What's the most you ever spent on a laserdisc?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Atari265278, Mar 6, 2010.

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  1. Damian72

    Damian72 Formerly Suede Pickle

    Location:
    TX
    Rot was definitely a problem. Less with with later discs (at least in my experience) but still an issue. It always broke my heart to score a rare disc only to find rot had set in.

    Regarding Blu-ray, I've noted that stores have made more room for them but at least where I live they don't appear to be selling well. I'm sure the economy is a big factor there but still. Some of the sale prices I've seen at Target almost make me cry. $10.00 for THE WILD BUNCH on Blu-ray? When I saw that with my girlfriend she asked me if I was ok and I replied, "Do you know what that cost on laserdisc and what a big deal it was for fans to have it and now it's sitting here for $10.00 like no big whoop?"
     
  2. gd0

    gd0 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

    Location:
    Golden Gate
    Yup, rot is real.

    But minimal as noted above.

    The good news is if it's going to rot, it will have been evident much sooner rather than later. It's not like they're ticking time bombs. Seems to have been a manufacturing defect. Apparently the big discs are hard to glue together precisely. Air gets in, degrades the fragile aluminum sheet.

    I've got maybe 3 or 4 rotters among 2-300 LDs. Sadly, notables include Ghostbusters and 200 Motels. At least there are none on my precious animation titles.
     
  3. JAuz

    JAuz Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    A CD-Video was basically a hybrid CD/Laserdisc on a 5" disc. Typically you would get 3 or 4 audio songs and 1 video, usually a promotional music video. Any CD player could access the audio tracks but only a laserdisc player could play the video.

    This site has a lot more information, including many track listings: http://www.cdvideo.info/

    Some b-sides that were on CDVs have still never been issued digitally elsewhere.
     
  4. mike65!

    mike65! Senior Member

    Location:
    Connecticut
    Out of the nearly 500 LD's I've owned, I only noticed rot in 2 titles. Air Force One, and Nanci Griffith: Winter Marquee. I probably would have noticed one or two more over time, but I sold off most of them a long time ago.
     
  5. Rachael Bee

    Rachael Bee Miembra muy loca

    Air Force One.....that's a Sony title, I believe. Those bad Sony discs tended to rot in the first 2 years. The Sony plant in Indiana produced the overwhelming number of defective LD's. Everybody else made them better. I have mid 80's LD's from 3-M that have retained their youthful vigor. I've had 2 Lumavision out of about 10 fail. I don't know of a spoil't Pioneer side in the portion of my collection that I continue to watch....that's alotta sides! I'd say I have at least 800 titles I'd watch.

    I have a minimum of 25 bad sides on Sony titles....such as Stevie Ray Vaughn, Live At The El Motombo Club...:( That was my fav music title for about 2 years.

    So-knee is the guilty party in the case of running a rotten operation. They made sheety players too.

    If older LD's go to rot, they might have taken a hard bump on the edge at some point? They might have a thin spot in the edge glue that finally failed? It's rare for Pioneer pressed discs to fail. It's more like a 50-50 shot with Sony titles made after they started pressing in Indiana.
     
  6. Michelle66

    Michelle66 Senior Member

    You sure got that right! Sony LDs and LD players were junk! Pioneer had more involvment in LDs, so their machines and discs were much better.

    My player is a Japan-only monster released in the mid-90's (Pioneer CLD-HF9G). The thing is like a piece of furniture it's so big and heavy. It was one of the last LD-dedicated players, as later models could also handle DVDs.

    It slowly began having trouble reading discs, so I finally got it serviced about 18 months ago. I was lucky because Pioneer still had the parts to get it back to factory-fresh condition. If you've also got a wonky machine, I'd suggest getting it serviced sooner rather than later or you might be sorry.
     
  7. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    But weren't feature films available on CD-Video too? I bought "Friday the 13th" once on a Japanese CD-Video because at the time the USA DVD was censored.
     
