LD vs DVD "Who wants to go 15 rounds?" (1 Viewer)

[Mattias_ka]

Did you compare this to the the Highlander[first edition] DVD,by any chance?
The japanese LD was one of costliest mistake I ever made,luckily there are others who gladly paid as much as I paid when I sold it.

Well, I agree that the LD of EP1 is great, and I prefer it more over the R1 DVD.

 

[greg_t]

I have to disagree with the DTS LD blowing away dts dvd. I just picked up a copy of the Jurassic Park dts ld on ebay for $15, and compared it to my Jurassic park dts DVD (second pressing). I was hard pressed to hear any appreciable difference between the two. The bass sounded a little stronger on the LD, and of course the surrounds are 3db too high. Of the two, I would give the LD perhaps a very slight edge, but not nearly enough to overcome the advantage that the DVD has with it's anamaphoric video. I have several other dts lasers but don't have the dvd counterparts to compare to.

 

[Will Gatlin Jr]

Eugene...

I don't smoke, never have, never will. That's why I'm able to tell the difference!!

 

[Lewis Besze]

Well, I agree that the LD of EP1 is great, and I prefer it more over the R1 DVD.

Are you the guy who bought it from me?

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Well, to me, the biggest advantage that LD has over DVD is classic Star Wars. Since Lucas has publicly stated twice now since the premier of ATOC that the original versions of these movies will never be available on DVD, this is an advantage that will likely never go away.

I, personally, do not own a LD player, but many of my friends and relatives do. Based on what I've seen and heard on their systems, it does seem to me that a very well mastered LD of a 1.85:1 OAR movie comes pretty darn close to a non-anamorphic DVD of the same title. However, I haven't seen a LD that can touch a DVD in the area of video when it comes to anamorphically-enhanced 2.35:1 transfers. (This even includes, in my opinion, the EE-plagued TPM transfer.) I will admit that LD has the potential for better sound than DVD, but not enough to warrent giving up the DVD video.

Several months ago I had the opportunity to view an LD of the original 1977 Star Wars (the "Faces" release) at a friends' house on a 110" FPTV system. While this was a very satisfying experience, there was no question but that a properly mastered DVD would have rendered greater detail and color saturation. But I guess we'll never know ...

 

[Eugene Hsieh]

CASPER/THX...RUSH HOUR...TRUE LIES...DIE HARD 1&2...LOST IN SPACE...ALIEN RESURRECTION...JURASSIC PARK/THX...ARMAGEDDON...RONIN...and the Signature Collection of the MUMMY.

Hmmm... Out of these the only ones I'd consider getting are Ronin and maybe Alien Resurrection. To each his/her own.
By the way, nobody has mentioned one point: Home recordability. Recordable DVD is very cool...

 

[Lewis Besze]

CASPER/THX...RUSH HOUR...TRUE LIES...DIE HARD 1&2...LOST IN SPACE...ALIEN RESURRECTION...JURASSIC PARK/THX...ARMAGEDDON...RONIN...and the Signature Collection of the MUMMY.

Or how about Pearl Harbor Directors cut,Unbreakable[Vista series]Harry Potter series,or the Lord of The Ring trilogy?
any word on the LD?

 

[Rachael B]

Reference quality LD playback competes with DVD, even anamorphic DVD. I'll define reference LD playback as the HLD-X9, LD-S9, HLD-X0, and the Nipponese Sony Muse players. There are no U.S. models that compete with the S9 much less the Muse monsters. The disadvantage of REAL refernce quality LD players is they are expensive.

That being said, there are a few 2.35 to 1 LD's that compete with DVD in my collection. PHANTOM MENACE is the head of the class in that department, for sure. The LD has less edge haloing and looks better to me. PM is a bit of a fluke though. When it comes down to "real" movies shot with no CGI DVD does much better....

I was going to elaborate more but I just got an offer to go water skiing. I'm out of here!

 

[Stephen Pate]

LD is like phono records. Everyone will discard the format for awhile except a few diehards, myself included. Then one day it will be cool to own them and play them.

I still have my 50's/60's/70's LP collection and recently bought a NEW double album Bob Dylan record. It is not easy buying parts for the turntable but the internet works.

I bought my first LD in 1989 and have over 300, with a lot of rare opera and concerts. Thanks to the great posts on HTF I was able to select a replacement LD player two weeks ago on eBay.

When I pass on they will be looking at the LD's and wondering: who wants this stuff?

To complete the picture, I was an early adopter of DVD's and own more than 200.

It's just another software format that will be replaced in time by something newer and better. In the meantime I enjoy all the formats and don't spend too much time worrying about which is best.

PS - do you know that there are 3321 LD's offered for sale today on eBay?

