my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » The Afterlife   » Movies on CAV laserdiscs are a pain to watch! (Page 2)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Author Topic: Movies on CAV laserdiscs are a pain to watch! Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 04-03-2003 01:58 AM                        Chase & Darryl, Is a RF demodulator I can use with my Denon receiver still available? I remember my friend Tom Choi at a high end video harware stote telling me that there was such a product but is no longer available. If RF demodulators are still available will you be kind enough to post a link or an address with a phone number so I can look into it? Thanks! -Claude  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 04-03-2003 10:32 AM                    Claude, Here is a link you can go to. www.yamaha.com/yec/index1.htm  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 04-03-2003 01:55 PM                        Hi Darryl, Thanks for the Yamaha link. I went to the site and looked everywhere but could not find the product. Perhaps I am not looking in the right direction or the product is indeed discontinued. I find it rather odd they would do this because there is now more need for an outboard RF decoder because almost all current receivers do not have an input for RF. I still have a lot of Dolby 5.1 laserdiscs that I do not plan to replace with the DVD version even if it was available because I am very pleased with the version I now have. The prologic sound on these discs is great but it cannot compare with the 5.1 track. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 04-04-2003 01:59 AM                    You may have to contact them Directly to inquire about the Rf Demodulator. On that site there should be a place you can go for contact information. You may have to do some hunting for it. Try places that sell used laser discs and players. You may get lucky and find one there. Mine is a Yamaha natural sound RF demodulator APO-1.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-12-2003 02:55 AM                        You can use an RF Demodulator with any current receiver with Dolby Digital just as long as it has a coaxial input. I have one and it works great. I also have the Star Wars Special Edition LDs which sound phenomenal in Dolby Digital. Yeah I know, Greedo shoots first, Jabba looks stupid and all of the other things that are wrong with the Special Edition, but the sound is great, Empire rules, and it's not gonna be available on DVD for a long time.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 04-14-2003 01:57 PM                     If you have an odd-numbered-sided Discovision movie, usually the unused side will be coated with something making it unplayable, but you can clean it off with alcohol and find interesting stuff on that side. Usually it's a side from another title but sometimes it's stuff like General Motors sales discs from the late 70s. Incidentally, some single-layer DVDs have playable material on the label side of the disc too if you clean that off with alcohol, but most of the time the same thing is duplicated on both sides. I have about 1200 CED videodiscs too; I'm trying to get every title ever made.  |  IP: Logged John Anastasio Master Film Handler Posts: 325 From: Trenton, NJ, USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 04-20-2003 06:24 AM                        I remember visintg the RCA Sarnoff labs in Princeton when they were experimenting with the CED discs and there weren't too many technicians who had any love for them. They were tinkering with an arcade game version of the system. Imagine trying to be non-linear with a needle in a groove. The only way they could instantly access a particular part of the recording was to literally drag the stylus over the surface of the disc. You can imagine what that looked like! To keep friction down and extend the life of the stylus, the disc had to have a thin coating of oil, which tended to attract every dust particle around, even though the discs were kept in a "caddy" that contained a cleaning medium. I keep a couple here in my office next to a 1950 RCA TV as an interesting reminder of ancient video technology. People constantly ask "does that thing work?" and I tell them that it might, but that it would only pick up the DuMont network.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 04-20-2003 05:51 PM                     There actually was one arcade game that used a CED player- NFL Football from Midway- saw it once but never played it. During CED's last year they made one player that could do random-access and chapter stops like laserdiscs, but I heard that it caused damage to the discs so I haven't been in a hurry to get one. I have a few interactive discs made for this player that I can watch straight through- the laserdisc game "Murder Anyone?" was put out on CED among a few others.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 04-20-2003 06:49 PM                        As strange as it may sound, I have been warching a lot of old laserdiscs recently. One of the discs I especially enjoyed was George Roy Hill's "HAWAII" in the original uncut road show version with twenty minutes of restored footage that was considered lost for many years.. With the restored footage, the film runs three hours and ten minutes and features the original overture, Entr'acte and exit music. The only thing that bothers me when they retain the extra music tracks is the stupid title cards they use over the music that reads "OVERTURE", "ENTR'ACTE" and "EXIT MUSIC". Recent road show films on DVDs such as "CLEOPATRA, "THE HELLELUJAH TRAIL", "THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD" were great because they featured the music only against a blank screen exactly like the original theatrical presentation without the title card. Watching many good old films on laserdiscs I had not seen in years is like watching them again for the very first time because much time has passed and I have forgotten the plots and the endings. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Daniel Fuentz Expert Film Handler Posts: 230 From: Fresno, CA, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 04-20-2003 07:21 PM                     I found one of those old RCA CED players at the Goodwill a while back for $2. I bought it only becuase a friend of the family had one back in the 80's, and I remember being so amazed they could watch movies anytime they wanted! (I hadn't heard of VHS or beta at that time) The player I got still works, but I hardly ever use it. I saw an MCA Discovision title amongst the LP records in another shop a few weeks ago, but some fool had put a $9.95 price tag on it. I bet they're wondering why it hasn't sold yet...  |  IP: Logged Fred Georges Master Film Handler Posts: 257 From: Lombard, IL, USA Registered: Jun 2000 posted 05-07-2003 07:59 PM                     I LOVE my Laserdiscs. I invested heavily in them over the last 25 years (can't believe its 25 years!) The best of them still hold up quality wise and since the video is uncompressed analog there's a "smoothness" to the image that I find lacking from DvD. Don't get Me wrong. DvD's are great but, unless it's a feature laden re-master, I'll stick with the big silver platter.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-13-2003 10:45 AM                     I still have some of the MCA Discovision Lasers...amazingly, as the players improved, so did the ability to play the older discs. A laser-rot disc that would be unplayable on my VP-1000 (the grand-daddy of the Laserdisc players on the Pioneer side) will play just fine on later units from say the CLD-900 onwards. My favorite player was my CLD-D701 (RIP) and I'm now on a DVL-700 (LD and DVD). Pioneer still has new LD players but the selections are getting smaller by the year. I'll put my best lasers up against the best DVDs...I don't like the DVD look, the compression artifacts bother me (static blocks and such). But I guess this is another digital versus analog debate. Steve  |  IP: Logged Paul Howard Film Handler Posts: 26 From: Huyton, Liverpool, UK Registered: May 2003 posted 05-18-2003 05:07 AM                     I used to own a Pioneer CLD 350. Now i have a Toshiba SD2109, good player but i would trade in every DVD i have for its laserdisc alternative. The audio on my old Jurassic Park DTS LD pisses all over the DTS DVD (even the repress). I could only imagine the power of something like the Matrix or X2 on laserdisc. But maybe this new D-VHS could be the perfectionists format of the future, it would be nice if the packaging was like the massive sleeves LDs came with, but that obviously wont happen.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-18-2003 06:10 PM                  I have a ton of LaserDisc media and my trusty Pioneer CLD-D704. I agree about the image quality.... it's great. And sound available in Dolby and some DTS. >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 05-20-2003 01:40 AM                     Phil, have you had any trouble with your CLD-704? I have a CLD-900 that has a mechanical drive problem, I think it's control circuits are kapoot! Two years ago, I was looking for a Lazer Disc/DVD player, but the thing was so pricey that I elected not to invest. I only have about 50 Lazer disks, so it didn't seem cost effective for me to splurge.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1  2  3

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.