Old School: LASERDISC - going back and re-building but need help (1 Viewer)

[LD-Crazer]

Reviving the old. Looking to get back in to the LD's, so if you have any you no longer want let me know. I'm jealous of the collection Jesse Skeen has with over a 1000. I bought 'em in the craze time when they first came out. Jumped right on that bandwagon. Boy they were really expensive then. Anyway, I digress.


Have 2 really old LD players.


Looking to buy a new LD player. Thinking and wishing for a CLD-79 or better (If that's possible).

But it requires AC-3 demodulation, etc. So, started looking at/for that. Found on ebay (cause I don't know where else to look) several but know nothing about what I'm stepping in to:

Marantz DP870 ($25-100)

Marantz AV Pre-Amp AV550 ($80)

B&K Components DT-1 ($125)

Yamaha DDP-1 ($45)


Currently I have for my head unit the Pioneer Elite SC-72, 9.2 Receiver but wish I had waited for the SC-95. So I may have it soon if I can off load the 72.


So, I don't know what I need or want. I'm kinda starting from scratch with building a new Media Room from an old bedroom the kid moved out of.

Have a 75" 4K TV, receiver and that's about it.


Help!!

 

[davidmatychuk]

I've used my DDP-1 for almost 20 years, and it's excellent. That price is excellent, too.

 

[Phil A]

I still have two players (CLD-79 and a 704) and some spare parts (e.g. spindle motor) but have not watched a LD in about 5 years, although I still have about 20 or so I got at an estate sale years ago that I have not watched. I have two RF demodulators (Yamaha and Lexicon). One of these days I should play them. I keep saying I will. Years back (many), I did compare LD players on my 100 inch screen (Kurtis Bahr brought over a few players when I lived in Northern, VA included the Japanese imported expensive Pioneer). I might consider selling one since I have not used them. If I had lots of discs (only have about 130), I'd consider one of Kurtis' tweaked CLD-97s (with AC-3 input). I just couldn't justify the cost above the CLD-79 or the 704 with the small collection I have (although it does have some gems).

 

[Gary Seven]

I use the B&K for demodulation.


I have MANY LDs I would like to unload. If interested, PM me and I can compile a list.

 

[bigshot]

I have laserdiscs I'd like to get to a good home, but you have to be in Los Angeles and willing to pick them up.

 

[Phil A]

As noted I have 2 players (CLD-79 and 704), two RF demodulators (including the Lexicon LDD-1 and Yamaha) and about 140 discs (including the original Star Wars faces) give or take. But shipping is not an option. I have not used them in at least 5 years. I personally moved the audio equipment from Northern VA to Florida a couple of years back as players can be damaged in shipping (the guy who sold me my CLD-79 on sleezE-Bay many years did a dreadful job and left me in the cold and Kurtis Barr fixed it and I got my 704 from him - also have some extra parts for those like spindle motors). Below is a list of discs.

10
Absolute Power
Airport 1975
Alien Nation
All the Presidents Men
The Andromeda Strain
Apollo 13
The Arrival
Back to the Future
Backbeat
Beverly Hills Cop
Beverly Hills Cop II
Beverly Hills Cop III
The Boys from Brazil
The Cable Guy
Cape Fear
Car 54 Where Re You
Casino
Coneheads
Crocodile Dundee
The Crow: CIty of Angels
Dangerous Minds
Darkman II: The Return of Durant
Daylight
Dead Men Walking
Death Wish
Dementia 13
Devil’s Advocate
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Die Hard with a Vengeance
The Dirty Dozen
Disclosure
The Dream Team
Driving Miss Daisy
The Elephant Man
The Empire Strikes Back
Enemy Mine
The Enforcer
European Vacation
The Exorcist III
Extreme Measures
The Fan
Far and Away
Fear of a Black Hat
A Few Good Men
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
Final Analysis
Fire In the Sky
Firestorm
The Firm
First Knight
Fletch
Forest Gump
The Game
Get Shorty
Godzilla
The Great Escape
Great Expectations
Greystoke The Legend of Tarzan
Groundhog Day
Grumpier Old Men
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Hard Target
Hoffa
Home Alone 2 Lost in New York
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Iron Eagle
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Jewell of the Nile
Jingle All the Way
Jungle Fever
Jurassic Park
Just Cause
King Ralph
Kramer vs. Kramer
Last Action Hero
Life
Lillies of the Field
Look Who’s Talking
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
The Magnificent Sever
The Manchurian Candidate
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mash
The Mask
Maverick
Michael
The Miracle Worker
Miracle on 34th Street
Moon Over Parador
The Mosquito Coast
North by Northwest
Old Yeller
On the Waterfront
On Flew Over the Cuckoos’s Nest
Other Voices/Other Rooms
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Pale Rider
The Phantom Menace
Phenomenon
The Preacher’s Wife
Presumed Innocent
The Princess Bride
Private Benjamin
The Quiet Man
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Return of the Jedi
The Right Stuff
Rob Roy
Robocop 3
Rosewood
The Russia House
Schindler’s List
Sea of Love
Shine
Singing in the Rain
Sister Act
Sleepers
The Spitfire Grill
Star Wars
Stargate
Street Fighter
The Super
Supercop
Superman The Movie
Superman IV The Quest for Peace
Tequila Sunrise
Thunderball
“To Kill a Mockingbird”
Toy Story
Unforgiven
Vertigo
The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
A Video Standard
Volcano
Wall Street
Watermelon Man
White Palace
Witness

 

[jcroy]

(As an tangential aside).


