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Author Topic: The Laserdisc Appreciation Thread Blaine Young Master Film Handler Posts: 477 From: Kirkland, WA, USA Registered: Sep 2006 posted 11-03-2007 01:58 PM                     quote: Oliver Harper I love LaserDisc, i have a Pioneer Elite CLD-99. Awesome player with a great picutre..I still love watching LD. THe sound is incredible, lovely PCM tracks and uncompressed DTS tracks cant be beaten. quote: Joe Redifer Yeah. Too bad uncompressed DTS hasn't yet been offered to the consumer. An unfortunate choice of words. By "uncompressed", Oliver should have said "Full Bitrate". The LaserDisc had the capacity of 1440kb/s bitrate on the DTS track. A handful of DVDs used that rate, but most used the half-rate 720kb/s speed. I'm proud to say I have every single DTS LaserDisc title released (in NTSC format) in my collection - including a Promo edition of "Apollo 13".  |  IP: Logged Phil Blake Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 558 From: esperance western australia Registered: Nov 2003 posted 12-07-2007 07:22 AM                        As a die Hard laser fan from years ago I have always thought the sound and picture quality to be unsurpassed. I have not run a laser at home for quite some time. Recently I bought a new Panasonic Plasma panel curious as to how Laser would look on it , i ran "Paint Your Wagon" for the Kids , a movie icon from my childhood days , it came up terrible , the sound was ok but picture was terrible. previously I had run it on my old Sony 26" CTV it looked good. I guess laser has not got the resolution to fill large screen TV's. Quite disappointing considering I have 127 Movies on LD in my archives.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-07-2007 10:06 AM                     Improved audio quality is arguably an unsung plus on new HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Most people just talk about the improved image quality and say little to nothing about the audio formats. Standard DVD made some trade offs against audio quality compared to that of Laserdisc (DTS at half the "full" rate, stereo tracks not LPCM but 192k DD 2.0, etc.). Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448kb/s versus 384kb/s on Laserdisc was one of the few improvements. The new HD disc formats can hold higher bit rate audio formats like uncompressed LPCM 5.1, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD Master. Standard DTS tracks can be stored at the "full" 1509kb/s rate. DTS-HD Master is backward compatible with existing DTS decoders by delivering a full bit rate standard DTS "core" to those systems. Those new audio formats can also accommodate discrete 7.1 channel mixes -although it's a bit unclear on how the extra channels would be assigned. I kind of doubt the "five up front" scheme would be used since very few people have televisions remotely big enough for the audio channel separation. Two discrete side wall surround channels and two discrete back wall surround channels would be more logical. That's how most people are wiring existing 8 speaker home systems.  |  IP: Logged Blaine Young Master Film Handler Posts: 477 From: Kirkland, WA, USA Registered: Sep 2006 posted 12-07-2007 12:16 PM                     quote: Bobby Henderson Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448kb/s versus 384kb/s on Laserdisc was one of the few improvements. It was an improvement over LaserDisc if the studio chose to support it. All of Warner Bros. 5.1 Dolby Digital is at the same 384kb/s rate. What further irritated me about Warner is thier annoying habit of encoding mono programs as "Center Only" 1.0 mixes at 96kb/s. I wonder what Warner is doing on their Blu-Ray/HD-DVD mono films. I've got "The Omega Man" here on Blu-Ray, but haven't watched it yet. The packaing claims it is Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono. Here's hoping the audio is something higher than 96kb/s.  |  IP: Logged Michael Coate Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1904 From: Los Angeles, California Registered: Feb 2001 posted 01-29-2008 04:34 PM                     It just crossed my mind that this year marks the (would be) 30th anniversary of the LaserDisc format.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 01-29-2008 04:45 PM                        You know what? I doubt DVD will last as long as LaserDisc did.