Anyone collect Laserdisc?

[Retro1234]

Anyone here into Laserdisc? And if you are why?
To me it's something I never owned, it's like the Neo-Geo of movies. Just so over the top and 80s/90s

[Seiya]

do you speak about hardware laserdisc collection?

[Lord Aga]

I admire them from afar

No, really, I love the tech and the idea but it requires sooo much room.

[Retro1234]

There is a bit of a retro scene around Laserdiscs although some liked it before there was a bit of a revival and had it all to them selves.

I personally wouldn't mind a little collection of these big shinny discs.

[Korban]

Id like to, but I collect way too many things already.
Maybe one day.
I do collect HD-DVDs though. There's only about 850 ever released, so Im going for an entire set. I started when buying a few peoples xbox360 collections. Started off with a drive and about 50 HD-DVDs, then there was about 80 in a lot of 200 xb360 "games" and it just went from there.
Seeing as I was trying for an entire set of xb360 games I decided to go for an HD-DVD set as well. They're kind of related.

I have a decent UMD movies collection too, along with a few HD videotapes (not sure how many people realise, but the 1st 1080p format was a type of videotape) and a couple of movies on vinyl.

I like obscure formats. Not even sure why because I pretty much never use them, I just like to collect.

[Nobby_UK]

HD-DVD not Warner Bro's surely

I have 50 + 2 TV Box Sets
half the Warner ones are dead
and another quarter flakey/dying

[Korban]

@Nobby_UK

Ah, I'd forgotten about that. Heard about it a little while ago, meant to check mine, but forgot all about it. Other than a handful I dont have on Blu-ray I seldom use them. Many are still sealed too.

You've presented me with a dilemma though. To open sealed WB HD-DVDs to check their condition, or leave them sealed?
1st world problems hey?

[Retro1234]

I know Techmoan always says at the end of his videos O I won't be using this to watch films etc I have the Blu-Ray etc
But me personally image quality doesn't really mean much to me to some extent. I can not! get into any film(this is not normal for me) and DVD and streaming are quite soulless. I really wish I hadn't thrown my VHS away. I know I know but they have more soul.

And I would love one of those Movies on vinyl machines as well - put a perspex lid on top maybe a light inside. Yeah I could really enjoy that over Ultra HD.

[Korban]

Streaming is garbage quality, I never use it. Compression artifacts are obvious as is sound degradation. More often than not only supporting legacy surround formats too along with losing hdr, or poor quality hdr at best.

I'm an audio/video snob though.

Spent probably 5 figures on my cinema setup and when you do that you want to take advantage of it.

I kind of agree though. You really need to get decent gear to get back that "soul". Streaming and mainstream gear feels very clinical and lifeless.
With good quality equipment its different to the generic look and sound that taints more affordable gear and you get character again along with technical advantages.
Its slowly but surely getting better though as quality increases for more affordable stuff all the time.

[MrClump]

I have a player and around 30 disks, but I haven't used it in 4-5 years. They don't look all that great on a modern LCD to be honest.

[UberFreak]

Started buying Laserdiscs around 1994, it was the best quality you could get back then for the home.
When DVD came around and shops started unloading Laserdiscs cheap, I bought loads of them, had 500+ at some point including many expensive special-edition boxsets.

After I started using a projector instead of a TV, Laserdisc wasn't good enough and I started switching to DVD and quickly after HD.
Over the years I've sold most of the discs and several players.
I have around 40 discs left (all titles that are not available on other formats) and two players, but haven't touched any of it for many years.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by UberFreak

After I started using a projector instead of a TV, Laserdisc wasn't good enough and I started switching to DVD and quickly after HD.
Over the years I've sold most of the discs and several players.
I have around 40 discs left (all titles that are not available on other formats) and two players, but haven't touched any of it for many years.

There were a lot of releases where the laserdisc was better than the DVD, particularly in the early days when DVDs were really badly mastered, but since LD was analog you needed a good player to get the most out of it.

The one thing that drove me nuts about DVD was banding. It still drives me nuts on online streaming. LDs meanwhile had nice smooth gradients.

Laserdisc is still worth it if you're into collecting Japanese stuff as tons of stuff in Japan was only released on VHS and LD and never got DVD/Bluray releases. In the US there was a lot of VHS-only stuff but almost everything on LD was big studio stuff that got rereleased on DVD.

[Gerry]

I was always fascinated by Laserdisc and bought a player (Pioneer CLD-S 315) on Ebay some years ago.

I have a small collection of around 40 discs. I bought some movies and features which were/are not available on DVD, some obscure discs from Japan (Ridge Racer Arcade longplay), some demo discs (THX, Dolby Digital) and some game discs (Dragon's Lair, Thayer's Quest).

[MrAnthony2021]

I don't really have room for a laserdisc player but I would love to start collecting Laserdiscs in general. I was taken in by the first time I ever saw a laserdisc in person in 1998.

[Retro1234]

Theres definitely something about them. Maybe when I'm rich.

I also wonder what there like upscaled.

[Pyromania]

I always wanted a Laserdisc player and finally got one in 2002. I enjoyed it at the time, but it's been in the basement for eons.

[commodorejohn]

I nabbed an LD player at a pawn shop back in 2008 or so, and I've been accumulating a little bit of a collection piecemeal over the years, though I'm not a Serious Collector. Got the original, un-tampered SW trilogy, the Back to the Future and Indiana Jones films, the two Terminator movies, and a number of other '80s-'90s classics, plus a few more esoteric bits (I never realized, back in the '90s, that "computer graphics anthology set to techno/New Age/electronica" was a whole genre, but I've got like three on LD and one on VHS.)

Fun stuff - I brought the player and all the good family-film discs with me out to visit my 6yo. nephew, and we get to introduce him to Star Wars this way

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

I nabbed an LD player at a pawn shop back in 2008 or so, and I've been accumulating a little bit of a collection piecemeal over the years, though I'm not a Serious Collector. Got the original, un-tampered SW trilogy, the Back to the Future and Indiana Jones films, the two Terminator movies, and a number of other '80s-'90s classics, plus a few more esoteric bits (I never realized, back in the '90s, that "computer graphics anthology set to techno/New Age/electronica" was a whole genre, but I've got like three on LD and one on VHS.)

Fun stuff - I brought the player and all the good family-film discs with me out to visit my 6yo. nephew, and we get to introduce him to Star Wars this way

Not all kids seem that interested in films now days but I think being introduced to Star Wars or Back to future via Laserdisc would leave an impression on a kid - this huge 12" disc Wow.