How do Laserdiscs look on your HDTV sets? (1 Viewer)

[Dick Boneske]

Oh yeah... that must be it. :rolleyes

Maybe that is IT! Various audiophiles spend tens of thousands on better turntables, bigger tube amps, and vacuum tube CD players. It's hard to believe they actually think old technology performs better than new.
I'm an avid muscle car enthusiast with two '64 GTO's which I love. The nostalgia while driving one of them is amazing, especially in spring when they've just come out of storage. Then, I drive my '04 GTO and get a jolt of what technology has done. Awesome handling, 25 mpg, tire-smoking power, decent sound system, and comfortable seats leave the '60's cars in the dust.
Sometimes, we do get into the "rose-colored glasses" mode, but reality should set in at some point.

 

[Shane Martin]

LD audio was great, as is DVD. I tend to give LD audio the overall thumbs up over DVD, but I don't think it blows DVD away. I've heard lasers that indeed did blow away their DVD counterpart, such as Saving Private Ryan, Star Wars Episode I, and Independence Day, but don't agree with the notion that LD always blows away DVD.

I would agree with this assessment. IT doesnt' always blow away dvd but I've heard more than my fair share of LD's that sound better and I still believe it has to do with the mix employed on DVD being tuned "weaker". It's not about volume either.
Comparing 2.0 DVD to PCM isn't really fair though. PCM on LD crushes it. OTOH, if you compared DD to DD then we have something to discuss. Heat is another example of where the LD just crushes the DVD even the latest SE.

 

[BrandonH]

It does I'm sorry. Do we really want to get into this tired old debate though? Recently I heard a inexpensive vinyl setup thru a fairly high end rig and nothing I've heard from a CD produced the sound that did and I mean quality wise. No pops or clicks either. Alot of people make these comments w/o having heard the 2 side by side on a high end system.

Amen to that brother!
I havent bought a CD in years only vinyl.
long live analog

 

[Philip Hamm]

Alot of people make these comments w/o having heard the 2 side by side on a high end system.

And a good many people make these comments with having heard the 2 side by side on a high end system as well.

 

[Mattias_ka]

Perhaps it is as you suggested and more prominent in high end equipment. More of a difference than effect.

Gary, have you done your test A/B and with levelling the audio?
Because in most cases, the LD will have a higher output and this WILL make one think it's sounds better. That why one have to listen to it calibrated to the same level.

 

[WesleyS]

LD looks good on my 26' widescreen lcd, but its notwithout its flaws. the picture is still good, despite it being encoded analog,and better then vhs, but not sharper then dvd,because its not dvd. if laserdisc was digital video,it would probably surpass dvd.

I was not old enough to enjoy laserdisc in the day, i'm in my mid twenties, and i'm an avid film buff,and enjoy collecting laserdiscs that has not made its way to the new format or will not make its way to hd-dvd/blu-ray. I have a small LD collection of under 50 titles. to the world, ld may be dead, but to this film fantaic its still very much alive with todays technolgy breakthrough,despite you have to flip the disc over and/ or change discs to finish a whole film presentation.

 

[Gary Seven]

Gary, have you done your test A/B and with levelling the audio?
Because in most cases, the LD will have a higher output and this WILL make one think it's sounds better. That why one have to listen to it calibrated to the same level.

I can say that no, I did not calibrate each output to equal output sound levels. I put the source on each, had it at the same location and flicked back and forth between source and compared that way. Therefore, you may have a point there.
Interesting to note that when I went to Superman Returns, they did the Dolby Digital intro. It was identical to the intro I have on many of my LD's. This is the one where it thumps around while going through some sort of Indian or Egyption relic/construct and the sound goes all over front and behind. I have never seen that on the DVDs.

 

[Tony Kwong]

Interesting to note that when I went to Superman Returns, they did the Dolby Digital intro. It was identical to the intro I have on many of my LD's. This is the one where it thumps around while going through some sort of Indian or Egyption relic/construct and the sound goes all over front and behind. I have never seen that on the DVDs.

I have a number of DVD with this, so they are not that uncommon. specially with older DVDs or non region1 disc.

 

[Blu-21]

I have a 32" HD TV and a CLD-D925 Laserdisc player. I find that the quality is pretty decent, of course not close to DVD, but it looks pretty good to me for such old technology. Goldeneye and The Phantom Menace are the best in terms of picture quality in my extremely small LD collection. Some selected well lit out door scenes could trick the average viewer into thinking it was a DVD too!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I now watch laserdiscs, VHS, Beta and CED on my HDTV, upscaled to 1080p through my Pioneer receiver. They are still watchable, but obviously not as good as true HD material. I usually watch my letterboxed laserdiscs with the picture in the middle of the screen, as zooming it reveals too much video noise. If it's a movie I care about I'll re-buy it in a 16x9 format. (I have one squeezed LD, The Fugitive, meant to be played on Stretch mode.)

 

[Tasuke]

i run a 1988 JVC HR-S8000U S-VHS, 1988 PIONEER CLD-3030 LDP, and a 2001 PIONEER DV-37 DVDP straight into my 46" LCD, no up-scaling, no nothing, and i can tell you all with a certainty that they all look damned fine, the best i've seen any of them, in fact. are they anything like BRD? not a chance. does that matter? not at all. these old legacy formats are precisely what they are, and nothing more. go in with those expectations, and you will find them to still be perfectly enjoyable media in the 21st century. most A/V aficionados insist that HighDef WILL in fact spoil you for anything less. i call BS on all of that; you will be spoiled only if you want to. one can in fact appreciate both SD and HD on their own merits, even today. finally, there's still a goodly bit of material that can be found on all three of the legacy video formats that likely never will see an HD release. that alone is enough to keep playback gear around to enjoy then with, IMHO...

 

[Blu-21]

Well spoken Tasuke. It makes me feel good that somebody else can see what I see in that you adjust your expectations and Laserdisc can look perfectly fine on a modern display. Like I said before, I have a CLD-925 hooked up directly via composite to my 32" LCD and the quality is great for Laserdisc, even the older transfers are still perfectly watchable. No its not HD but its not meant to be, people expecting that would be disappointed by DVD much less Laserdisc.

 

[Tina_H_V]

That's what I say. I have my laserdisc player connected directly to my 1080p HDTV via composite video, so I can ascertain closed captioning where applicable. I like the way it looks as is...especially once firmware updates come to pass which enable me to get seemingly better use of my SD-to-HD upconverters on the HDTV itself.