Are there any other fans of the format here?
I've become rather obsessed with Laserdiscs again, for two reasons:
Getting a larger screen TV...they look better than DVD on the big screen!
Getting out of toys for lent, yet having this drive to collect.
My collection grows thanks to Craigslist and eBay, and buying LOTS.
LDDB.com is a great resource for LDs, too.
So, let's discuss it:
What LDS do you have?
check my collection out at
LaserDisc Database - Collection > All > By Title
How do you store them?
I used to use CRATES when I only had 30 and then when I only had 99, but now that I'm at 250+ I'm looking at some shelving options.
What genre do you like in this format?
Me, I really like the ANIME we'll never get on DVD, and other RARE stuff we just don't get in other formats, like a surfing movie I have that is not available on DVD.

 

I used to work at a Laserdisc plant. I have dozens of discs in storage, but I don't own a working player at the moment.

 

What discs do you own? Any rare ones? What did you work on in the plant?

 

I worked at Technidisc in Michigan in the 90s as building maintenance. I have maybe 2 or 3 dozen discs today, but once had much more. Most of them don't have the packaging, and are just in white sleeves. I don't even recall which titles I still have... I remember we made a House on Haunted Hill, the Star Wars Trilogy, Robot Jox, Gunhed, music video compilations for Adam Ant and Devo, Record of Lotus War, and some Playboy titles (nothing X-Rated, just R-rated videos with the Playmates).

If your discs has a Technidisc logo inner diameter, or has the "Technicolor" logo at the end of the video, we probably made it.

Many of the discs we made were for image entertainment, but we were not their only manufacturer. Their discs started with this logo:

 

I never had one. And am glad they were replaced with the far superior DVD.

 

Made in the USA! Love it! thanks for sharing! I'll have to look!
That's so awesome to be a part of such a great format.

DVDs were not superior to Laserdiscs:
You scratch a DVD, you can't play it. Scratch a Laserdisc, it ignores it.
DVDs often had compression artifacts that looked like pixelation. LDs had no compression, just pure analog video.
Audio on LDs are often better than DVDs.
The STAR WARS LD is STILL the closest to the ORIGINAL theatrical release.

Such a negative attitude is not welcome here.
This is a thread for FANS of the format, not complainers. The question was
"Are there any other fans of the format here?" not "Are there any haters here?"

 

I've never had any myself but a pal once owned a player and some discs. I remember us watching TRON on it with all the cool extras and thinking this was totally the future of home entertainment. Then my friend got into debt and had to sell his player and discs. Sad really.

 

Reminds me of when I was in college, my friend worked at a video rental store where they rented LDs too. He owned a Laserdisc player, and often invited everyone over to watch the latest Anime on it. I wanted one of those machines so bad, it was totally cooler than VHS tapes.

 

This came today! 15 Star Trek Laserdiscs.

 

sort of on topic... Kevin Smith (be it through personal preference or studio pressure) used to be a proponent of laserdiscs. His movie "Chasing Amy" was at the tail end of of the laserdisc lifespan, and when it came time to record the director's commentary for the disc, he starts it out by saying "Fuck DVD!"

They kept the line during the inevitable transfer to the DVD version as well. Always made me giggle.

 

cool! Thanks for sharing. Most Laserdisc collectors feel it's much better than DVD. Technically it may not be, but there's more than one way to gauge the overall superiority of Laserdiscs over DVDs.

 

I've got 1 player and about 40 discs.. I used to have several players ( I bought them all from the Habitat for Humanity store when Mercer University upgraded and have sort of been working my way through them.. )

I have the first season of TNG, all three Star Wars, a lot of John Carpenter films, and some other things like that.

Personally I really like the format, and it's a great conversational piece when I have company over if they've never seen one before.

Are they better than DVD's? I think it's pretty easily a better format than what DVD started with.. I like the fact they don't need decoders to play the audio.. but I HATE having to flip & swap discs. Will I get really sad when my last player inevitably quits working? Probably.. but that's mostly to do with it being the only way I can watch good quality transfers of the Original Star Wars films..

 

good deal.
Came 5/9/2013!

 

haven't heard from the other Laserdiscs fans here in awhile, but I'm still getting stuff:
May 28 Haul:

about 16 Laserdiscs came today.















some great movies in this lot, and some i have NEVER heard of, but these were just $1 each, so I'm open to new stuff.
so, what Laserdiscs have you bought lately? Which ones have you watched lately?

 

Never knew it existed when they were out. I though before DVDs were just the VideoCDs. I have Blu-Ray  

 

I still have a bunch of laserdisks. Are they worth anything? Havn't watched them in years.

 

I practically grew up on LDs during the 90s. Always rented though, never owned any. I remember the first LD movie we watched when we got our player was Dick Tracy. We'd do the old "record the movie on VHS and lend it out to friends"...and they'd always be blown away how great the quality was!   T2: Judgement Day, that's my shit right there.

The annoyance of disc-flipping aside, afaik the LD (non-SE) Star Wars trilogy is still the best option out there for the old school purists. Kinda wish I picked em up when I had the chance.

 

I thought they were all smashed up and put into nice big cubes?

 

depends on what titles you own.
lddb.com has a very exhaustive listing of all LDs ever made, and their normal selling price (like from eBay)