  8. ferdinandhudson

    ferdinandhudson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Skåne
    You are most likely thinking of VCD, not CDV. Two different formats with confusingly similar names. VCD featured MPEG-1 compression and could store a film on 1 or 2 discs and could be played on a computer or DVD player. CDV is not compatible with either.
     
  9. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    You're right!

    I just checked and it's called Video-CD, and it's spread over two discs. It's from Hong Kong, not Japan. I wonder why they needed two discs for a 90 minute film, but a DVD can fit way more on one disc?
     
  10. ferdinandhudson

    ferdinandhudson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Skåne
    The number of discs needed is due to use of different video codecs. VCD uses MPEG-1 while DVD uses MPEG-2.
     
  11. Lazlo Nibble

    Lazlo Nibble Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver, Colorado
    VideoCDs are just that...CDs, with a typical capacity of 640MB. DVDs can hold 4.7GB per layer, and you can get two layers onto a single side of a DVD, so a single-sided DVD has well over ten times as much storage capacity as a CD. Plus VideoCD is around 1/4 the pixel resolution of DVD (352x240, vs. 720x576 for a typical DVD).
     
  12. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    The titles I paid the most for were the Japanese versions of the Star Wars Special Editions and The Phantom Menace that came out around '99 or '00. I got into the format late and spent way too much money on the fire sales when they were phasing out discs. They looked great on my old 32" Sony TV, but can look pretty bad on a 47" flat screen, especially if they were mastered poorly. I sold about 1/2 of them, getting rid of stuff that i knew were on DVD, and kept the Criterions, animation, DTS, and music titles. I've got the top of the line Pioneer Elite player and it still works fine though sometimes it won't flip sides.

    Seattle was one of the test markets for DVD, with the first players and titles appearing in the summer of '97. I remember Tower Records had a huge LD section that was packed with people when the new titles came in, and a tiny DVD display. I picked up my first DVD player in November of '97, along with some of the early Warner Bros. titles such as Blade Runner.
     
  13. gd0

    gd0 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

    Location:
    Golden Gate
    Off-topic, just a quickie...

    The Elites are worth some upkeep. Not too far away from you is a Pio LD specialist: http://www.laserdiscservice.com/

    Has good access to parts and everything. Thorough bench testing.

    Did a fine job on my CLD-97.
     
  14. Ken_McAlinden

    Ken_McAlinden MichiGort Staff

    Location:
    Livonia, MI
    I picked up the Beatles Anthology for 50% of full retail. I have blocked the amount from my mind, but that was probably the most I ever paid. I paid $125 for a couple of Criterions, $100 for a couple others, and at least $80 for the Ultimate Oz set. I try not to think of it too much though. :eek:

    My only "rotters" were "Beauty and the Beast: Work in Progress", and "Oliver!". My "Matilda" LD showed some rot like symptoms, but did not get progressively worse like the others, so I am not sure what exatly was wrong with that one.

    Regards,
     
  15. mdm08033

    mdm08033 Senior Member

  16. minerwerks

    minerwerks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    My known rotters are "Beatlemania: The Movie" (some might say this is an improvement) and "The Making of Star Wars." I may have a "Beauty and the Beast" with rot as well, but I haven't spun it in a looong time.
     
  17. quadjoe

    quadjoe Senior Member

    The most I ever paid for a LD movie was $125 for the boxed set of Dances With Wolves. I also paid $99 for The Abyss. Most of my Laserdiscs I purchased from the cut-outs at Camelot Music for between $5 and $15 when they were liquidating their inventory after DVDs came out. The store manager was a friend of mine, so whenever she got new LD cut-out shipments in, she let me go through them and pick out what I wanted before they got put out on the shelves.
     
  18. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    My rotters are Beatlemania and a Ren & Stimpy disc.
     
  19. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Thanks for the tip. I paid around $1000 for my CLD-99 in '00, and it's the most I've spent on a piece of hardware. Even my first DVD player in '97 was only around $600.

    I spent some time in my storage locker today and found that I have far more laserdiscs that I thought I did.
     
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