Laserdisc - The Only Format You Need

[Thierry Henry]

At an Amoeba Music store, Hollywood.

Pic taken on November 10, 2019.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

^Damn I want that Laser Discs sign!

[gamer888]

I read once a somehow technical article on how, depending on your set up, a laserdisc sounded better than a dvd. Maybe the stereo sound is better??

[BubsyFan1]

Yeah, that sign is great. Thierry Henry, how was the selection there? I've never been to that location, but I've been to a couple of different Amoeba locations in the Bay Area in the past few years, and they have pretty good selections. Most are priced higher than I'd like to spend, but that's the case with every media store (I'm just cheap).

[Thierry Henry]

Yeah, that sign is great. Thierry Henry, how was the selection there?

I wouldn't know, I'm at the bottom end of Africa.
My eye had caught that pic the other day in one of those Facebook groups. Apparently, the Criterion set of titles there is quite decent.

^Damn I want that Laser Discs sign!

Speaking of,




Makes for a cool Home Theater setup.

[Jake Armitage]

Here is one of my favorite laserdisc treasures:

laser_front_b (3).jpg

laser_back_b.jpg

It was made in Hong Kong.

[SegataS]

I never owned Laser Disc stuff but I have used an LD player and the discs. There used to be a store near my house growing up called Ultimate Electronics. It wasn't like a Best Buy. They didn't sell games or movies, just Electronics. They had a center for kids to try out kids' PC games. They gave out free hot Chocolate. They had cars in the middle of the store to show off the car stereo. They had a mini home theatre. Seated 15 people. They had a LaserDisc player. The glass cabinet it was in was supposed to be locked but someone always forgot to. So I would sit n there with the free popcorn (yup they gave that out as well) and watch movies. When one side ended I just went over there and flipped it until they put in one that didn't need that.


They hated us in there but I did buy stuff from time to time. I still have my portable Sony Watchman TV. The one time one of them did try to kick me out I asked him if he worked on commission and then proceeded to flash a $100 bill. No, I was not rich and nor was it stolen. I used to do extra work as a kid on TV/Film. They paid $50 a day and I would always do about 1-2 weeks worth of work at a time. I miss UE. Does anyone else miss when stores had a wall of CRT TV's playing something like one big picture?

[Thierry Henry]

I still own a few players. Low end in terms of playback quality.

I have an "industrial" unit- CLD-V2600. It's built very solidly.
Also a CLD-A100. Cool in terms of Genesis and Turbo games but overall not a great LD player.

And this is the only "dual side" player I own. Sony doesn't have the greatest reputation when it comes to LaserDisc players. But it works fine and is in good shape.

[GohanX]

I read once a somehow technical article on how, depending on your set up, a laserdisc sounded better than a dvd. Maybe the stereo sound is better??

On a technical level no, but on a practical level sometimes. Most all DVDs from the time that they were both getting releases had Dolby Digital soundtracks which were compressed, while Laserdiscs usually had uncompressed stereo audio tracks. Some LDs had DTS surround which in general was better than Dolby Digital, and the LDs that had Dolby Digital I think were generally at a higher bitrate than the DVD versions.

DVD could have 2.0 lossless audio, DTS, and higher bitrates as well, and many later discs did, so it's not a format issue as much as how the discs were authored at the time.

[BubsyFan1]

I wouldn't know, I'm at the bottom end of Africa.
My eye had caught that pic the other day in one of those Facebook groups. Apparently, the Criterion set of titles there is quite decent.

Oh, gotcha. I thought you went there and took the picture.

Here is one of my favorite laserdisc treasures:

laser_front_b (3).jpg

laser_back_b.jpg

It was made in Hong Kong.

Nice! I have that one on VHS. I only have to foreign laserdiscs - Outbreak from Taiwan and Cannibal Holocaust from the Netherlands.

[SegataS]

DVD sounding worse makes sense. Not sure if this is true on DVDs but on CD's things changed in the 90s. The 1980s CDs sounded great for digital audio. Somewhere in the 90s, they decided to just make them sound louder but a lot of the subtle pieces of the music is lost. Like turning up the brightness on the TV all the way up. A lot is lost.

[Jake Armitage]

Nice! I have that one on VHS. I only have to foreign laserdiscs - Outbreak from Taiwan and Cannibal Holocaust from the Netherlands.

I have a few foreign laserdiscs - some of the more odd ones I have:

Hardware - 4 different releases (US, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong - all have different covers)
Blood Diner (Hong Kong)
Deathstalker 4 (Hong Kong)
The Ravagers* (Japan)
I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle (Hong Kong)
The Lost Empire (Japan)
Karmina (Singapore)
Amazons and Supermen (Japan)
Conquest (1983 sword and sandal flic) (Japan)

*This movie is ridiculously rare - I know it was released on VHS and Beta in the UK - but other than those the laser is about it (that I know of).

[Baloo]

So what is considered the best stuff on Laserdisc outside of Song of the South and the original Star Wars Trilogy theatrical cuts? I've seen Laserdiscs on sale in stores but have never been able to find a player to play them on. Any suggestions?

[Jake Armitage]

So what is considered the best stuff on Laserdisc outside of Song of the South and the original Star Wars Trilogy theatrical cuts? I've seen Laserdiscs on sale in stores but have never been able to find a player to play them on. Any suggestions?

A lot depends on your genre tastes - there are a lot of obscure titles (that still aren't available on dvd) out there - the main reason I have kept my collection. This is a pretty good resource of stuff that was released:

https://www.lddb.com/

Probably your best bet for a player these days would be your local craigslist. Stay away from Sony players since they were notoriously problematic. Overall Pioneers are probably the best bet. If you see a listing for a player you can google
the model number to find description/reviews. Try to find one with the remote - the remotes for Pioneers are mostly universal but a player may have functions not available on all remotes. You will also likely want a two sided player too.

They sometimes show up at thrift stores - but they are hard to test in the stores. (They can be really cheap though - I once got one for a dollar!) And rarely have a remote with them.

[Jake Armitage]

So what is considered the best stuff on Laserdisc outside of Song of the South

There were two releases of Song of the South.

There was a Japanese release (which was actually fairly common) dual audio tracks and subtitles on the songs.

And there was a Hong Kong release (also has dual audio tracks (as far as I know - I don't have that version) but no subtitles on the songs). That version goes (or used to - I haven't kept up) for a lot. Hong Kong discs were mostly a rental market so it is hard to find discs with jackets in good condition. Plus at one point in time most of the Hong Kong discs (of all types) still in Hong Kong were supposedly destroyed to recycle the materials.

The print(s) used for the discs wasn't very good since disney wasn't about to release a decent print for unauthorized copies of the film.