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-29-2008 06:54 PM                     Standard definition DVD doesn't have very many years of life ahead of it. We may see stores discontinuing sales of movies in standard DVD-V format in as little as 5 years. By then, anyone who watches TV will very likely have a TV capable of displaying native 1080p content. Lots of people will have replaced older digital TVs with newer ones. Some may be going through their 3rd or 4th HDTV set. Upconverted DVDs look OK, on a 1080p monitor. But they don't look great. They're not not "high def" quality either. Some customers will put up with the lower picture quality for a longer time than others, but within 5 years most will be playing their movie discs from a Blu-Ray player. Standard DVD, in the form of recordable data discs, may hang on for a few years past the point when movie studios stop distributing pre-recorded movies in that format.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-29-2008 07:08 PM                     Yea, remember seeing my first LD players (early Pioneers were the disc were top loaded into the unit) and the playback (obvious the sound) quality that the LD's had - little bit better than VHS. Then, RCA had to jump on the marketwagon with their CED units in trying to make a dent in the LD market...and hung in there pretty well too until the red ink was too deep to swim in.  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 01-31-2008 05:10 PM                     If you have Divx playback on your computer, go to Stage6.com and search for "Laserdisc" and you can see Pioneer's 1980 demo disc "Laserdisc: What It Is and How It Works", and their 1984 demo disc featuring Devo. I've also got the 1981 "Bring The Magic Home" CED demo disc and a bunch of other goodies.  |  IP: Logged Mike Schindler Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1039 From: Oak Park, IL, USA Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-31-2008 05:23 PM                     I recently discovered that those $10 frames they make for LP covers are also the perfect size for LD covers. My entire house is now decorated with the Criterion Collection.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 02-05-2008 10:48 PM                     Funny that I havent seen this topic before now. Today, I received a Pioneer CLD-1070 player and 95 movies/cartoons. Cleaned it up--- hasn't been used in several years. Inserted a disc, machine pulls it inside and the disc drops into place on the spindle. After that, nothing. It serches for a CD/LD type for a few seconds, then the time display comes on all zeros. Also, the disc never moves. How does this unit know theres a disc on the spindle? Spindle motor spins easily. Laser hunts around for a few seconds. Any clue as to where I should start on this? I want to see about 80 of these movies! Bruce UPDATE: It's working. It had some crud on the laser lens. [ 02-06-2008, 07:05 PM: Message edited by: Bruce McGee ]  |  IP: Logged Bruce Hansen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 847 From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-07-2008 05:54 PM                     Usually, on just about any optical disc player, the player will try to aquire the disc (focus the laser on the dic) before spinning up the disc. It is easier to aquire the disc with it standing still. Some players will give the disc a little kick, if the laser cannot see the disc afer trying for a few seconds.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 02-07-2008 06:23 PM                        That is why DVDs won't spin up when inserted into CD players. Laser can't really "see" it.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 02-11-2008 01:30 PM                     I've been watching alot of stuff the last few days on the LD. Its funny watching older films like BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. It's a pan and scan version using a print that had seen better days, but was complete. I got to see lots of damage at reel changes... things I rarely see on DVD releases these days. Some of the films I have watched were obviously transferred from 1" tape. I can see tape dropouts galore on the beginnings of some of the films, particularly some Paramount titles that had the multi-colored duplication warnings on the beginning of the disc. We've come a long way, but still, these players look awfully good. I'm looking for discs now... like the 97 that I have arent enough. Bruce  |  IP: Logged Mike Schindler Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1039 From: Oak Park, IL, USA Registered: Jun 2002 posted 05-31-2008 12:54 PM                     My friend wanted to watch an LD for his birthday, so I dusted off my old player and hooked it up yesterday. Hearing the motors and gears and stuff when I turned it was a very nostalgic feeling. I was shocked by how terrible the picture looked, considering how awesome we all thought it was back in the day. That being said, I'll never be as excited about buying or watching a BD as I was whenever I bought a new LD. And that makes me kind of sad. Also, the actual physical LD's are the coolest form of video media in history. There's just something about that big silver platter.  |  IP: Logged

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