One of the first Home Video prints of West Side Story (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

I believe there was a more significant picture difference between
laserdisc and DVD than there is between DVD and Blu-ray.

Not to mention the ease of use factor, and pricing. Laserdisc was something that always fascinated me and that I always wanted (as a child of the 80s) but it was never gonna happen at the price point. (Let's be honest, it probably wasn't going to happen because what six year old asks for a brand new video playing device and actually gets it?) So I was so ready to jump in and get DVD when that started becoming affordable. It had the best that laserdisc had, like bonus features and audio commentaries, and chapter stops, along with some improvements (not having to flip the disc or multiple discs to watch a single movie, more consumer-friendly pricing).

I remember reading, around the time DVD was being introduced, from lots of laserdisc enthusiasts on why it would never catch on, and I remember wondering why some of the reactions were so extremely against DVD. I can totally understand why LD enthusiasts would reject Divx, but the initial DVD rejection kinda had me scratching my head. Was it on principle of "We already bought all these movies once already!" or was there some initial technical issues at the rollout of DVD that I'm not remembering?

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I believe there was a more significant picture difference between
laserdisc and DVD than there is between DVD and Blu-ray.

If you had said VHS, ok, but like this, definitely no (when using a >= 1080p projector).

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

I bet this old LD gets the color transition right during the overture.

 

[lukejosephchung]

Ron, you're forgetting that MOST viewers in 1997 had only 27"-36" CRT screens in their living rooms that were built like Sherman tanks in their living rooms to watch...flat-screen HDTV was still YEARS away from being affordable reality in most retail stores, so HDTV was still a pipe dream for 90+% of the potential market...NOW, having a 40+inch screen is commonplace, but most non-discriminating viewers are content to watch blurry(by comparison)DVDs instead of upgrading to true HD for their disc playback setups because they either don't see or don't care about the quality upgrade!!!

 

[Mike Frezon]

I bet this this old LD gets the color transition right during the overture.

Yeah. I stayed to the end hoping that the entire opening of the film would be included in the YT clip for that very reason...

 

[ahollis]

I still love the whirrrrrr of the laser disc player starting up.

 

[John Sparks]

John,

We were all hoping, at the time, that DVD would never take off.

However, I will never forget the day I went into New York City to walk
around Tower Records on 4th street just to get a glimpse of the new
DVD format.

I went into the store thinking that I would never buy into it. After all,
I spent weeks posting on our Prodigy forum in late 1996/early 1997
talking about how much I hoped the DVD format would fail.

...but when I walked into the video department of Tower Records and
saw the DVD of the 1989 Batman film playing on several displays, I knew
it was "game over" for laserdiscs.

I went home and ordered my first DVD player. It was amazing to watch
shortly thereafter how many other Internet forum members were switching
over to the new technology themselves.

The big player at the time was the Sony. The first release had switches
inside them that you could change the region coding. Those initial models,
I believe, were initially pulled once word got out about those switches. At
the time, it was a very big deal for the studios to have strict region coding
standards.

I believe there was a more significant picture difference between
laserdisc and DVD than there is between DVD and Blu-ray.

Ron,

My first player was a Pioneer (with a free copy of Terminator) and my next one was a combo. I remember going to Lazer Blazer in west L.A. and found out they sold used LDs in great condition and I was in 7th heaven...no more full price! The added bonus was sometimes seeing movie stars browsing around looking for deals too!

I think we wanted it to fail was because we did spend a lot of money ($39 for a CLV) for our collections and now we had to do it all over again. I had an analog 55" Mitsubishi to watch my LDs on, so I was happy I could see them on a large screen.

Looking back, I think that there was a more of a difference from VHS to LD. I remember my wife bought me a pan and scan of Forbidden Planet for $75 for my birthday (that's why you didn't lose them after renting them) and when I finally got my LD of it, wow, the difference was huge.

It was a fun time collecting LDs and now is a fun time too, just the picture is getting better all the time.

But, I'll say one thing, I can't and won't upgrade my BDs anytime soon. Life's too short to start again!

 

[classicmovieguy]

So I was so ready to jump in and get DVD when that started becoming affordable. It had the best that laserdisc had, like bonus features and audio commentaries, and chapter stops, along with some improvements (not having to flip the disc or multiple discs to watch a single movie, more consumer-friendly pricing).

Don't forget that quite a few early DVDs were of the 'flipper' variety... my first copy of "Pretty Woman" on DVD had to be turned over halfway through.

 

[John Sparks]

Don't forget that quite a few early DVDs were of the 'flipper' variety... my first copy of "Pretty Woman" on DVD had to be turned over halfway through.

