DVDC's Laserdiscs

[DVD Connoisseur]

Thought I'd share some pics of my collection. All items were purchased new in the mid-90s.



T2 with signed letter from James Cameron:



Double disc Criterion Blade Runner





Star Wars



Various horror



Phantasm Signature Edition





Alien and Aliens box sets





Hellraiser signed edition

[killit]

Some GREAT oldies! That T2 box you start out with was my first laser experience as a child and that Hellraiser box you end with was my FIRST LD purchase as a 15 year old! Had suspiria and that excellent nightmare double disc too! Man LD's are MEMORIES, I have no experiences like that with DVD or blu-ray sadly, except maybe buying the blade runner 5 disker before I even had a bluray player. Awesome that you kept your collection! Sold mine off

[dave13]

wow, those are amazing. i've never owned (or known someone who owned) a laserdisc player, so these are all new to me.

[crikan]

Wow! Those are amazing.

must fight the urge to collect laserdiscs

[russweiss]

Nice collection. I was heavy into laserdisc prior to DVD's arrival. I sold nearly all of my lasers (over 700) but I do still have the same T2 box that you have.

[jscott]

Not to hijack your thread again, but here's a pic of my Romero LD collection, I have another 75+ LD's, but none photo'd as of yet.

[Regurgitate]

I have a few of those boxed sets. I don't display them and I can't watch them because they just don't stand up to their DVD/Blu Ray counterparts. Back in the day though LD lust had me in its clutches, thankfully things are much cheaper now days.

[Dave]

It's true....as pretty as the outsides look, they just don't hold up on modern TVs. Still love the format but I haven't spun a disc in a good year or so.

[SaxCatz]

LD can look nearly as good as a very good DVD on an HD display but it takes a video processor that is very good with analogue video... and those have never been available in inexpensive equipment and are only becoming more and more rare. Its just not worth the trouble or expense for most.

[DVD Connoisseur]

Thanks for all the comments and cheers for sharing your Romero LDs, jscott. I see you have the Republic LD for Dawn (this is the only Romero I have in this format).

Haven't spun a LD for a good few years as my Sony LD just didn't deliver the goods on a large screen and it had started to play up, too. My last tv was a 56" rear projection and this was replaced with the first of the Panasonic 65" 3D plasmas that hit the UK shores. I was inspired to share by a thread elsewhere on the www and I've been busy logging all my discs onto a database so I can keep track of things.

Going off topic (but I'm sure a small detour won't matter), here are a few quick pics of my current set up (they may be of interest as there's a large horror element to my man cave!):









What frustrated me when I was collating details of my discs was the number of titles I have in different formats. T2 I own on LD twice and on DVD, Hellraiser I own on VHS, twice on LD and once on DVD, Alien and Aliens...VHS, LD box sets, then DVD, now blu...it never stops!

Couple more pics for now:

The Exorcist was banned in the UK when I picked up the US release on LD. Ah, how times have changed (well, a little) since then. Can't describe the excitement I felt when I bought this!



Here's another film that wasn't available uncut in the UK for quite a while:



I think I've only played this once - great film but it doesn't have the feel good factor and I'd seen it a few times before on third generation VHS copies and once at the cinema (in its cut form).

[jscott]

My LD's are now just pretty covers to look at/collector's items. 99% of them I own on DVD or Blu Ray, and the ones I don't I've made DVD-R recordings of. However I will play a disc at least once a month to keep my machine from getting dry rot. Too bad the HD age has rendered them borderline unwatchable/obsolete, as I love Laserdisc.

[ekent]

My LDs look the best they ever have on my 46". They are comparable to standard definition cable television.

[Paff]

Originally Posted by ekent

My LDs look the best they ever have on my 46". They are comparable to standard definition cable television.

A few questions:
1. What model LD player are you using?
2. Are you using any kind of processing between the LD Player and the HDTV?
3. Are you using the "zoom" function on the TV?

I have a Pioneer CLD-D704, considered by many to be the best non-Elite player out there (and not as good as those high-end Japanese models), with a composite to HDMI scaler. Anything that's 4x3 actually doesn't look too bad. But when I throw in a widescreen LD and hit the Zoom to fill the screen, it really goes to hell. Anything in the 2.35:1 ratio is borderline unwatchable.

[jscott]

Originally Posted by ekent

My LDs look the best they ever have on my 46". They are comparable to standard definition cable television.

Finally going 1080P shortly, and am very curious how LD's will look. It's only gonna be a 32", so I imagine any nasties won't be as bad as on a larger screen. My Toshiba 30" CRT HDTV was very nice for LD's, especially the later releases with good transfers.

Paff,

How large is your TV, and what resolution? How far do you sit from the screen? Does the analog>HDMI scaler make a significant difference in LD/SD TV pic quality?

[ekent]

1. What model LD player are you using? CLD-D406

2. Are you using any kind of processing between the LD Player and the HDTV? No. I'm using the RCA video output directly to the television. My receiver upscales SD to 1080 but I don't have the LD video running through it. I've yet to try it.

3. Are you using the "zoom" function on the TV? Yes, on anything non-4:3. I agree with you that 4:3 material is much more forgiving. I've found that if the transfer was nice to begin with, it looks good. I did have an issue with my Dawn of the Dead Extended box set. It had a funky aspect that didn't fit anything very well, and it wasn't treating the edge of the image very nicely. Goldeneye looked fantastic!