What's new

laserdisc players.Anyone on here using them? (1 Viewer)

timbo72

Auditioning
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
Messages
4
Real Name
tim greshamh
Hey guys, Is there anyone using/interested in laserdisc players ??i have just purchased a pioneer cld-600 with some discs and wanted to ask any experts some questions. CheersTim
 

schan1269

HTF Expert
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
17,104
Location
Chicago-ish/NW Indiana
Real Name
Sam
Yep, plenty of us still have them. There are quite a few LD that are better than their DVD counterparts and some not yet on Blu.I thought there was a LD thread, maybe not. Go ahead.
 

David_B_K

Advanced Member
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2006
Messages
2,584
Location
Houston, TX
Real Name
David
schan1269 said:
Yep, plenty of us still have them. There are quite a few LD that are better than their DVD counterparts and some not yet on Blu.
Yep, I still have one connected in my system. Certain movies still have not been released on DVD or Blu, and in many cases, supplements were not carried over to their DVD/Blu counterpart.
 

Rob_Ray

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
2,140
Location
Southern California
Real Name
Rob Ray
I still have hundreds of laserdiscs. I can't part with the beautiful jacket art and exclusive supplements.on so many titles. I don't consider myself a hardware expert, but I do still have a number of players.
 

Richard Gallagher

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2001
Messages
4,275
Location
Fishkill, NY
Real Name
Rich Gallagher
I still have a two laserdisc players, a Pioneer Elite and a standard Pioneer. As the others have said, there are still a lot of films on LD which aren't on DVD or Blu-ray yet. For example, I have the Japanese LD of Song of the South. I have the Criterion CAV Bond laserdiscs with the "banned" commentaries. I also have the recalled LD of The Best of Roger Rabbit and many more. That said, I don't use the LD players much.

This is a good time to tell my Pee-Wee Herman story. Several years ago I met him at an autograph show in New Jersey. I had brought along the LD cover of Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special for him to sign. When he saw it, his face lit up. He told me that he has a huge collection of laserdiscs. Then he told me this:

"A few years ago I was moving, and I hired some neighborhood kids to pack for me. One of the kids was putting all of my laserdiscs into boxes and labeling the boxes. When he was finished I went to check on how he had done, and he had labeled all of the boxes GIANT CDS."
 

Rob_Ray

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
2,140
Location
Southern California
Real Name
Rob Ray
I met Patty Duke at an autograph show and brought my Patty Duke Show laserdisc for her to sign. This was long before her show arrived on DVD. She apparently had never seen a laserdisc and had no idea that selected episodes from her show had been released. She said she had partial ownership or some sort of financial stake in the show and was, for a split second, hesitant to sign it. But after we chatted awhile and I explained what it was, she graciously did and I treasure that disc to this day. The subsequent DVD season sets don't have all those wonderful old commercials.
 

Gary Seven

Grand Poo Pah
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Aug 15, 2003
Messages
2,161
Location
Lake Worth, Florida
Real Name
Gaston
Yes, two players and few hundred discs. I just watched one over the weekend and still use it fairly regularly.

I am selling about 100 LDs and will be putting an ad in Craig's list shortly in hopes of selling them locally.
 

David Norman

Premium
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2001
Messages
9,583
Location
Charlotte, NC
I have 3 or 4 players (CLD-99, 2 704s and the Mitsubishi equivalent of the 704) almost all of them serviced by Kurtis Bahr at one point and still have 500+ LD -- all those beautiful Disney Boxsets, African Queen, Ultimate OZ, Amadeus, all the Signature Collection, all the DTS discs, about half the Criterions, the original Star Wars sets, Song of the South of course, a few of the RKO and Hammer collection. Several of the ilk of Sorority Babes and the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama which have just absurdly great cover -- i miss LD and LP cover more than the media somedays.

I tossed about half my collection of mostly lower level basic discs and those that have been replaced by DVD or Bluray a year or two ago to regain the space
 

SilverWook

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
Messages
2,033
Real Name
Bill
Pruning down my Laserdisc collection is a lot harder than it looks. Those darn beautiful covers.

