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

yea! Lock and Load baby! OOPS! My Queen!

 

Well, factor in almost 10ft of water trapped in a house for 6 weeks and they still don't exactly know what was in that water....what a toxic mess. Believe it or not, I still go through some stuff that is in cases. With patience, I try to see if something can be saved. Over time, I learned a few tricks on increasing odds of salvaging a disc. The artwork may be shot to hell, but depending on what and where and how it got submerged, I've saved some and yes....they do play. The LD's - don't have a player so I can't test those(yet). Call it therapy.

 

I would think that LD's would suffer bad from this toxic soup. The edge glue that's already old probably doesn't have good odds. LD's fused together sounds like the soup had to soften the LD's plastic-like surface. Even LD's not bonded together might have clouded up the substrate, making reading them worse. From my experience playing old DiscoVision LD's and 1980-1982-3 , "instant rot" LD's on an HLD-X9, that red laser players might be the only thing that can play them...??? The edge glue had enough issues without being exposed to the soup. I'd expect your prognosis to be poor. They may all be rotted already? Some of my oldest LD's are 30+ years old. Some have gone bad without the soup. Besides traditional rot, if the pits shift a bit from age, you can get blue bars in the picture and crackles in the audio.

LD's are quickly moving to antique status. I have hundreds of crummy, 80's ones that I just want rid of...sadly.

 

An hld-x9? That's some serious gear!

All you have stated does unfortunately seem to be true. Let It Be is one of the discs I am very interested in looking out for but being one of the more ancient titles, many copies out there do suffer from degradation... It remains to be seen if the later discs will degrade at the same rate. With the prices it tends to go for, I'll probably go without this one unless one in exceptionally good shape manages to turn up, or one that is exceptionally cheap.

I also want to get one of the discovision Jaws sets, which I doubt will play being pretty much as ancient as you can get for the format, but I just want it as more of a historical piece than anything. Don't think I'd ever actually watch it, maybe once if at all haha.

 

Guitar groups were on their way out in '63 anyway. And all those concert LDs I picked up, rare Japanese imports etc. toss them!

 

I have a bunch of those very late letterboxed LD titles from MGM and 20th Century Fox titles that look stunning, and I watch them sometimes.

And I have a ton of the operas on the Pioneer label that I will get to someday. Those early ones (might be rotting, but maybe not cause they arer Japanese pressings). Those might not have another release ever in print besides VHS if that. Early 80s productions, pressed in Japan, stereo analog audio only. They are two disc sets fer crise sakes. Why not for a dollar????

 

I seem to recall that the plastic used in the discs differed from what folks are used to with CDs, so it may have been more susceptible to contaminants. given the weight of the disc and the rotational speeds involved it probably needed to be slightly more flexible and less brittle.

 

A restored cut has been been of the film so a Blu-Ray release may happen. The original quadraphonic sound track has also been found.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...documentary-at-montreal-film-festival.330776/

 

The columns cover of the Pink Floyd film was the best issue of the film to home video. Both sound and picture improved over previous issues. The minor complaints were that the PAL to NTSC conversion of this issue (in the US) resulted in slightly higher pitch of the soundtrack which could bother some, most not.

 

Ahh, good to know. I may hold out for the Blu ray in this case. I remember the quad audio being found and made available online not too long ago. A fully restored film is certainly exciting.


Unrelated but it turns out the Super Mario Bros. movie is making it to blu later this year, but region 2 only, so I may have to pick this up as a 12" platter as well.

 

I still have the Star Wars trilogy, Cammell And Roeg's Performance, Corman's Poe series, and Criterions of Blow Up, Last Tango, Ambersons, and Welles' Othello. The Criterion Othello is the one title and extras I'd love to see ported over to blu-ray.

 

There is still a market for laser discs, as I see they do sell on eBay.

I got a couple of bucks for THX 1138, which I think my copy was remastered but not altered like the DVD was. I had a still sealed copy. I sold off my Magical Mystery Tour LD, the one with the good remastered soundtrack.

I see completed items on eBay - so there is a little cash left in the right titles if condition is tops.

 

There is a copy of Let It Be + Rockshow up for $88BIN with free shipping... Seems like a great deal based on what Let It Be alone usually sells for, that's assuming it still plays well though. I'm super tempted but I'm also super broke after just buying a player and a bunch of movies so as much as it's gonna kill me to pass on it, I'm gonna have to.

 

Rockshow is out on nice DVD, and Let it Be does show up for sale again, not a big problem.

