Laserdisc Mega Thread -

[Gone Ham]

Laserdisc is pretty cool. It's like a giant DVD but worse in almost every imaginable way! Its only redeeming feature is special features and it being an analog format.
Basically,

 

[Rupert Bear]

Based Laserdisc. It was a really popular medium for anime back in the 80's and 90's, right?

 

[White Devil]

I own zero laser discs but we had one when I was a kid. This is the best format to watch Star Wars in besides on the big screen.

 

[Megaroad 2012]

Techmoan and Oliver Harper make these look desirable.

I mostly want to get some for the packaging and sleeves.

 

[Gone Ham]

Based Laserdisc. It was a really popular medium for anime back in the 80's and 90's, right?

Oh yeah, it's a huge anime format, as there are tons of original cuts of rare anime on it that still aren't transferred over, nor probably will ever be transferred over.

I own zero laser discs but we had one when I was a kid. This is the best format to watch Star Wars in besides on the big screen.

It really is, as you can get the Star Wars before Lucas shat himself, and the original cut of the phantom menace with Puppet yoda

 

[Psychic Espeon]

LaserDisc was a great aesthetic.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Oh yeah, it's a huge anime format, as there are tons of original cuts of rare anime on it that still aren't transferred over, nor probably will ever be transferred over.

It really is, as you can get the Star Wars before Lucas shat himself, and the original cut of the phantom menace with Puppet yoda

The fansubbing group Orphan has been doing A LOT of LD rips since they started fansubbing and I have most if not all of their rips.

 

[Jump]

I have some laserdiscs but my player is long gone. The only way they are better then VHS was the packaging. Big budget stuff like Jurassic Park came with tons of cool foldouts and box art. They tried to make it like old LP record releases.
Quality wise they are exactly they same as a new SP VHS tape. Its the same exact NTSC (or PAL) analog signal just on a different medium. What sucked was you had to flip the discs. Some movies where 2 double sided discs. So if you had a basic player you had to get up 3 times to flip the fucking thing.
You can not tell the difference between a LD and a good SP tape on a good 4head machine.

DVD really is the best and I still buy them today.
I always thought anime was big on VCD because VHS never really caught on in Asia. Uncompressed analog LD would actually be better then compressed VCD. VCD is why torrents where always 700megs. Pirates needed to fit them on to CDRs.

 

[SSF2T Old User]

DVD really is the best.

Unless they get scratched and then they are fucked for life. At least with VHS, the picture/sound got a little fucked up but you could at least go on with the rest of the show/movie once the VHS player played passed the fucked up part. Can't do that with DVD, even after cleaning the fuck out of it, whatever player you stick it in will go "oh shit, is that a brick wall in my way? Bro, sorry but I can't advance any further"

 

[TheBallPit]

Can anyone offer any advice regarding this topic? I have a laserdisc player, but recently had to replace my TV with a model that only has HDMI inputs (my previous TV had S-Video). What's the best, but still relatively affordable, way to marry the two?

 

[Jump]

, even after cleaning the fuck out of it, whatever player you stick it in will go "oh shit, is that a brick wall in my way? Bro, sorry but I can't advance any further"

>He doesn't know how to grind his own discs




But ya if the scratch is so deep it goes down to the media layer and is in the Lead-In track or TOC track then your fucked. If its just in the program data area then you should be able to skip past it.
I like DVD because it has basically an unlimited shelf life and its easy to burn your own discs. They don't take up a ton of shelf and right now its super cheap to build a collection. I pay 25cents to $1 normally for a movie in the 2nd hand market.

VHS ages and god help you if you contaminate your machine with the death mold.

There is also the problem of the player complexity and no good VCR's have been made in at least 2 decades now.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

I have some laserdiscs but my player is long gone. The only way they are better then VHS was the packaging. Big budget stuff like Jurassic Park came with tons of cool foldouts and box art. They tried to make it like old LP record releases.
Quality wise they are exactly they same as a new SP VHS tape. Its the same exact NTSC (or PAL) analog signal just on a different medium. What sucked was you had to flip the discs. Some movies where 2 double sided discs. So if you had a basic player you had to get up 3 times to flip the fucking thing.
You can not tell the difference between a LD and a good SP tape on a good 4head machine.

DVD really is the best and I still buy them today.
I always thought anime was big on VCD because VHS never really caught on in Asia. Uncompressed analog LD would actually be better then compressed VCD. VCD is why torrents where always 700megs. Pirates needed to fit them on to CDRs.

VCD was China, Middle East, and SEA's answer to VHS, mainly because they were ridiculously easy to pirate and cheap as shit.

Can anyone offer any advice regarding this topic? I have a laserdisc player, but recently had to replace my TV with a model that only has HDMI inputs (my previous TV had S-Video). What's the best, but still relatively affordable, way to marry the two?

I could be wrong, but a converter would work.

 

[Jump]

Can anyone offer any advice regarding this topic? I have a laserdisc player, but recently had to replace my TV with a model that only has HDMI inputs (my previous TV had S-Video). What's the best, but still relatively affordable, way to marry the two?

If your player has composite outputs then just look for a "RCA" or composite to HDMI converter. There are tons of options on amazon or ebay. Get one that does up scaling.

 

[TheBallPit]

I've looked at those, but there was something that precluded their use in my setup. I'll have to investigate further. Oh, I also have a DVD recorder that I'd like to also hook up with the same output options.

 

[Ponchik]

i wonder if laserdiscs have drastically gone up in price because enough assholes on ebay slapped the words "RETRO" and "VINTAGE" into their listing titles, clearly if they're old then they have to be good

 

[Cup Noodle]

The fansubbing group Orphan has been doing A LOT of LD rips since they started fansubbing and I have most if not all of their rips.

I was able to get my hands on some obscure hentai that I was looking for thanks to them.

 

[StraightShooter2]

Supposedly, it was like the grandfather of CDs and DVDs, and was not very popular in the US or Europe, but had more of a following in Japan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc

VHS is what I'm personally familiar with.

 

[Boston Brand]

Never understood the hype behind them. Especially since DVDs and especially Blurays have better quality.

 

[albert chan]

 

[Jump]

Never understood the hype behind them. Especially since DVDs and especially Blurays have better quality.

Hipsters. Like the retard who made the video above. Stretching a 4:3 source to fill his 16:9 TV.