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

[Moe Dickstein]

I remember the filmmaking club in my jr high, we had a video toaster and did all kinds of cool stuff.

 

[Charles Smith]

By 7th grade I was training the teachers.

Somehow, I don't doubt that!

 

[Cinescott]

My first LD Player was a bargain basement Pioneer around 1990 or so. It often sounded like a 747 when the tray moved in and out, but I recall being thrilled with it, even though my faith in the future of LD was weak (hence the cheapo player). I have little doubt that my expenditures on discs far outweighed the player, so in hindsight I should have spent more. However, at around $350, the Pioneer still represented almost all the money in the world to me.

I still recall the day I went to a high end store in Milwaukee to buy the Criterion CAV Close Encounters LD for a whopping $120! My wife thought I was nuts, but it remains to this day one of the most thrilling home video possessions I have ever had.

 

[Charles Smith]

My first was the Luxman D-408, offered by Rogersound Labs in L.A. for, I think, $500. Which must have been a great breakthrough deal then. I took the plunge, then went right over to Ken Crane's.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

My first was a Realistic model from Radio Shack, on sale for about $200 in 1995. Thankfully I didn't have too long to invest deeply in it before DVD came along.

 

[Mark Booth]

I would be surprised if most of the posters in this thread weren't their school's resident A/V geek!

Yep! I was one of the students that operated the school's camera and video recorder for sporting events.

Mark

 

[Mark Booth]

That "Television Toys" laserdisc (from Voyager, not Criterion) is fantastic for silencing a roomful of rowdy 50 - 60 year-olds.

Confused because I never said the Television Toys was from Criterion?! It was the Lucy Laserdisc that was from Criterion.

Mark

 

[davidmatychuk]

Confused because I never said the Television Toys was from Criterion?! It was the Lucy Laserdisc that was from Criterion.

Mark

That was like a "note to self": I was typing "Criterion" and I thought I should just check for some reason.

 

[bryan4999]

Yep! I was one of the students that operated the school's camera and video recorder for sporting events.

Mark

I did that, too. I remember one time I was taping the girls' softball team and another guy joined me. We were talking "like guys do" and said some naughty things and some unkind things about some of the girls, not meaning to be cruel, just joking. I mean it was high school, ya know. Suddenly I realized that the video camera was recording sound and I was mortified. This was VHS before hi-fi sound, so I took the tape home that night and dubbed "I Am Woman" and some other songs over the linear soundtrack before I gave it to the coach. Phew. To this day I am so glad that I thought of that in time. We sincerely meant no harm and I would have been devastated if they had heard that soundtrack.

 

[Torsten Kaiser]

I still to this day get a lot of openly admiring comments with regard to Laserdisc as a format and its properties (and sometime advantages exteding even to today) when people "study" my collection. It is ironic: Some years ago, most believed these to be (vinyl) records. Now, when the eye falls on coffee table books such as PLATOON, ONE FLEW OVER THE COOKOOS NEST or beautiful boxed set like AMADEUS, THE TIME TUNNEL V1/V2 or even the Japanese editions of THE X-FILES to name just a few the comments are almost entirely dominated by good memories. I remember paying some $900 for a STAR TREK TOS Box which was limited in Japan (Season 2 ?).

Anyway, there are a great number of films on LD, that have yet to "resurface" on DVD or even Blu-ray, especially the RKO classics and literally hundreds of others.
Technically speaking, I find that many also hold at the very least the better soundmix - I was very dissapointed when I compared the Blu-ray Discs of AMADEUS to the excellent LD Box with AC-3, or the BD of Jim Carrey's THE MASK with the Laserdisc with the specifically mixed for (theatrical) DTS track. The difference is HUGE. Needless to say, I still enjoy Laserdiscs - and fondly recall the moment I was shown STAR WARS - RETURN OF THE JEDI from teh Definitive Collection in 1993 on a (now considered tiny) 1.5 Meter screen on an LCD Projector. I still got both the "botched release" with the 7 seconds missing on EMPIRE and the corrected one.

