Anyone knowledgeable about laser disc players?

[lord_rover]

Well, I second all that has been said so far. As a matter of fact, I have one of these Pioneer LD players and guess what, it even features an optical and a co-axial sound output (for DTS) as well as digital still memory for both CAV and CLD discs in addition to its quick-turn capcity. It also doubles as top of the line CD and DVD player.

I only switched to DVD last year, when I acknowledged that the quality of DVD encoding had finally bettered that of the LD. Up to now I did not regret investing in some 250 LDs and yes I do have the original Star Wars Edition as well. I even watched the original trilogy (IV - VI) over the last few weeks before treating meself to EpisodeIII. If I remember correctly, Lucas said it would be the last time the films would EVER be releassd in their original form... Knowing how weird he can sometimes act, you'd better believe it! :roll:

[mathis]

I didn´t know about DTS, but actually you can put DTS on more or less everything. But I know for sure, there were methods to get a Dolby Digital (surround) AC3 stream on LD, some Music LDs were released that way.

[Cranium]

I've been looking for a THX on LD ever since that DVD came out. It looks BEAUTIFUL, but the CGI was distracting to me. I guess I know the film so well... My wife didn't notice it.
I've got this bithin' industrial LD player at work, that I actually still use for testing. I've found some great stuff that isn't (at least wasn't) available on DVD.

[Shion]

I didn´t know about DTS, but actually you can put DTS on more or less everything. But I know for sure, there were methods to get a Dolby Digital (surround) AC3 stream on LD, some Music LDs were released that way.

Yeah, this is how it works, if I understand correctly...

DTS disks- the DTS track replaces the LD's digital stereo tracks. People without DTS setups can listen to the analog stereo tracks. (Occasionally, one analog track would contain a mono mix, and the other a commentary or other special track.)

Dolby Digital disks- the AC3 track replaces the right analog stereo track. This leaves the digital stereo tracks intact, and also the left analog track (which can be used to carry a mono mix, or something else like an audio commentary).

The AC3 stream was specially encoded in an RF signal, which required a special coax output (separate to the usual digital coax output) and a demodulating device (which was usually a separate little box, but also came built into some A/V receivers).

Theoretically, you could put DTS on the digital tracks, AC3 on the right analog, and mono on the left analog, but I don't know of any discs like this- there were always, as far as I know, separate DTS and AC3 editions.

-Bon

[leadlike]

If you are into extinct video formats-try selactavision. This was developed by RCA in the early 70s, but despite having the ability to produce them for many years, did not do so until laserdisc and VHS had already taken over the market in the early 80s.

Selectavision worked in much the same way as a laserdisc, but instead of a laser scanning pits in a foil coated disc, a needle rode over the grooves of a coated vinyl disc-so it was essentially a video record player. Quality on these things was less than that of VHS, with the picture skipping much as one would expect a video record to do. This is a cheap format to get into, and for about 30USD, you can buy a working player with a nice sized collection of discs.

RCA was killed by the failure of selectavision, and was eventually bought and rebought over the years as a result. It looks as if they had everything riding on the format, as they had all of their divisions tied up in it: for example, when David Bowie signed on to RCA records, his contract consisted of ten albums, two live albums, and two selectavision discs-despite the fact that the format didn't exist yet! As a result, a lot of oddball material wound up on selectavision that has not yet been rereleased in any other form.

As for laserdiscs, any I have had several, and I've found that pioneers work the best. Some pioneer players have a four pin jack that allows you to play some oddball laserdisc games if that's your thing.

[timdrage]

Yeah, "Selectavision' is the name of the format I mentioned... extensive info about it at http://www.cedmagic.com/

[Shion]

Yeah, "Selectavision' is the name of the format I mentioned... extensive info about it at http://www.cedmagic.com/

Heh... pretty funny that the same format went by so many different names... three of which (Videodisc, CED, Selectavision) were mentioned in this thread. Not exactly coherent marketing.

