My Star Wars laser disc definitive trilogy arrived today!!! (1 Viewer)

[Mattias_ka]

"WHAT WAS THE LAST AND THE "BEST" LD PLAYER MADE AND THE RUNNER UPS???"

Well, the list is like this:

1. Pioneer HLD-X0, the one and only reference player!

2. Pioneer HLD-X9, close to X0 in quality.

3. Pioneer LD-S9

4. Pioneer CLD-97 (Kurtis tweaked)

5. Pioneer CLD-99/Theta/Runco.

I would say, if one have the money, the X0/X9 is the only choose today.

/Mattias

 

[Lopez]

I would say, if one have the money, the X0/X9 is the only choose today

And a like new X9 is what, about $5000 US last time I checked. I've seen them trade hands on eBay for around $3500 but not less than that.
With the eventual (and now not so far off) coming of HD-DVD in whatever form it takes is it really worth it?

 

[Rolando]

Do any of these go for under $1000?

PS Craig and Rob I sent you guys a pm

 

[Mattias_ka]

With the eventual (and now not so far off) coming of HD-DVD in whatever form it takes is it really worth it?

There still 100's and 100's, maybe a few 1000's of movies on LD that are not on DVD yet. If you think HD-DVD will release ALL movies within a few years you are wrong.

LD will live on for:

*movies not on DVD

*movies cut/wrong OAR/wrong OST/etc on DVD

*movies with better picture and/or audio over the DVD.

 

[Sam Favate]

Aside from the changes made to the Star Wars films on DVD, how would you say the films compare on LD and DVD?

I never owned a laser disc player, but people whose opinions I trust have said that they think DVD surpasses LD in terms of visual and audio quality. I'm curious what Star Wars fans think of the comparison now that the movies are out on DVD (and yes, I know they're not "the" movies -- again, excepting the changes...)

 

[TravisR]

I have the Star Wars OT boxset, the THX remasters, and the Special Edition boxset laserdiscs and, without a doubt, the DVDs are the best video presentation of Star Wars ever released.

The LDs are still very, very good but not as good as the DVD.

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Sam, the DVDs are definitely more visually detailed, not only because of the relative resolutions of the formats, but also because (speaking specifically of the THX Faces/Definitive LDs) a fair amount of filtering to remove dirt and grain was done. That said, I find the colour on especially Star Wars to be more attractive on the LDs. The DVDs look a bit oversaturated to my eyes, with a lot of colour creeping into things that should be grey. However, I've also heard the opposite complaint -- that the LDs look "colourless" in comparison to the DVDs.

The audio on Star Wars is limited in range. It is definitely a 1977 soundtrack. However, Empire and Jedi have truly spectacular PCM tracks that I think edge out the new DVDs.

 

[Chris Stainton]

I was doing an A B comparison last night and I felt the actors in the LD looked a little too red. But overall the quality is quite good for me. I would rather watch the less detailed original over the crystal clear new versions any day.

 

[Gary Seven]

I never owned a laser disc player, but people whose opinions I trust have said that they think DVD surpasses LD in terms of visual and audio quality.

I am finding more and that LD's generally sound BETTER than DVDs. As a matter of fact, I find many Dolby Digital LDs sound far superior to their DVD DTS counterparts. A couple of examples that come to mind are Die hard and Star Trek Generations. As far as PCM goes, LD once again gets the nod. I find my Looney Tunes Lds sound clearer and more dynamic than the newly released collector's sets. Superman II sounds far superior to it's DVD counterpart. There are several others I could list which is why I will not part with my LDs for years to come. Plus I have LDs that will never make it to DVD, like the Criterion CAV discs of the first three James Bond movies. The movies are shown in original British aspect ratio which provides a bit more vertical information as opposed to the cropped version on the DVDs. And the commentaries on those discs will never be heard again due to legal reasons.

As fasr as Star Wars goes, yes, PCM is far superior. The Special Edition DD 5.1 quality is easily on par with the newly released DVDs, if not better.

 

[Patrick H.]

Not to mention they're actually mixed properly. I got to hear those lasers on a decent setup in somebody's dorm room years ago...I think they were the first DD 5.1 soundtracks I'd ever heard on a home theater setup. MOST impressive!

 

[Kevin M]

Okay, since I'm using a DVL-700 and I know it's not the best and it was the first generation combi (DVD/LD) player...

For what it's worth the DVL-700 isn't a "bad" player (it's the one I own and I have no complaints), it's just not on par with the HLD-X0 CLD-99 and the like.