Remember, the last LD players you didn't have to flip the LD and you could freeze frame CLVs, just not at the frame you wanted. "The Rescuers" LD had 2 frames with the topless woman, in CLV, sometimes it was one frame and other times both frames.

 

[davidmatychuk]

Blu-Rays just don't attract visitors the way that laserdiscs used to, though at my place, they still sometimes do - laserdiscs are newly old enough that people sort of remember them, they're easy to explain to people ("CD's were based on laserdisc technology!"), and there's probably something of interest to anybody in what's left of my laserdisc collection. You like David Bowie? Have you seen "Just A Gigolo"? Have you seen Mickey Rourke's boxing movie with Christopher Walken? No, not wrestling, boxing, and it's called "Homeboy". Want to see Harrison Ford's scenes from "E.T."? Only on laserdisc! Come on over! Hell, yes, there's popcorn!

 

[ROclockCK]

I still love the whirrrrrr of the laser disc player starting up.

What I remember most vividly were the rainbow-coloured pools of light on the ceiling whenever the tray was open with a disc in*.

* Uhm...had a lot of track lighting and halogen spots in those days.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Was it on principle of "We already bought all these movies once already!"

I agree with John Sparks and you on this.
At the time, we were against DVD because we knew it meant our collections
were about to become obsolete and we would have to repurchase titles all
over again.
Little did we know that this would be a recurring theme for almost the next
two decades as DVD became replaced with Blu-ray.

 

[Mark Booth]

What I miss the most about Laserdiscs (compared to Blu-rays today) is once the disc got up to speed, the darn movie started WITHOUT having to wait for stupid "trailers from the internet" to load or for the copy protection technology to do its thing, etc. The movie was viewable much more quickly.

That's one of the reasons I was personally hoping that HD DVD would become the dominate HD format. My HD DVDs still load faster than most Blu-rays.

Admittedly, many of the catalog titles from Warner Brox. (El Dorado, Gunfight at O.K. Corral) have simple menus, no trailers, and load much more quickly than most Blu-rays. I wish ALL of them were like that. If I paid for the stinking movie, then let me watch THE MOVIE. Put all of the other stuff in the bonus material menu and let ME choose when I want to watch it!

It's enough to drive a guy to rip every Blu-ray to a hard drive and play it back that way.

Mark

 

[Mark-P]

I've been a colloctor now through four different formats - VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray - and I would have to say that the difference between LD and DVD was probably the smallest. The biggest jump in quality I noticed was from VHS to LD, and second would be from DVD to BD. However if you compare all those formats on a modern HD display, then yes the 2 analog formats look way worse than the 2 digital formats.

 

[ROclockCK]

In the early going with DVD though, I recall a lot of digital artefacts - pixilation mainly - I mean, has anyone taken a look at their vintage snapper of Outland lately? Pretty gnarly stuff.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

In the early going with DVD though, I recall a lot of digital artefacts - pixilation mainly - I mean, has anyone taken a look at their vintage snapper of Outland lately? Pretty gnarly stuff.

Yup.

Also, the studios were not cleaning up the prints.

They slapped anything they had on DVD and called it a day.

It took awhile not only to get the studios to put films in their proper aspect ratio
(they were up against Walmart at the time), but to also do the needed digital
cleanup in order to make these films look the best they could.

....and then there were those Warner snap keepcases.

 

[ROclockCK]

Like this?

 

[Doug Bull]

I've run these photos before, but this might be a good time for a repeat.

I travelled halfway around the World for this momentous occasion.
"Laserdisc Heaven - California style"

(Click on these 2 shop photos for a larger image)

and on returning home = excess bagage fees.

Doug.

 

[John Sparks]

Doug,

Great pics and wonderful memories!!! Thanks so much for posting those.

I think the worst movie that I have upgraded to BD from SD was Demolition Man. I hadn't watched it in my HT, but when it came out on BD awhile back, I bought it.

I can't believe the companies put this SD out for us to buy and we bought it thinking that it looked okay...we must have been blind!

The BD looked like they filmed the movie yesterday and the SD looked worse than a VHS tape. But what's funny today is we're still fighting the companies to give us the best they can and they still won't. Things never change, I guess.

 

[Rob_Ray]

At the time, we were against DVD because we knew it meant our collections
were about to become obsolete and we would have to repurchase titles all
over again.

Little did we know that this would be a recurring theme for almost the next
two decades as DVD became replaced with Blu-ray.

I wasn't against having to repurchase titles (you don't *have* to repurchase anything if you're satisfied with your collection as is), but tI was afraid that a new format would mean that I would have to wait for all the old warhorses to be re-released yet again before I would see any never-before-released titles. Turns out that wasn't really the case. And now, with the Warner Archive, it certainly isn't true.