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LaserDisc

dontwalkhand

dontwalkhand

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
6,578
3,251
Phoenix, AZ
Does anyone remember this? I was digging through a stash of old stuff, and found some LaserDisc of Love songs and stuff in a foreign language!

Wow these things were huge, and I am thinking about re-adding the player to my AV setup.
 
My school's library has Surf Ninjas to check out on laserdisc. In my opinion laserdisc is the best format to watch that movie in. Why? Because it's freaking Surf Ninjas.

P-Worm
 
They still have a laserdisc player in the music department of my school...

Some concert recordings are only available in Laserdisc, so they had to keep them.

It's pretty amazing... these are analog! Imagine how many GB of data you could fit on this with a Blu-Ray diode :p
 
I still have several dozen laserdiscs. My player isn't connected as I just moved, and I haven't built my living room yet.

A fun story:

One Halloween a few years ago, my doorbell rang. I had the light out because I don't want to promote people running all over my lawn just to get more sugar. Yes, I am a curmudgeon. Anyway... Doorbell rings, and it's a group of like 10 teenagers. They were on a scavenger hunt, and had to trade an item for a bigger item as they went along. The team with the largest physical object at the end of the night won.

So they said, did I have something crappy that was worth trading for an 8-track of something that they'd been given at the last place. I had the laserdisc of Big Trouble in Little China, but it had warped or something, and had become unplayable. So I traded that to them for the 8-track.

They went running down the street, holding the disc above their heads like it was the Stanley Cup. I probably prevented an egging that night. :D
 
At one time, I had way more than I care to remember. :eek:

As in a few hundred plus two players. A primary and a backup. :)

combatcolin said:
The sleeves of Laserdisc's add a certain something that VHS/DVD never could.

Gate folds were a work of art.
Click to expand...
Yep. Plus there were titles on the LD that never made it to the DVD.
 
My Dad If I remember correctly had a collection of over 1000 of them. We sold them along with our house after we moved up north. Some very interesting titles that will probably never be on any other format.
 
I used to tool around with a HyperCard xcmd that would allow me to control a LaserDisc player from my buddy's Mac Plus. It was pretty awesome tech for the day. It's strange to think that LaserDisc came about before CDs, and that the video was analog. I grew up when CDs were just getting big, so I've always associated optical media with digital content.
 
So I'm actually just getting into these beautiful shiny discs myself... it's kind of sick the way I gravitate to technologies after they are officially dead. I'm also really geared up to start an HD DVD collection for some reason... :rolleyes:

Anyway, I'm buying all of them that get offered to me on craigslist for $1-3 each... so far I've found some real treasures, Star Wars and Indiana Jones being the biggest scores. Oh, and of course Earth Girls are Easy. :D

The trick is going to be getting the laserdisc player to work with the ACD 23" that serves as my television... I'm picking up my new (to me) laserdisc player today and I'm going to try it out tonight...
 
^^^^^
Hmm...I paid probably $300+ for that Star Wars trilogy in its day. :) It did look fabulous though compared to the other format of the day: VHS.
 
Jaro65 said:
^^^^^
Hmm...I paid probably $300+ for that Star Wars trilogy in its day. :) It did look fabulous though compared to the other format of the day: VHS.
Click to expand...
I have the original versions of the first three movies on LD. :)

I also have some movies on LD that are unavailable in DVD (US) format. An example is Heaven & Earth. No, not the one with Tommy Lee Jones. The Japanese one. Also known as "Ten to Chi to."

Guess I will need to do a good import and conversion to MP4.

I also have a cool Japanese LD of the SR-71.
 
Decrepit said:
I still have several dozen laserdiscs. My player isn't connected as I just moved, and I haven't built my living room yet.

A fun story:

One Halloween a few years ago, my doorbell rang. I had the light out because I don't want to promote people running all over my lawn just to get more sugar. Yes, I am a curmudgeon. Anyway... Doorbell rings, and it's a group of like 10 teenagers. They were on a scavenger hunt, and had to trade an item for a bigger item as they went along. The team with the largest physical object at the end of the night won.

So they said, did I have something crappy that was worth trading for an 8-track of something that they'd been given at the last place. I had the laserdisc of Big Trouble in Little China, but it had warped or something, and had become unplayable. So I traded that to them for the 8-track.

They went running down the street, holding the disc above their heads like it was the Stanley Cup. I probably prevented an egging that night. :D
Click to expand...

hahaha that's pretty epic :p
 
dmr727 said:
It's strange to think that LaserDisc came about before CDs, and that the video was analog.
Click to expand...

First commercial Laserdisc was Jaws in Dec. 1978.

First CD was pressed in 1981...A Berlin Philharmonic recording according to wikipedia.

LD only 'beat' CDs by less than 3 years. :D
 
Also CAV versions were more expensive in the early days.

Later when the players improved, it didn't matter as much.

I hate to think of the thousands I spent on LDs over the years. :eek: :( :eek:




Then again, I remember paying $1,295 for a 96K memory card in the '86. :rolleyes:
 
I only have one disc (of a multi-disc set) that is /was CAV: the last 15 minutes of Return of the Jedi.
 
In the early days, the players opened on the top and played only on one side.

Then there were tray loading DVD players that played on one side.

Then we finally got tray loading DVD players that played both sides. That was sweet. :)
 
sushi said:
In the early days, the players opened on the top and played only on one side.

Then there were tray loading DVD players that played on one side.

Then we finally got tray loading DVD players that played both sides. That was sweet. :)
Click to expand...

I have a pioneer model that plays both sides, it has a large tray for laserdiscs and a smaller tray that connects itself with the larger tray for CDs.

I believe that they even have a model of this player that does DVDs !
 
Decrepit said:
Doorbell rings, and it's a group of like 10 teenagers. They were on a scavenger hunt, and had to trade an item for a bigger item as they went along. The team with the largest physical object at the end of the night won.
Click to expand...

Heh! "Bigger and Better!" I remember doing that with our church youth group too. We sent them out with a paper clip to start off and watched what came back. One group brought back an old sofa. Another group brought back a life-sized cardboard stand up display of Nicole Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut". Which the youth pastor had to get rid of at the end of the night before anyone saw it and complained the following Sunday morning!

My memories of LaserDiscs brings me back to my uncle's house in Singapore, in 1994. I never watched "Jurassic Park" in the theatres but I watched it for the first time in his living room, which had the home theatre setup going -- in those days that meant LaserDisc player, on a 32" CRT TV, with Dolby Pro Logic surround sound! I think I also remember watching "Home Alone" on that thing.
 
Were Laserdiscs anything like VCD? We had a few VCD's back in the day before we got a DVD player. Had some Korean (I think) English VCDs in massively fancy ornate cases.

Edit: Thanks wiki! And god no that thing is huuuuge! I've never seen one in person then.
 
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