 

[Mike Wadkins]

The Special Edition DD 5.1 quality is easily on par with the newly released DVDs, if not better.

its way better no flip surrounds !

 

[greg_t]

I think the PCM from the Faces LD have the best overall sound quality. Has Patrick stated, the ld mixes are just better balanced and more natural sounding. And at least the LD's got the color on Vaders lightsaber right.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Sound is great on LD...PCM kicks DD's but almost any day.

Picture...well with my Elite CLD-99 4x3 1.33:1 LDs are "good" on the projector if well mastered...B&W titles look great.

But chroma noise really bugs me and blowing up WS material really shows short-comings.

I know that more exotic HD LD players do a better job with the video section...so if you really plan to project LD images you should consider such a player. Supposedly, LD can look close to/as good as non-anamorphic DVD on such machines.

 

[greg_t]

David,

It really depends on the player used as you stated and the quality of the transfer. I've got an HLD-X9 and a CLD-79, which is the same as your CLD-99 but has a lower quality comb filter. I hooked up both to my Pioneer Elite HDTV, which has the same comb filter as the X9. I have two copies of the Star Wars "Faces" laser and played one in each player and switched back and forth. There was no comparison as to how much better the X9 was. From the opening crawl it was easy to see. The X9 had better sharpness, detail, lower chroma noise, and much better color.

With that said though, it still depends on the transfer. The great lasers look close to DVD. For example, I don't think most people here would be able to tell the difference between the phantom menace LD and the anamaphoric DVD on my setup. But not so great lasers still won't match non-anamaphoric dvd even with the X9, but it will get the most out of them.

 

[JeremySt]

Too see the Lucas DVD compared to the Def LD.. look here.
http://www.originaltrilogy.com/forum...&threadid=1326

 

[Tony Kwong]

I've been spoiled by the high end LD players for a couple of years (X0 and X9). I watched recently on a CLD-704 I still had and it looked very blurry, colours bleed a bit more, I also notice artifacts and noise more often. The noise is still there on the HLD's but not as noticeable. Another thing I cannot explain completely is that on those HLD players everything in motion looks smoother, more fluid.

 

[Jay Mitchosky]

This reminds me of the last "Laserdisc Renaissance" a couple of years back. All of a sudden I had a pile of not-yet-on-DVD films and a raging DTS LD jones. It was huge excitement when I received Jurassic Park. The sound blew my mind. Likewise the first time I fired up Star Wars. And Indy. Searching for titles was a lot of fun. And getting the big laser box sets in the mail was always a treat.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Especially for 4x3 1.33:1 films that wouldn't benefit from 16x9 encoding...I could see getting an X9 LD player and building a library of (hopefully cheap at this point) older films on Laserdisc that are unavailable on DVD...or that have PCM laser sound that you just wouldn't want to trade for a DVD copy...
Running a good 16x9 DVD in 720P via DVI would still be a set-up hard to compete with for non-anamorphic WS LD material...no matter how well-mastered the laser may be. I'm building that assumption on the grounds of even good non-anamorphic DVDs looking sub-par compared to good 16x9 transfers...although as we all know there are excellent 4x3 WS DVD tranfers that look better "zoomed" than some shoddy 16x9 transfers...
anybody wanna sell me an X9 for cheap?
dave
p.s. the "zoom" for non-anamorphic WS material looks pretty crappy on the BenQ 8700...lots of aliasing and general noise (???). My DVD player has it's own zoom mode for non-anamorphic WS stuff which looks great (at least it doesn't *add* any artifacts) so I use that instead...but with WS laser I'd be stuck with the projectors inferior zoom which is another reason why I'd prefer to go LD for classic 1.33:1 material only...

 

[greg_t]

Running a good 16x9 DVD in 720P via DVI would still be a set-up hard to compete with for non-anamorphic WS LD material...no matter how well-mastered the laser may be.

Agreed. The phantom menace is the best laser I've seen that is non-anamaphoric letterbox. Alot of it though depends on the setup. My pioneer Elite has awesome zoom modes and a great line doubler, combine that with the X9, and I'm probably doing about as good as laser will get. I purchased an Iscan Ultra and feed S-video from the X9 to it and then DVI from the ultra to the Elite, and I prefer the deinterlacing on the Elite to the ultra. The ultra is actually back in the box and I let the Elite do the deinterlacing. The phantom menace laser wouldn't look as good with say a CLD-704 laser on a set with a mediocre deinterlacer and zoom modes.

I have yet to try an anamaphoric LD but I hear they can look very good. I'd also be curious to see some MUSE hi-def LD. Some of them are said to easily surpass DVD. Maybe when the price comes down on them...