What would be amusing is in the year 2030, there will be posts with titles like:


"Old School: BLU-RAY - going back and re-building but need help ..."


or


"Old School: DVD - going back and re-building but need help ..."

 

[jcroy]

With that being said, at one point back in the late-1990's, I was tempted to go on a huge binge of buying up laserdiscs from individuals (I knew locally offline) who were unloading their laserdisc collections (ie. they were moving on to dvd).


Though what abruptly changed my mind at the time, was that one of the first dvds I purchased turned out to be defective. My first dvd copy of Terminator 2 was defective, where it froze within 20 minutes or so into the movie. This very much abruptly ended any possible dvd "hobby" I could have had in those days (ie. the entire 2000's decade).


Prior to that time, I bought into the idea that optical discs were defect-free and could last a lifetime. My large music cd collection and the few laserdiscs I had in those days (along with the ones I rented), didn't have any playback problems.



At the time I didn't know of any easy way of checking whether a dvd had random bad sectors due to manufacturing defects. (This was in the days before the dvd encryption system was cracked, and computer dvd-rom drives were still priced in the hundreds of $$$$).


For that matter, I didn't know of any easy way of checking laserdiscs for manufacturing defects. (This was the primary reason why I never purchased my friends' old laserdisc collections they were unloading back in the late-1990s).


By the time dvd-rom drives were inexpensive in the early-mid 2000s, I had largely lost any and all interest in dvds. (Until 2011, when I started collecting dvds).

 

[davidmatychuk]

My laserdisc collection was up to about 800 titles at its late-Nineties peak, and I personally watched every frame and heard every sound on every disc, box sets and all. It was mostly to make sure they weren't defective, but when you spent $200 on new laserdiscs back in the day you'd come home with maybe one box set and two more movie-only discs. The economics of laserdisc buying just plain gave you more time to check them out. If I went on a Blu-Ray buying spree today (and I probably will), it would probably take me two months to plow through everything on $200 worth of Blu-Rays, and who has that kind of time? I have DVD's and Blu-Rays on my shelf right now that I haven't played at all. Anyhow, I still regularly spin laserdiscs from the 150 or so still in my collection (all of them not replaced by any 5" disc) and they remain as non-defective as ever, and as wonderful a memento of younger days.

 

[jcroy]

My laserdisc collection was up to about 800 titles at its late-Nineties peak, and I personally watched every frame and heard every sound on every disc, box sets and all. It was mostly to make sure they weren't defective, but when you spent $200 on new laserdiscs back in the day you'd come home with maybe one box set and two more movie-only discs.

For sure. Back in the day, I only had a small collection of laserdiscs.


- Terminator 2 (widescreen)

- Blade Runner (criterion collection)

- Wayne's World

- cyberpunk (documentary)

- etc ... a few others I don't remember offhand


I must have watched through each title over a dozen times when I first purchased them.

 

[LD-Crazer]

david,


agree with you there. we got into LD's at the beginning because my daughter at the time had wore out her vcr tapes of the disney classics and the LD offered the perfect solution. we found buying them a little difficult because of the huge expense. so we kept our collection down because we were a young family just starting out. and of course when DVDs replaced LD's of course it made perfect since to transition to that media as it was considerably cheaper a media and our Pioneer single side player was a stretch to get up each time to flip.

but the love was always there for them, hence my reason now for wanting to add to my media room and preserve the LDs for my (new) grandchildren and daughter who to this day still watches the LD's more than any of us here on the board. lol.

 

[jcroy]

david,


agree with you there. we got into LD's at the beginning because my daughter at the time had wore out her vcr tapes of the disney classics and the LD offered the perfect solution. we found buying them a little difficult because of the huge expense. so we kept our collection down because we were a young family just starting out. and of course when DVDs replaced LD's of course it made perfect since to transition to that media as it was considerably cheaper a media and our Pioneer single side player was a stretch to get up each time to flip.

Similar sentiments here too.


Back in the day, I must have wore out several prerecorded (and taped broadcast) videotapes from watching the same few movies obsessively over and over again. (For example, I use to obsessively watch the Cheech and Chong movies over and over again, that I probably had viewed them several hundred times a piece).


By the time I bought a laserdisc player, I ended up only buying the few ld movies which I thought I would watch obsessively over and over again.