaking.

 

In general DVD's do have the better video, but LD has better audio. What limited LD was the quality of the transfers. I have a PIoneer HLD-X9 and have some lasers that people would think were anamphoric DVD, but the majority just didn't recieve great transfers.
The other thing is that there are so many titles on LD that are not yet on DVD. In the last few moths I've picked up LD of Rush-Grace under Pressure tour from 1984 (I think), Billy Joel live from Long Island 1983, and U2 Under a Blood red sky and Zooropa from Sydney. None of those have yet to see the light of day on DVD, and the transfers are generally pretty good. Not to mention the orginal non special edition star wars trilogy, and Jaws with original mono soundtrack. I'll still be buying lasers for some time.

 

The superbit LAWRENCE is superb....more than a match for the LD.

I'd hold on to those Bond discs, with their unique audio commentaries you'll never hear again.

You just can't go wrong with Criterion, LD or DVD!

 

Are the Bond discs CAV or CLV editions?

Gary

 

CAV ... what's the difference?

 

For one thing, with CAV you have to change the side every half hour, but you can use slow motion and still frame and other features. With CLV you get an hour a side but can't use the special features (at least on my machines). Here's the LaserDiscFAQ explanation:

 

The prices tell me that...

Forbidden Planet (1989) – Still Sealed ... $99.95 should be the CAV two disc version
Swing Time (1990) – SS ... $39.95... CLV one disc
Singing in the Rain (1988) - SS ... $89.95 two disc CAV
Parade (Jacques Tati) (1990) – SS ... $49.95 CLV 1 disc
8 ½ - Extended Play (1989) ... $59.95 CLV two discs

 

Put it this way....one disc or two discs per title?

the CAV (two discs) versions are worth $!!!

They did not pressed a lot of these and became huge collector items.

 

Beyond what's already been posted, you can tell you've got a CAV disc(or side--sometimes one side of an otherwise standard CLV may be CAV)because the counter shows the number of frames, rather than the elapsed time, as CLV discs do.

CAV also allows the viewer an exact frame(literally!)of reference for where a sequence starts, or where something--oh, say, the pantyless Jessica Rabbit in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?--can be readily found....

 

Very often with Criterion LaserDiscs, (in addition to the format differences already described) there was additional supplemental content exclusive to the CAV editions. I am pretty sure that was the case with some of the Bond discs. I will double-check your titles and report back.

Gary

 

IIRC, the CLVs lacked the controversial audio commentaries - I think you had to mail in for a cassette to get them...

 

I have to agree--LD's shortcomings are distracting for me to watch them much anymore. I can live with DVD's artifacts.

Now my question is, what do I do with the stack of 20 or so LDs that I have sitting here which are duplicated on DVD? They would cost more to mail than they're worth! Have one Criterion in that pile, too: "North by Northwest".

 

Yes, what Colin says... Here's Doug Pratt's review of the CAV Voyager edition of Dr. No from the old LaserDisc Newsletter. You should be able to search all of your other titles here, too. Since this content has never appeared anywhere else, (and was limited to a small pressing run in the first place) I have to think it is of value to a serious collector (especially in the fine condition that your discs appear to be.) The only caveat... the dreaded "laser rot" that some Criterion discs succumbed to. And, the only way to know about that for sure is to play them.

Gary

 

Thanks for the link ...

Hopefully, that's not the case ...