-Bon

[Patrick]

That is good to hear that Kenwood is among the top quality manufacturers of laser disc players. However, I have read that some Pioneer models are sophisticated enough to compensate for faults in worn / damaged discs and still maintain good quality picture and sound during playback of such discs. Would Kenwood players likely share these traits or would they be inferior in this respect? This would be quite significant because I get the impression that laser discs suffer more from imperfections / dust etc than DVDs generally. Though I have to admit that the occasional freezing of the picture is one of the most frustrating things I find about DVDs.

Actually, I was reading about those videodiscs by RCA a few hours ago in a 1984 book of mine on the 80s home video revolution. According to the book, one of the major reasons why laser discs and videodiscs never took off in a big way was simply because the players could not record (at least in regard to the consumer models.)

[tlatosmd]

As for two other missing links between LD and DVD (if you can actually call the foloowing that), I remember two CD-based media, The Beatles's A hard day's night made by Voyager, and Eric Idle's The Rutles - All you need is cache made Sirius, I think. Both were made for Windows 3.x.

A hard day's night by Voyager consisted of about 10-15 QT clips at a resolution of about 60-100 lines, plus lots and lots of extra features, gimmicks, material, and info. The first 3-5 clips had 16bit sound while the rest had 8bit sound instead. I've watched that CD so often it's pretty worn by today, which is why it's a good thing the film wasn't on the CD as one single clip, so only one clip of them is unreadable now. Even though I own that films DVD today, that old CD still comes in quite handy for all those nifty gimicks and informations, such as the complete script in three versions, the way Alun Owen and The Beatles's themselves wrote it during one weekend, the way it remained after adapted for shooting, and what bits were impromptus while shooting. There was even a function to play all three versions on one, in-sync to the film itself, with all three versions signified by different fonts.

The Rutles, however, was a bit more sophisticated in technological terms. Based on so-called 'Motion Pixels(tm) video compression technology' ('doubles as an extra household VCR - ideal for kids') and burned on two 'MovieCD's instead of one CD, it came with an own codec (though in AVI containers) and player and in 640*480 resolution at max size (while smaller resolutions could be chosen).

PS: Oh no! I've just found out that Motion Pixels codec doesn't work beyond Windows98. Simply clicking on the setup file produces a crashing process. Some net research (to see if I could find another, newer codec setup) told me all those companies involved with that codec are gone today, and obviously no free download urls ever existed because they claimed to have a patent on that codec while actually they never had that patent.

PPS: Guess an older Windows simulation is the only solution now.

[Patrick]

The Kenwood machine in the shop is an LVD-K590V. Unfortunately, there is no information I can find about this model on the Internet.

[al77]

I have a sony Ld player stored away, might dig it out when i get chance. I always found Ld's were difficult to keep dust free & any specs of dust could affect the quality on screen.

Some of the packaging on the LD's were great, some of the tartan / artificial eye titles were really beautifully presented. I'm inspired to transfer some of the LD's I have to DVD. Like Kieslowski's Double life of Veronique & Hal Hartley's Trust - I don't think either of those are available on DVD at present..

[Evan Kubota]

As far as rare LDs, many of the Criterion releases fetch a hefty sum.

I have the full set of Star Wars LDs, which Lucas was not able to destroy.

I also purchased The Double Life of Veronique, which is currently not available on DVD. A French release is rumored for September, but who knows how that will pan out... I had been trying to find the movie for a month or two and luckily a copy showed up on eBay. Unfortunately, it is full frame, but there was never a LD in the correct aspect ratio.

[al77]

Hi Evan,
The pal Double of Veronique LD was widescreen. I haven't got it in front of me, but i do have a pal vhs copy here also by tartan video that says "original widescreen ratio".
I had a look on amazon & you are right, they are taking pre orders for a september release, which hopefully will be widescreen too..

[Patrick]

Do scratches cause much grief on laser discs? I assume these would have the same effect as on a CD or vinyl record - ie skipping?