 

[Christ Reynolds]

Reference quality LD playback competes with DVD, even anamorphic DVD

but i dont have to drop a couple grand on a player to achieve that. i can spend a couple hundred bucks on a dvd player and get results as good, with tons of cash left over for the rest of my home theater. i only wish i could afford those laserdisc players. an hld-x9 would cost as much as my first 3 cars combined. talk about reference quality pieces of shit. anyway, i love laserdisc, and i admit i am a 'johnny come lately' in the ld dept, but i didnt buy a player to compete with dvd. i love all those criterion ld's we will never see in a dvd, i love the star wars trilogies, and i love my godfather trilogy, the chronological saga. and basically, laserdisc is just cool. but i like dvd just as much. if i had to choose, i'd choose dvd, but only because of the prices, and dvds are still being manufactured. huzzah!

CJ

 

[Will Gatlin Jr]

Nothing like the best of both (LD/DVD) worlds.

 

[Brian-W]

A true anamorphic DVD is hard to beat.
But a high end player that Rachael outlined (Pioneer and Sony MUSE players) coupled with a line doubler or scaler that will 'anamorphically enhance' a non-anamorphic LD (like the iScan Pro V2) produces AMAZING results.
Try it, a great and economical way to enhance an existing LD collection (or a top notch title like Star Wars)

 

[Will Gatlin Jr]

Brian...

Tell it like it is!!

 

[Brian-W]

Keep in mind a remastered anamorphic DVD can't be beat.

But when talking about a high-end LD player + damn good scaler + top quality LD = negligible differences. For those with massive LD collections who don't want to replace with DVDs, this might be the way to go.

 

[Mattias_ka]

Keep in mind a remastered anamorphic DVD can't be beat.

But when talking about a high-end LD player + damn good scaler + top quality LD = negligible differences. For those with massive LD collections who don't want to replace with DVDs, this might be the way to go.

Your right there!
DVD IS the better format, but ONLY if it's done right!
And many times it's NOT done right.

And I agree, better to get a HLD-X9 used for 1500$ and keep most of the LD's than sell a big collection like 700-1000 LD's with a big lose. And I have gotten about 500 LD's the last year after I got the HLD-X9, because I can get most LD's for like 5-6-7$, and they look superb (most) and have in my ears almost everytime better sound (PCM) and i save around 10-15 $ on every titles that I buy on LD than DVD.
On the may be 300 LD's I have that ARE out on DVD, it is some money saved, a lot more than what the player cost me.

And a lover of old, strange movies, many in 1.37:1 or 1.66:1, B&W, not on DVD, mono/stereo (PCM), the LD is the winner!

-Mattias-

 

[Lewis Besze]

but i dont have to drop a couple grand on a player to achieve that. i can spend a couple hundred bucks on a dvd player and get results as good, with tons of cash left over for the rest of my home theater.

Exactly!
This is my main gripe with the format,when you have to spend enormous amount of money on the hardware to overcome of the limitations of the software,then you know[should]that you investing in a format that's inherently flawed.
While DVD isn't perfect,it is far superior[picture]now to LD and it will only get better,once we get HD DVD.

 

[Shane Martin]

Lewis,
The only problem with that analogy is when the format doesn't have as much or any of the titles you want such is the life of LD which still has many titles than may not see the light of day on DVD or if they do, who knows how they are going to be presented.

This is the primary reason why I have laserdisc now. Being a movie collector and someone who is concerned with out they look I want them to look as good as they can so I'm going to put some $$ into that. People who want DVD to look great are going to spend roughly the same amt of money to do the same.

 

[Mattias_ka]

Lewis Besze look what I wrote before! I have been MUCH cheaper for me to get the HLD-X9 new for 2600$ than
if I had to buy the same movies on DVD.
And HD-DVD is NOT DVD. And do you think any remotely odd titles will come on HD-DVD? I don't think so

 

[Tony Kwong]

I like DVD! I like DVD a lot! But I currently see no reason except for releases unavailable on DVD, that someone should invest in the LD format. The only reason crazy whacks like us spend the money on a dead format and so called reference players is that we already have a sizable investment (movies) in this 1970's technology. Because of that a reference player is not a big deal.

I slim down my LD collection to about 600 titles. About 250 of them don't have any colour, most of them are mono and a lot of them are silent films. The other half of the 600 are foreign films. The rest mainstream Hollywood stuff. Most people who have seen my collection of movies and music don't want to borrow anything because they haven't heard of any of it and they HATE reading subtitles. Nor are they able to play LD and DVD in different regions and in different video encodings...

 

[Chris PC]

Too bad they didn't beef up the DVD format before squashing LD. They should have made the audio and video more dense on the DVD format. As it is, its ok, but I think I can tell when a disc is LD and when its DVD. LD's do seem alot better sounding. Bummer.