We have to keep our LD collections and players alive well past 2015 just to prove Back to the Future Part II's prediction wrong. ;)

400px-Back_to_the_Future-Laserdisc.jpg


Regular Show did an episode recently where an attempt to watch a rare LD runs afoul of the dark forces of VHS. I died laughing!

http://regularshow.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Laserdisc_Player
 

timbo72

Auditioning
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
Messages
4
Real Name
tim greshamh
thanks guys, its good to know laserdiscs are still alive and people still use this medium. My pioneer is playing up atm, so im just trying to see if it can be sortedSent from my GT-I9100 using HTF mobile app
 

hotrodguy

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
158
Location
L.A.
Real Name
Cliff
Yeah I got one hooked up in my HT, the Pioneer CLD-D604 (both side play with AC3RF and a Lexicon LDD-1AC3 RF decoder). The 5.1 on LD kicks ass. I love it even if I don't play it that much and I have about 150 LD's and another 60 or so I'm selling. I love the big discs and the artwork. Yes I also have vinyl. :D Kudos to the BTTF shot above timbo!
 

timbo72

Auditioning
Joined
Jul 30, 2013
Messages
4
Real Name
tim greshamh
is there any place in the UK that services/repairs LD players ??Sent from my GT-I9100 using HTF mobile app
 

Chris Brown

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Aug 14, 2002
Messages
179
Real Name
-
I have a Panasonic LX-1000 and an LX-600, both still work great.

I still watched my Laserdiscs pretty frequently when DVD was king. I felt that when processed through my HTPC using DScaler before going into my HDTV that the image was pretty darn close to DVD while the audio was clearly superior.

But the gap in image quality between Laserdisc (420i) and 1080P HD is just too big. We also now have higher-bitrate DD and DTS, diminishing the benefits of PCM audio.

So as much as I love laserdisc, it’s mostly a novelty for me now. There are a few films however which I am not able to obtain in HD, such as “The Abyss”. I used my laserdisc player just a few months ago to play that film.
 

Joel Fontenot

Screenwriter
Joined
Aug 9, 1999
Messages
1,078
Location
Baton Rouge, LA
Real Name
Joel Fontenot
Still have my Pioneer 704 that I play a disc in every once in a great while. I have a Sony 32" XBR LCD from 2006 (although only 720p native, at it's size, that's fine) that still looks great and the LD actually looks great on it even using standard composite (s-video made no difference). We later got a 40" Sony that wasn't an XBR (it was a W series), and even though it is 1080p, it has never has looked as good as the 32" XBR. Obviously, a very different panel (even though it's a year newer). LDs really looked bad on the 40".
 

Matt Hough

Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
26,131
Location
Charlotte, NC
Real Name
Matt Hough
Yes, I have two laserdisc players, both Pioneers. One is hooked to my system and the other is a backup when the other one eventually dies. I had hundreds of laserdiscs at one time, but I now only have maybe 60 or 70 that I have retained. Things like the SHOW BOAT three-pack box set and discs like the Criterion SINGIN' IN THE RAIN with a commentary that can't be found anywhere else. I don't watch them often, but until I can replace what they offer (unlikely), I guess I'll keep these players around.
 

Reed Grele

Supporter
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 30, 1997
Messages
2,187
Location
Beacon Falls, CT
Real Name
Reed Grele
Still have 4 or 5 working players. The Pioneer 704 is the higher end one, and a lowly Quasar (that I actually got free with some disc promo that one of the mail order places had years ago) is on the lower end.

The last time I watched a LD was about a year ago: "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", which still hasn't been released on DVD in R1.

Still have 100's of discs. Lot of box sets. Many of "not on DVD yet" (Alamo & IAMMMMW extended versions, Criterion Bonds, Golden Age of Looney Tunes Vol. 1 with "Bugs Nips the Nips", etc....)

Too good to throw away, but most aren't worth the space that they occupy. :(
 

Jesse Skeen

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 24, 1999
Messages
5,033
I've got a number of LD players, 2 RF demodulators, and at least 1000 discs at this point. Just picked up a collection of 300 discs for $60, many of them Criterions and other classics and art films. I love 'em all, from the early DiscoVision releases to the very last ones, won't ever get rid of them even if I get the same movie on a newer format!
 

mattCR

Reviewer
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2005
Messages
10,897
Location
Lee Summit, Missouri
Real Name
Matt
Still have a laserdisc, and several titles I treasure in CAV.

But everytime a laserdisc thread pops up, I'm reminded how much I miss boutiques like Ken Cranes...
 

Steve Tannehill

R.I.P - 4.28.2015
Senior HTF Member
Deceased Member
Joined
Jul 6, 1997
Messages
5,547
Location
DFW
Real Name
Steve Tannehill
True story, when I went to visit family in Orange County, CA in 2001, I saw on the map that Westminster was nearby. I recognized the city from all the packages I had received from Ken Crane's. So one day, instead of going to the beach, I made a pilgrimage to the store that had captured much of my discretionary income since the 90's.

They still had laserdiscs, but the majority of the shelf space was DVD.

I bought a couple of DTS CD's.

What ever happened to them? Didn't they turn into DVD Planet?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,710
Messages
5,121,096
Members
144,146
Latest member
SaladinNagasawa
Recent bookmarks
0
Top