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Laserdiscs

Today I was able to get 3 LD's for $1.50 at a thrift store!!!

- Silence of The Lambs
- cliff Hanger
- Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade

I was somewhat suprised by the quality of the sound when watching The Last Crusade! Of course there's the part of myself not suprised since it's uncompressed audio, but still, Teh sound is 4w350m3!
 
atari2600a said:
Look at what I just got off eBay:
0d_1.JPG


Does anyone else here have some good LD's?
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oh man, i thought i was the only laserdisc addict still alive. i watch more laserdiscs than DVD's! the reason i originally got the player is because there are so many rare music laserdiscs that aren't available on any other format... i'm talking about live shows, etc
 
Yeah, LD's are t3h awesome! I'd like to get my hands on that "Making The Thriller" LD & stuff like that. (I'd also be awesome to get a Dragon's Lair cabinet (A local dealer just sold one on eBay), but they're Super Rare! :p)
 
Last year, after 10 years of hearding about LaserDisc and wanting me such stuff, I got me discs and players. 2 players: one P.A.L. and one N.T.S.C. I was quite a lucky fellow to get me stuff like that at not very much money, reguarding the fact that L.D.'s are almost uknown in Romania (I don't think they where more then 1,000-2,000 machines around here).
The P.A.L. player I found in a second-hand store that brings stuff from Germany. Went looking for old radios and I got the ideea to look for a L.D. player... there where 2: one that didn't want to read C.D.'s and one that did want. I manage to negociate the price (didn't had enough money at me) and bought it. A P.A.L. disc I managed to grab only about 3 weeks later form another city. The player is a "Telefunken" V.D.P.-500 ("Pioneer" C.L.D.-1600 clone - probably even manufactured by "Pioneer")
The N.T.S.C. player I got from a guy nearly my age that had it from it's father who got it from U.S.A. Since the player didn't worked properly, I got very cheap. I cleande the lens, got some grease on the mechanism and made it better. The guy haves disc too and I manage to buy a few (money problems). The player is an 120 Volt only "Panasonic" LX-101 made in June of 1991.
I was also lucky to find 3 discs at another person from Romania (he had many more in the past, but gave away - the 3 ones reamined between vynil records) - got quite cheap "Pink Floyd - live at Pompeii" and "Miles Davis: Miles in Paris" + bonus "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" (very bad master) - al 3 P.A.L. discs. Some one from U.K. helped me to get some discs - bought them from ebay, send 'em to his adress and the somobedoy got 'em in Romania (so postage was cheaper). I got me also an LaserJuke disc from Germany (I would have got 2, but the postage was to expensive).

Demo discs are my dreams, but the '80's one presenting the techonlogy are very hard to find and usually aren't cheap. And I do want that 1981 Summer Sears Catalogue. A.B.B.A. is on my dream list too. And one day I hope I will get me an working "Pioneer" player with He-Ne laser.

I sometimes wonder how this techonology survived without becoming mainstream... some people really love it!
 
Is U.S.A.? I know that!

One thing that I like about LaserDiscs is that they are making an impression. Not even in countries where they where more not all people are knowing about them (like they are knowing about V.H.S.). It was an expo with electronic made/assambled in Romania (for eg in Romania there where never manufactured color picture tubes) and I got my P.A.L. player to bee hooked on a color tv set. Before the expo was opened, I made some test and in a moment when I fliped a disc on the other side a guy seen the disc, asked what it was and when he found he was really shocked.
Most people tend to think they are vynil records (I would thought so too if I didn't found out on the internet accidentaly about 11 years ago what they where... when I found out how big they where I was shocked) and few people really gues they are optical discs (ha, at the expo a girl no older then 10 sayed that they are D.V.D.'s, so she guessed they are otpical video discs) and even fewer around here seen one or heared about it.

I want to buy the 1st machine that I've seen on an expo (ha, thought for some years that the technology runned only on the '80's and all players where top loader), and "Philips" V.L.P. 600 or 700 (the guy haves both) - they are for sale, but the price is extremly big for two non working unreiable machines.

Ha, LaserDiscs where realsed in Europe in the year of my birth (1982) and C.D. camed up (not in Europe) the same year.
 
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dreddnott said:
All this talk about Laserdisc technology reminds me of another old videodisc standard: CED.

Anybody else here remember/collect CED players or movies?
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CED was marketed as Videodisc, right? I have two or three CED players and at least four Laserdisc players. I really should get around to testing them and sell some of them - I could use the space!
 
roberttx said:
CED was marketed as Videodisc, right? I have two or three CED players and at least four Laserdisc players. I really should get around to testing them and sell some of them - I could use the space!
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Sometimes. Selectavision was the most common name.

They are jacketed by a plastic cartridge. The disc inside is just like a phonograph record, except technically very much more advanced. The technology is amazing.

Unfortunately, the discs get dirty and don't work well, and can damage the stylus which is expensive.

Look up CED Magic.
 
Both CEDs and Laserdiscs are technically "Videodiscs". DVDs, HD-DVDs (remember those?) and BluRay discs are too, I suppose, but nobody refers to them as such. :rolleyes:

I've owned several LaserDisc players, and several dozen LDs. My first LD player was a Pioneer LD-V2000 which had originally been part of a Nintendo "Power Previews" kiosk as seen at Toys'R'Us and other stores during the '90s. It came with the program cartridge (looked like a SNES cart, but the similarities ended there), a short serial cable, and both an LD and VCD with Nintendo game previews on it.

I've since acquired several more-capable LD machines, including a Pioneer CLD-D604 and a Pioneer DVL-909 (DVD/LD/CD combo unit). I've also acquired a few RCA Selectavision CED players, along with numerous videodiscs for that. Both formats are fun, though LD definitely has the edge due to video/sound quality (still analog!) and reliability compared to CED. Interesting to think where the CED technology might've gone if the format had stuck around as long as Laserdisc did.......... :confused1:
-Adam
 
A neat thing that I do with my CLD-V2600 is use a terminal program as a remote to control the player. This is done using a DB9 to DB15 cable (custom made - can't use a simple converter unfortunately). The one thing I haven't experimented with is the Laser Barcode system that some LD players used. There was apparently a computer program that let people generate barcodes for their discs, but I have been unable to find it.

I did have a CED player and a few discs (or video records, as they are), but sold them in preference for LD. I enjoyed Tomita's opening song for the earlier RCA CED openings, but that was about it.
 
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