I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like a long time before DVDs, when VHS was fairly new, movies came out to rental places before they were released to the general public to buy. I'm not really sure when you could rent/buy them at the same time. I never really bought movies, my older sister worked at a video store and she could rent movies for free, so we saw everything that came out and if we wanted to see it again, she'd just bring it home again
. No need to buy movies Heck, if you dont count all my classic horror movie VHS's, the only movies I've ever purchased were on DVD. Before then it just didn't seem worth it. The special features (which I rarely watch anyway) converted me initially. As expensive as it is now to rent a movie, you're better off buying it if you plan on watching it more than 3 times.
I have around 50 or so and keep my Pioneer Elite player in tip top shape. I put the signal out through a line doubler to my 47" widescreen and the picture is very acceptable.
There's a lot of good movies on laserdisc that may never come to dvd, so if you're a movie fan, especially of older movies, then it's a good option.
There's a lot of good movies on laserdisc that may never come to dvd, so if you're a movie fan, especially of older movies, then it's a good option.
I want one with the original Star Wars....then attempt to copy and preserve and probably reburn back onto dvd.
My school has one on a cart that rolls around and doesn't get used. Tomorrow, I'll put a piece of tape over the opening and see if it ever dissapears.
That and CDV I think. =0)
[edit] vcd? Bah totally forgot. But I do know laserdiscs are still used for Kareoke.
I've got around 200 laserdisks and a few players. The one I normally use is one of Pioneer's combo Laserdisk/DVD players. A lot of players have the laser head mounted on a U-shaped arm so they can play both sides. The pause is longer that what you get with a DVD layer change, but we're also talking about quite a few years of development in between the formats. I've never had a problem with either a disk or a player, except for an EAD one that developed the problem that it would open the drawer and immediately close it again. Still sold that on ebay for about a thousand bucks, even with that annoying problem. Quality-wise, it's quite close to DVDs (better in some ways, not as good in others) and far, far better than any consumer tape format.
Beta's not that bad either. Slightly better qualiity than VHS, 50% longer running time in high-quality mode, etc. Got a few high-end SuperBeta decks lying around too. In the early days of Beta-HiFi, I used to use the decks for audio recording, and they actually had several advantages for that, except for the transport noise (so you just don't put them in your sound room.
). Now, if only I knew what to do with a thousand used beta tapes....VHS movies were not immediately available for purchase when they were released. Only places like Blockbuster would have the movies on VHS. Typically laserdiscs were available for purchase on the same day that VHS videos were available to rent.
DVD versions of the original LD Star Wars movies were floating around on bittorrent sites for quite a while about a year ago or so. The quality is pretty good, as I would imagine it looked before the conversion from LD to DVD, and han shoots first. Or so I heard. I would never think to download such blatently infringing media.
Triumph
Lifer
- Oct 9, 1999
- 15,031
- 14
- 81
Huh. Learn something new every day.
So where are all the analogue purist a$$holes crying about how laserdisc is warmer and more natural than DVD? After all, digital will ALWAYS be a sampling procedure and you will always lose information, so it can't be as good as analogue!
i have a laserdisc player sitting less than 10 feet away from me. Parents used to use it to Kareoke (as someone said), and yes we're asian
Not really. Laserdisks have 425 lines of resolution, DVDs have about 500...but the laserdisk is uncompressed NTSC video, so you don't have artifacts of MPEG2 compression (ringing, mosquito noise, etc) on laserdisks. Also, the laserdisk format doesn't have space for macrovision encoding (or corruption, if you prefer) and laserdisk players generally do not have the macrovision chip that is required in DVD players.
AnitaPeterson
Diamond Member
- Apr 24, 2001
- 6,026
- 561
- 126
BINGO!
I still have my LD player and a small collection of LDs...
Do you guys know that LD is still the only option to see not only Star Wars OT (although I remember that last year, someone ported the OT to DVD in anamorphic format, and made it available on BT sites, you can still find it there), but also gems like "Blade Runner" (Theatrical version), the complete "Jaws" documentaries, the original cut of "Superman", the documentary and Terry Gilliam commentary for "The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen", and a few other titles which have never made it to DVD for various reasons...
Laser Discs are great, except my Star Wars box set has Laser Rot
so my original version looks teh shlte.
Lots of other discs in my collection have rotted too. Has something to do
with the glue they used to put the two sides together. I guess quality
control was difficult with such big media.
My Pioneer player flips sides automatic
A lot of the video transfers from those days weren't so hot either.
It seems a lot more care is taken now when making a transfer.
But back in the day it was the only way to watch a movie in the proper
aspect ratio and with any type of quality.
so my original version looks teh shlte.
Lots of other discs in my collection have rotted too. Has something to do
with the glue they used to put the two sides together. I guess quality
control was difficult with such big media.
My Pioneer player flips sides automatic
A lot of the video transfers from those days weren't so hot either.
It seems a lot more care is taken now when making a transfer.
But back in the day it was the only way to watch a movie in the proper
aspect ratio and with any type of quality.
That where I stand. I have the Pioneer S9 and X9 players running through a ISCAN Pro unit and about 1000 titles in my collection. Mostly old movies like the RKO collections and Eighties concert videos.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter