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any laserdisc titles still worth owning? (1 Viewer)

Joel Fontenot

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My gatefold CAV copy sure did. But only one of the sides. I forget which side, but it's the side that has the scene where all the UFOs come down and buzz the box canyon before the mothership comes in. It gets really bad during that particular scene with little white crawling specks all over the place. Some almost stretch halfway across the screen.
 

Lyle_JP

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White specks? Line across the screen? Was it in the middle of the side (not at the very beginning or end)? If so, then that's not rot, my friend. That is dropouts (i.e. pressing defects). And there was a brief period of time (around 1993 or 1994) that discs from Pioneer USA had unusually high amounts of dropouts. I heard it was due to air-handling problems. The Halloween CAV disc pressed there exhibited the same problem (I had to go through three copies to get a good one), and The Firm as well had many dropouts on the first pressings.

I don't remember when the gatefold version of CE3K CAV came out, but if it was around '93 or '94 then what you describe does not surprise me. But it doesn't sound like rot. Rot is colorful, snowy, always at the beginning or end of a side, and gets progressively worse. Dropouts are white, and appear as stationary lines or dots that may expand and contract on CAV, or as scrolling white dots on CLV. They are there from day one and do not ever get better or worse. For the record, I have the older CAV box that I bought in 1991. It has not rot or dropouts.

However, my Dr. No CAV disc (pressed by Pioneer USA) did rot badly on side 2. You could even hear crackiling in the analog audio tracks. So no, the Pioneer USA plant was not perfect, just better than some. The ones to avoid are discs pressed at Sony DADC USA (especially in its final years), 3M, and discs pressed in 1992 and 1993 from Mitsubishi Japan (after that they cleaned up their act). The only pressing plant from which I have never ever seen a rotted disc is Kuraray. Actually, that's not true. I've also never seen one from Technidisc, but their discs always looked so bad, who could tell if it was rotting or not?

-Lyle J.P.
 

Joel Fontenot

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Then what I have are dropouts. But it does occur throughout the side from begining to end - it's just worse during that scene I mentioned. They do tend to be stationary or crawl slightly from side to side.

I just always assumed that was how rot manifests itself on CAV because no other CAV laserdisc I've got has such issues at all - even my first pressing CAV Definitive Edition Box of Star Wars which has all the famously known problems except rot (at least up until two weeks ago when I played them last).

On my CLV discs of The Abyss Special Edition box and Star Trek 6, at the begining I have have white speckles (not particularly colorful, but maybe a little bit) that slowly got worse over the years but were not there when I first bought these movies - rot or dropouts? Also, my early CBS/Fox widescreen release of The Empire Strikes Back went all white speckle snowy at the start of the first side practically overnight after almost a year of playing fine (just in time as the Boxed set had just come out at that time).
 

Lyle_JP

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Hmmm, well, snowy interference that appears sometime after you acquired the disc and which gets worse over time certainly sounds like rot, but it's not usually just white. There should be some red and green specks in there as well (at least, that's how rot has always manifested itself on my equipment).

The Abyss Special Edition is certainly a rot candidate, having been pressed (first run, anyway) at Mitsubishi Japan during their problem years. Star Trek VI, like pretty much every Paramount disc ever made, was pressed at Pioneer USA, which makes rot possible, but unlikely. I don't want to even speculate about Empire. The CBS/FOX widescreen versions of the trilogy were pressed from two different masters at three different plants over the years. To know which you had would be impossible without closely inspecting it.

-Lyle J.P.
 

Matt Hough

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The only laserdisc I ever noticed rot on was DISCLOSURE. Thankfully, it's on DVD and thus not pertinent to this thread.
 

Lyle_JP

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Disclosure was one of the most notorious rotters ever. Right up there with Eraser. If there is a good working copy of it out there somewhere I'd be very surprised.

-Lyle J.P.
 

MielR

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I'm actually more disturbed about the fact that the true theatrical version was never released on LD, than I am about the laser rot.

Was the orig. theat. version ever released on videotape??
 

Esten

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The Elite LaserDisc set of A Nightmare On Elm Street is still woth having, as the Infinifilm DVD leaves out alot of those extras.
 

John Skoda

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If one is interested, Liz Taylor singing "Send In the Clowns" in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC is on LD and not DVD.

My LD is blurry, not widescreen, has weak color, and has a constant audio hum, but it WAS released. Supposedly the elements for this are in such bad shape that they're not even going to try a DVD.

I put it on the other day and found something strange--the picture on the LD is slightly anamorphic. You can stretch it out on a 16x9 TV and it's not too far off.
 

widescreenforever

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A few discs come to mind for me for this topic..,
Paramount's -Chinatown (1974 ) has an isolated music track of Jerry Goldsmith's fabuolus soundtrack., the other two would Ronald Haver's commentary for 1933 King Kong CAV for Criterion's '84 release ., the other is It's a Wonderful Life, ( Criterion -1987) and the commentary by Jaenine Basinger

and just remembered,, Todd-Ao rendition of Oklahoma was a far better print than that junk Fox brought out last year..
 

Joel Fontenot

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It's quite possible that other colors were floating in there, and maybe even a "rainbow" of colors that just all blended to look white to me. I would just simply get aggrevated at it either way so maybe my perception was, well, colored...

Of all my Star Trek LDs, and pretty much all my Paramount LDs for that matter, only ST:6 showed those spots after a couple of years.
 

Matthias Els.

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Definitely still worth seeking out:

Dead Poets Society - extended version (14 minutes of additional footage, great disc, THX and all)

Devil's Advocate - they edited the statue in Al Pacino's character's office for the DVD release becasue of a lawsuit, the original version was available on LD

Fearless - it's in widescreen, the DVD isn't

Fire and Ice (1987) - great sports movie by Willy Bogner, never made it to DVD

In the Mouth of Madness - contains a very short "making of" documentary not available on the DVD

The Nightmare on Elm Street double LD set by Elite is just awesome. Got it yesterday, the extras are great and it's sooooooo well-done!
ANOES 5 has already been mentioned, but I'd like to stress again that this one is really worth seeking out, although it's only in full screen.

About Star Wars and laser rot... Yeah, I know what you mean. My set has a few, veeery slight signs of laser rot as well. Does anybody know how quickly they get worse? Can it happen that they don't get worse?
 

Keith Paynter

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The first pressing of Devil's Advocate was the original version, with a disclaimer on the box in red. The disc was not recalled, but repressed with the alteration. I have a copy of the original release DVD.
 

John Sparks

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The naked lady in the window in "The Rescuers", The uncut "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", the recalled cover from the "Little Mermaid", the books, CD's etc., etc., etc!

I've have box sets I haven't even opened up yet. The only thing is, color ones don't look that well on my 16x9 screen. I have to use my s-video for them. Quite a few b&w's look just as good as their DVD counterparts.
 

Jesse Skeen

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All the Little Mermaid LD covers I've seen have had the "offending area" airbrushed so it doesn't look quite as obvious as the VHS cover.
 

MielR

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I think it depends a lot on how the discs are stored. Keep them out of areas where the temperature varies a lot, keep them out of extreme heat/cold and sunlight. If stored properly, it may take years for the rot to get any worse, and I've heard that some discs start to rot, and then never get worse.

One of my Return of the Jedi discs from the Definitive Collection is far worse than the other discs in the set (for some reason). One side has multi-colored speckles, and the other side also has a dark, smeary haze that greatly obscures the image. I think the rot is usually worse towards the outer edge of the disc, since that's where the air gets in when the glue starts to go.
 

Lyle_JP

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Actually, the seal on the inner ring (where the label is) is just as likely to be or go bad as the outer edge. This means that rot can be worse at the beginning of a disc just as frequently as it is at the end. I have owned and seen many Sony DADC USA discs with failed inner-edge seals.

-Lyle J.P.
 

Matthias Els.

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Thanks for the info about the laser rot, guys! Keeping my fingers crossed :)

About Devil's Advocate: You're right, the first edition of the DVD also had the original version. But didn't these DVDs have technical problems, like asynchronous sound or something like that? I seem to remember that there was some reason why the LDs were better than the DVDs...
 

Mark-P

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Just for the record, the naked lady never made it to the laserdisc edtion (I have the LD). It was only on the first Videocassette release
 

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