First and Last Laserdisc question (1 Viewer)

[Travis Brashear]

Originally posted by ChristopherDAC:
End of Days was a mid-2000 U.S. release, maybe the last U.S. release with AC-3 5.1

he he...apropos title then, eh?

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

I think that it is worth taking pause to appreciate the early Laserdiscs that were released, regardless of their quality and being grateful that they were made commercial available as sell-thru. The Big Studios did not have to do this and we could be stuck here today with no such concept as 'home video' in regard to 35mm motion pictures. Movies such as Star Wars could quite easily have been shown in cinemas and then only rarely shown on TV and never released on Beta, VHS, Laserdisc, CED, VCD and DVD would never have been in the scheme of things. Such reflections fill me with horror! However, it would have maintained the mystique of films like Star Wars and especially films like The Exorcist if they had never been released on any video format and when broadcast on TV, it would have been cut. Nowadays, we have scores of classic, gorey horror films on DVD with pristine OAR transfer, uncut, in their language with subtitles, extra features and occassionally, with beautiful packaging. It is all too easy to take this for granted and whine about trivial details and problems with DVD releases that cost $7-20 and $30 for Criterion releases like L'Eclisse. It could quite easily have gone the other way: NO foreign films EVER released on tape, Laserdis, DVD. All that could have happened was the laser-reading disc technology was used in the world of Science and the Military for data storage. The history of laser technology is a fascinating story that becomes quite strange when Laserdisc and CD come along as mediums for Rock and Pop Music! In fact, you can go back further and one can eventually himself in a magical revery over the mad-scientist-like tinkerings of Leon Scott de Martinville, Alexander Graham Bell, Tom Edison, Emily Berliner, David Paul Gregg and loads of other geniuses who had extraordinary presence of mind to see that such problems could be overcome and new ideas would eventually lead to unimagined technology. When you stop and think about it, Laserdiscs, CDs and DVDs are weird artifacts - sound and images that are stored on pitted aluminium foils inside a plastic disc that are played back via a miniscule focused beam of light?! Awesome!

This is a nice, concise chronology of audio/video recording milestones: www.oneoffcd.com/info/historycd.cfm

The same can be said for photography and cinematography. Neither of these devices/mediums are more than 200 years old, but they are accepted as part of the lives of almost every 5-year-old on the planet! They are recording mediums/formats for music, spoken voice, drama, etc, but those artforms have been around since Adam. Photography has altered the world immeasurably and permanently, just as the printing press did in the 15th Century.

Today, Technologies alter the world on a daily basis.

The collective psychological effective that the Internet has had is truly immeasurably.

What will the next Technological Revolution be?

 

[Michael Cucka]

According to the LaserDisc Forever website:



The Laser Guru

 

[Travis Brashear]

Originally posted by Michael Cucka:
Laserdisc production in America ended in 2000 with...Bringing Out the Dead

And the apropos titles just keep rolling in...

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Has anyone heard the official reason why Paramount quit putting AC3 on their last LD titles? Seems strange since they put out the very first AC3 disc (Clear and Present Danger), the only logical reason I can think of is so they'd play in stereo on older analog-only players.

 

[Mattias_ka]

I have 2 of the last 4 LD's released, The Cell and The 6th Day.


/Mattias

 

[John Sparks]

Well, those of us that paid $100 for the Japanese LD of SW-EP1 have to say that those are our treasures. That's the only way to have the film uncut!!!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I still didn't buy Episode I because they screwed up the subtitles. Didn't buy the other Star Wars flicks on LD for the same reason, though someone gave me their Definitive Collection so I've still got them one way or another.

Latest movie I have on LD is Blair Witch Project (got for about 3 bucks from Ken Cranes blowout sale). Sears kept using laserdiscs for their instore program til at least the end of 2001 though. I've got one with the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone trailer on it!

 

[Mattias_ka]

What do you mean with screwed up the subtitles on Ep1?

 

[Paul Linfesty]

It should be clarified that this term only refers to 35mm film prints that have both a Dolby Digital track and a Dolby SR analog track. This is rather meaningless on a laserdisc, which used Dolby AC-3.

 

[Tony Kwong]

Though I havent updated my listing I recently finished by Dolby Digital EX collection.

007: World is not Enough
Austin Powers:Spy who shagged me.
Haunting Japanese and US versions
Bone Collector
FightClub
Star Wars: EpI
End of Days.

as well as
evey mainstream(Can be purchased from a retail/preorder from store) Japanese releases in 2001.

X-Men, Tokyo Raiders, Card Captor Sakura: Movie, Jin-Roh, MI:2, Limey, Sixth Day, The Cell and Crimson River.

every? or most? US release that came out in 2000.
Thomas Crown Affair, South Park: Movie, Bone Collector, Sleepy Hollow, Love of the Game, Mystery Men, American Pie, General's Daughter, Entrapment, Bowfinger, Runaway Bride, Double Jeopardy, End of Days, and Bringing Out the Dead.

Did "Super Star" ever come out or was that cancelled?

 

[Tony Kwong]

Yeah like you can get the copy of

Smoking How to Stop
http://www.blamld.com/DiscoVision/Se...ent/52-003.htm

 

[RyanAn]

Thanks for the clearing up! I am glad to see that there are still some Laserdisc fans out there. I am relatively new to Laserdisc, actually owning 2 DVD players several years before my first Laserdisc player. Now I have two Laserdisc players and about 20 or so Laserdiscs.

I still love my Jingle All the Way LD that is just amazingly crisp and better than some DVDs I own.

Ryan

 

[RyanAn]

As a birthday gift today, I was given near 20 CED/Videodiscs to compliment my reels, DVDs, BETAs, and Laserdiscs... I'm on the prowl for a player, now.

Anyway, does anyone have any idea what the first and last title was for CED/Videodisc was and what year they were? Or even BETA?

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[Jesse Skeen]

First consumer CED title: Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown in 1981, released with several other titles- this month marks the 25th anniversary of its introduction as a matter of fact.

Last consumer CED title: Jewel Of The Nile in 1986 (Memories Of Videodisc was pressed after that and given to RCA employees before shutting the plant down.)

I think The Lion King was the last movie to come out on Beta.

 

[GeneP18]

Oh no! Star Wars Episode I was a late release, mid-2000, but Mission: Impossible 2, The Sixth Day, X-Men, and a number of others came out in Japan in 2001, and some were released in the U.S. in late 2000 -- Bringing out the Dead, Brain Damage: Special Edition, something called "Deadbeat by Dawn", Sleepy Hollow, a couple of Japanese monster movies, Vampyros Lesbos, for example. End of Days was a mid-2000 U.S. release, maybe the last U.S. release with AC-3 5.1 [they got cheap, near the end] and LDDb can't find the Japanese edition right now. There were probably 150-200 commercial releases after "Episode 1", mostly in Japan.

Brain Damage, Deadbeat by Dawn, and Vampyros Lesbos were cancelled and never released.