This copy of lib must be rotting pretty badly.

 

Well, just received my first player and - it's DOA!
No idea if the thing is actually functional if it were to power on, because it doesn't.

Tried a bunch of different outlets, and nothing. Didn't even get that far. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I doubt it. I'm not sure how something that was fully tested to be properly working just prior to shipment would not even do so much as power up - unless a ribbon cable inside got disconnected during shipment? Is there anything I should look out for? It's a very odd situation. If I can't even get it to turn on I'll have no choice but to send it back and start the search all over again. Which may not be a bad thing but I have a very hard time believing this unit just suddenly and completely bit it hard.

 

Starting the search all over again is not a bad thing if you live in or near a big city. There are lots of or at least some players on the market locally in most cases. One must look at model number (to not get low level player when a higher end could have been scored), and seek out ones with remote not missing. Manual is always nice.

I had four players and now have three. I loaned my lowest level pioneer to an older lady so we could watch some of my old un-viewed movies together now and again. She used the small table stand to rest her arm (and body) as she went to plug in a lamp, and her fat-ness' busted the table and player went straight to the floor. I knew she would total out this player, somehow I knew when I brought it over to the house, that bit was a one way trip. So I was not mad or upset. I was disappointed that she went into denial over how that player hit the floor. I paid $25 at a thrift store for this one. But I think I can get $25 for the remote control alone on ebay.

 

1998 wants its thread back.

 

It's very possible that it was fine at the seller's, and that it was damaged in transit. Most shipping companies aren't too careful with stuff these days. However, I'd think that shipping damage would have damaged the transport, so it should have powered on. It's too bad that it's not working. By the way, was the transit screw in place when you received your unit? (It's on the back or underneath depending on your player.) I've never heard of there being an interlock preventing power up until the screw is removed (it's logical, IMO), but worth the try.

 

It seems a little ass-backwards to make a mock comment about obsolescence on a forum in which 98% of the discussion revolves around purchasing and playing back music on physical media, in 2014. With a very strong emphasis on analog audio, if I might add.

 

It was actually packaged like a tank and the seller sent an ld with the unit for testing purposes so I don't think it was misrepresented. There actually is no transit screw on the model I purchased (cld m401) from what I could gather in the manual, the function that the transport screw would provide is naturally replicated by the player itself everytime it is powered off. It seems that it locks up the transport/laser mech on its own. The issue I'm having is without a doubt electronic and not a mechanical issue. If I can power it on it remains to be seen if there are mechanical issues that were caused by shipping - the m401 changer/transport does have a bad rep

 

That sucks, man.

There is a member on here who was making recommendations on what players to buy and what to avoid. I've forgotten their username. Search the threads. Knew what he or she was talking about. Very specific recommendations and players to avoid.

 

So, uh...why go for the laserdisc instead of that R2 Blu? Granted, that'll take a region-free player or a hackable one, but that doesn't seem like a big issue to work around these days. Hell, even the old DVD would be a better option than the LD. (But it looks like there's actually a US Blu and DVD Special Edition re-release coming in November, according to smbmovie.com)

 

Ah, if there's a US release coming up then I'll surely hold out for that. I used to have the old dvd, not sure where it ended up over the years but I recall it not looking very good. I think it may have also only been pan&scan? Can't recall, it's been over a decade since I've last seen it.

My Blu-ray player (or main one, we have 3 but only one is hooked up to a tv, the others are computer drives) is the release model ps3... Not region free and seeing as how these have a habit of dying on their own without anybody's assistance, I'm terrified of performing any modification on it, lest I screw it up and then I'm SOL on finding another one of these in working condition for less than a grand.


Other 90's classics only on p&s dvd... A Goofy Movie, Cats Don't Dance... I sure don't see bd releases in their future if they aren't out already haha

 

Yeah, I think the current US Super Mario Bros. DVD is widescreen, but non-anamorphic. Just a straight dump of the laserdisc version to DVD (which the Disney studios were fairly infamous for in the early days of DVD). But yeah, if you check out that smbmovie.com site, it looks like they're working on a newly-transferred version with lots of bonus features. It looks like both A Goofy Movie and Cats Don't Dance are available in widescreen in R2 editions, though, but yeah, can't imagine a Blu coming for either one anytime soon. (And Goofy seems to be letterboxed only, not anamorphic. Not sure about the R2 Cats.)

 

I've still never heard Pulp Fiction sound as good as it did on my laserdisc.