 

[John Sparks]

I know quite a few of us bought the Japanese version of "Return of the Jedi" for $100 and didn't blink an eye. That is the only way to see the original theatrical version of the movie.

 

[johnmcmasters]

Lots of memories for me concerning LDs!

I remember I had just purchased a 32" Sony tube TV (which seemed huge back then, and it weighed a ton). I had a very good SVHS tape deck -- and tons of films on tape that I'd either purchased or duped from Broadcast/Cable TV. I used to go to Tower in NYC (both the Upper West Side Store and the Downtown Store) to look at LDs. I vowed I would not take the plunge into LDs until something caught my eye that I just HAD to own. For me, that was a Japanese import of "Legend" which used the Jerry Goldsmith score instead of Tangerine Dream – one my most desired Holy Grails. I remember seeing that disc in the import section on a Sunday afternoon, pulling it out with trembling hands, purchasing it -- and then calling a friend who owned a player to see if I could watch it on his system. I watched the film, and it gave me one of the most thrilling video experiences I could imagine -- even panned and scanned. The next day went to JR Audio -- way downtown by City Hall -- and purchased a Sony LD player along with some discs to keep "Legend" company.

I discovered Hong Kong films around the time I joined the LD bandwagon -- and for the next few years I kept a couple of import mail order businesses humming with steady orders. I think one business was called "Blue Laser" -- and they ended up getting to know me and my tastes so well that I would just order things that they recommended like "Chungking Express" which introduced me to Wong Kar-wai. They had a good selection of very rare LDS from Asia – and I acquired hard to find copies of films like “Peking Opera Blues”, “The Bride With White Hair”, and “A Chinese Ghost Story” – and all of the “Once Upon a Time in China” films – including a couple VCDs (remember VCDs!!!) of the Chinese TV series that used some of the same cast members as the films.

"Video Watchdog Magazine" also was covering a lot of Hong Kong Cinema in those days (with my shout-out personal thanks to John Charles and Tim Lucas for introducing me to these films) -- and I used to make lists of films that they would recommend and order the ones that my meager budget allowed. Toho in Japan began issuing amazing transfers of Godzilla films on LD -- and there were several NYC stores at which you could find them if you were willing to shell out big bucks. In those days an import of, say, "King Kong vs. Godzilla" could easily cost $100. I used work-bonuses and tax refunds to enlarge my collection -- I remember when one tax refund had cleared I went to a store that sold LDs in the Village (did Kim's Video have a store where you went down a staircase to enter the building?). They had a gorgeous box set of the CAV import of "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla" -- the one in the beautiful silver box. I blew the entire refund on that set -- which I still own. I splurged on 3 of the Godzilla CAV import box sets – I consider them among the “crown jewels” of my video collection.

I sold off close to a hundred LDs to make some money years ago – but kept most of the rest of my collection. I regret getting rid of “Song of the South” – but have no regrets about how much it sold for!

Thanks for this thread – I still have a working Pioneer LD player and may spin one of those Godzilla sets this evening!

 

[bryan4999]

I know quite a few of us bought the Japanese version of "Return of the Jedi" for $100 and didn't blink an eye. That is the only way to see the original theatrical version of the movie.

Is the version in the big black laserdisc box set, referred to as the Definitive Collection, the original theatrical, or had they altered things by then? Thanks!

 

[Torsten Kaiser]

I believe there is a misconception here. The Laserdisc John Sparks is referring to is most likely EPISODE 1, which, indeed, only exists in its best form of the original theatrical cut on Laserdisc as a Japanese Edition. It cost something like $90+ when it came out and was one of the hottest sellers back then. JEDI always was in its original version as far as length an cuts are concerned, merely the SFX and sound underwent changes, just as the other, previous two incarnations EP IV and V - primarily with the "SPECIAL EDITION" in 1997. The "DEFINITIVE COLLECTION" of 1993 contains the original footage of all features, however, parts of the sound were already remixed to improve on dynamic range and sound effects. By 1997 (with teh release of the "SPECIAL EDITION" that was altered again, and again with the DVD release, and yet again with the Blu-ray release.

