Laserdiscs - anyone here collect them?

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KellyP

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#269972 17-Apr-2020 16:31

During the lockdown, I've been having a cleanup and sure enough I found my old stack of LDs. It's not a big collection (50-60?) but still a decent lot.

Worth keeping or not?

Came across this article which is making me think twice about parting with them - regardless of their monetary value.

richms

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#2464303 17-Apr-2020 16:39

An inconvenient fragile medium holding a composite video signal? Nahh, not of any interest to me. Sell them to someone interested in them and spend the cash on something nice for yourself.

Richard rich.ms

elpenguino

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#2464317 17-Apr-2020 16:56

Fine, if it's your thing, keep them. Personally, I don't have time for more than a couple of 'things' so other gear gets shifted on to those who will appreciate it.

Do you have a player?

They're quite bulky aren't they.

I love the laserdisc related story of the 900th anniversary of the domesday book : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project

You can still read the original book over 900 years later but it became very hard to get equipment to read the digital anniversary edition within a few years of creating it.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

ilovemusic

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#2464735 18-Apr-2020 13:29

i've still got a few hundred of the big silver discs including the big toy story box with the oogling snowman lol

and the original un-special stars wars trilogy.

sold a few but most of them i couldn't even give away.

laserdiscs were actually fairly robust - it's the relative few that were made with bad glue, a bigger problem was poor pressing quality.

picture quality is barely above vhs tape, the major advantage was later in it's life, many films were released in their original aspect ratio,

sound was generally good, especially when they moved to digital formats - pcm, dolby digital dts,

as were the large format covers.

very few are collectible, most are landfill.

DarthKermit

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#2464737 18-Apr-2020 13:33

I've never even seen one in person.

lchiu7

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#2464745 18-Apr-2020 13:54

ilovemusic:

i've still got a few hundred of the big silver discs including the big toy story box with the oogling snowman lol

and the original un-special stars wars trilogy.

sold a few but most of them i couldn't even give away.

laserdiscs were actually fairly robust - it's the relative few that were made with bad glue, a bigger problem was poor pressing quality.

picture quality is barely above vhs tape, the major advantage was later in it's life, many films were released in their original aspect ratio,

sound was generally good, especially when they moved to digital formats - pcm, dolby digital dts,

as were the large format covers.

very few are collectible, most are landfill.

I have about 50 or so. It was also my first exposure to 5.1 audio (before DVD's came out) since there were discs that had a AC-3 audio track on them encoded as a RF signal on the left analogue channel. You needed a special player to play them (or a mod which I had installed) and then a receiver that could handle it (I had a Kenwood at the time). The first time I played a disc with 5.1 audio it knocked my socks off, even though the picture was letterboxed on a 33" tube TV :-(

As for collectibles, I think the only one I would say that would be collectible would be this one

https://www.ebay.com/c/1403471879

That's because it also came with an actual frame from the restored print plus a book and a special CD. All the other discs I have have been replaced with either DVD's or BD's.

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sbiddle

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#2464947 18-Apr-2020 16:32

I still have my collection (probably about 20 discs or so) and my Pioneer stereo that plays them.

I had a friend who has since passed away that had a collection of a few hundred so I used to borrow them from him in the '90s

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Rentakill

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#2465198 19-Apr-2020 09:10

Gidday James Bond

I've still got my Collection - Around 400+ Titles plus my old Trusty Pioneer DVL 909 AutoChange Player.

I have a more basic Pioneer CLD S315 Laserdisc Player as well which would be lucky to have been used twice.

AC3 Audio was totally massive.

I used my Pioneer via a Yamaha DSP A1 which was compatible with the AC3 RF Protocol.

They were awesome back in the day.

We still pull the odd disc out - Mainly for Music Concerts.

I've picked up numerous Collections over the years where original collectors have tipped out of them and gone with an alternative.

Saddly they arent worth much.

I'll be holding on to my collection.

"I come from a land downunder"

KellyP

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#2467582 22-Apr-2020 08:31

Thanks for the replies.

elpenguino:

Do you have a player?

They're quite bulky aren't they.

I had one but it stopped working. I foolishly gave up on it and handed it in for e-waste recycling. This was a while ago.

It was a Pioneer but I forget which model.

Rentakill

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#2491208 25-May-2020 17:12

Hi James Bond

Are you moving your Collection On ?.

I could be interested.. All though - Im down in the Bay Of Plenty.

Cheers:

Ren

"I come from a land downunder"

robbon44

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#2491397 25-May-2020 21:13

I can remember saving up for a player at the time thinking this was the future ! But I think in the end I saw and bought a DVD player !

Is it just me or is anyone else swayed by the next big gizmo only to be surpassed about 10 mins after jumping on board with a format...