 

[JoshZ]

Is the version in the big black laserdisc box set, referred to as the Definitive Collection, the original theatrical, or had they altered things by then? Thanks!

STW.jpg

To expand a little upon what Torsten said, the "Definitive Collection" box set contained the original theatrical cuts for all three movies. However, the sound mixes were souped up for Laserdisc. The movies had a history of alternate sound mixes. Even back to the theatrical releases, the 35mm and 70mm release prints had small changes such as certain sound effects or lines of background dialogue that only appeared in one version but not another.

The Definitive Collection discs were all CAV format, 30 minutes to a side. The movies were later reissued individually in CLV format (60 minutes per side) with no supplements. Early pressings of the Definitive set had a mastering error and were missing 7 seconds of footage from Empire Strikes Back. This was later corrected.

Sadly, the Definitive discs were prone to "laser rot." I was fortunate enough to buy mine from a retailer (Sight & Sound) that let me mix and match the discs from three separate copies until I got a clean set.

The box set had a lot of supplements. However, the audio commentaries were terrible. They were really just bits and pieces of interview sound bites that played over selected scenes, with complete silence for long stretches in between. A printed booklet was supposed to provide a guide to the time codes where the comments could be heard, but it was filled with errors. Fans on the alt.video.laserdisc USENET group had to compile a list of correct time codes that I printed off and store in the box.

The "Special Edition" versions of the movies (with CGI revisions and other crappy changes) were later released in a separate box set.

 

[JoshZ]

I still have the mighty HLD-X9 in my equipment rack. Sadly, it's not currently hooked up to anything and hasn't been used in a couple of years. I dread the prospect of firing it up only to find that the belts have worn out or it has some other mechanical defect. That thing is a beast that will be a real pain to box up and ship off for repair.

 

[bryan4999]

>...

The Definitive Collection discs were all CAV format, 30 minutes to a side. The movies were later reissued individually in CLV format (60 minutes per side) with no supplements. Early pressings of the Definitive set had a mastering error and were missing 7 seconds of footage from Empire Strikes Back. This was later corrected.

...<

Thanks so much for the info. Do you happen to know if there is a way to tell if an ESB disc is the one with the corrected 7 seconds? I bought mine the day they came out, so I probably have the disc missing the footage. Do you happen to know where the missing section occurs? (I was unaware of the problem until this discussion.)

I am also curious if the DVD release of the original versions has an identical sound mix to the laser definitive collection?

As for laser rot, I haven't played them in years, but I had recently been thinking that I would like to take a look at those again. I so vastly prefer the original versions to the CGI versions.

Thanks for the great info!

 

[Mike Frezon]

I still have the mighty HLD-X9 in my equipment rack. Sadly, it's not currently hooked up to anything and hasn't been used in a couple of years. I dread the prospect of firing it up only to find that the belts have worn out or it has some other mechanical defect. That thing is a beast that will be a real pain to box up and ship off for repair.

Josh: If you ever pull that fella off the bottom shelf, the rest of your gear may float up to the ceiling!!

 

[Charles Smith]

It's at the very beginning or the very end of a side. (I know, thanks for the help...)

Mine was acquired on eBay only 8 or 9 years ago, and I lucked out with a corrected one. It's such a beautiful set, but I hadn't heard of all of the problems associated with it other than those missing seconds. Maybe I'd better have a look.

Never cared enough to figure out the "commentary" thing. The little bits I did hear sure didn't sound very interesting.

 

[bryan4999]

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of info online regarding the flaws in the definitive set. Apparently, the missing seven seconds is at the beginning of the third side (disc 2 side 1) and excises footage of Leia welding. I guess I will fire up the old laserdisc machine tonight - hopefully it will still fire up - and check it out.