Man this thread came back from the dead.

I guess Laser Disc will never die.

That's a tough call. If you have $$$ to burn, and you're a collector at heart, then LD will provide you with much entertainment. Some of the prices people pay for HTF LDs are just insane, IMO. As much as I want certain box sets, I refuse to pay over $30 for a film.

I'm a vinyl and DVD collector, but LDs are too much of a hassle for me. They're huge, heavy, require flipping, have massive surfaces that are vulnerable to scratches, and often don't look as good as the deluxe DVDs that are releasing these days.

Now that I think of it, I also just described vinyl!! I DJ with vinyl tho, so that's the main reason I still buy it. The only alternative right now is CD, and you don't find the underground stuff on CD (another LD parallel, tho DVDs are gaining quickly in obscure releases).

We have both LD and DVD running through s-vid in the living room, and a huge (350+) LD collection, but the DVDs always seem to get more attention. It's the collectors plight; you know the value of a niche format in your heart, but getting mainstream users to understand is often difficult. They just see the legible spines of the DVDs, recognize the format, and gravitate towards that collection.

I have come this -><- close to buying an LD player, but reason kicked in. I don't have the time to spend on searching, nor do I want to drop the $$ required to get titles like the Looney Tunes boxes.

I'll see you back here next year.

I gave my LD player to my uncle, who claimed he could still get LDs from garage sales. I wish I kept it only for the Star Wars discs, only because the original version may not show up on DVD. As for Cool As Ice....it will be a crime if that movie does not make DVD. I picked up this classic for $1.98 on LD from KenCranes.

"Yup yup, I think she likes me."

I know this an old topic....... but could someone answer my question ?

I have a Pioneer cld-505 that has ac-3.

I have the 1995 star wars THX faces remastered laserdiscs.

now the back cover says digital sound...... will a rf demodulator send a digital sound to my reciever which will be processed in DPL II (like when DD 2.0 is selected on a dvd and your reciever lights up digital but still processed by DPL II) or does it only work for discs marked ac-3?

Wow, how god damn old is this thread that I said this? when pulp fiction came out almost a month ago.

Though I still think you should get yourself a LD because of the many titles you still can't pick up on dvd.

Though it's your choice and you don't give a rats what we say right?

I just wanna know what the original posted decided... nearly 2 years ago.

You use the Rf demodulator for the ac-3 signal which is modulated. demodulate it then plug it into the digital input of the receiver. I just picked up a rf demodulator for my laser disc player since I upgraded my receiever and lost my old receiver that had an ac-3 input built in

My first dolby Digital receiver the Denon 3200 still brings a smile to my face

The pro logic signal is available thru the digital output.

I would pick up a Lasr if I didnt already have one if the price were right...say under $100. Theres a lot of stuff out there on Laser that can be had for $1.99-$5 plus shipping on ebay. You cant beat that with a stick, and then even if it does come out on DVD, you still bought the movie for about the price of a rental, so you really have not lost anything. You can then re-sell on ebay or at garage sale ect later on. I dont see the downside except the initial cost of the Laser and like some others have said, there will always be stuff that probably wont ever get released so you will still have a use for the Laser player!

gcribbs: I just heard that these THX faces discs arent ac-3 but just dolby surround which means the rf demod would be useless , correct ? why would lucas put out the faces thx trilogy out and not encode it in ac-3 ? makes no sense...although DPLII sound pretty good.

does anyone have the definitive collection and the thx faces ? I have heard the definitive looks better as it wasnt over filtered. I do get a soft look on my faces discs which are kurray japan.

waskydiver: ha! good question...... what did you decide on? maybe he's in a trance and the star wars disc is still spinning and hes just sitting in a coma. the thing prob would have burnt out though , huh ?

AC-3 laserdiscs didn't begin to appear until 1995, and then only very sporatically. It didn't become common until a year or two later.

The "faces" edition of the trilogy came out in 1995, so -- while it was technically possible to do an AC-3 version -- it isn't that strange that it was DPL only.

The next release (special edition box) was AC-3.

Yes, an RF-demodulator is only needed for Dolby Digital discs. Those Star Wars discs are not Dolby Digital. If you connect the player to your receiver via the coax or optical output, your receiver will pick up the PCM digital soundtrack and decode it into either ProLogic or ProLogic II.

Not all movies are Dolby Digital. Star Wars is a 1977 movie. It wasn't remixed into Dolby Digital until the "Special Edition" in 1997.

The Definitive Collection box set comes from the same transfers as the discs you have now, but are in CAV which is slightly sharper. The soft look you are getting now, though, is probably caused as much by your middle-of-the-road D505 laserdisc player as anything else.

Thanks guys you answered all my questions.

BTW: would a cld-703 or 704 with the comb filter and 51db video instead of my 50db and no comb filter d505 make a big enough difference to buy ? whats the most I should spend on one if so ?

Thanks again.

Does anyone have a list or review of the extras on the Special Edition boxset? I generally despise them, but the wife likes them.

tks

Should you get a laser disc player? Sure Man! Wire it into the dash of your Gremlin and run the audio to the quadrafonic 8-track. BTW: Do you have any of those STP stickers left?

8^>
Just kidding. I couldn't resist...

Yes, a D704 in good working order would be a substantial improvement over the D505. In excellent condition, $350 is a fair price.

The Special Edition box set has trailers for each of the 1997 theatrical re-releases plus a decent-length featurette on how the "resoration" was accomplished. The before-and-after demos are kind of a cheat, because they dredge up the lousiest-looking, faded TV print that's been sitting in red dye for 10 years and say, "This is how it used to look before the Special Edition", completely disregarding the fact that the movies had already been substantially cleaned up for the THX remasters in 1995.

That's what appears on the American box set release. The Japanese box set loses that featurette in favor of a sneak preview for Ep II with some brief behind-the-scenes footage.

The Japanese boxes were recently pressed and can be found for around $100 (they lack English subtitles for alien dialogue, be warned), but the American box set had a small pressing run and has been known to fetch upwards of $300 on eBay.

Thanks, the SE boxes have been known to turn up in the pawn shops around here for under $50, so I'm not actively searching for one. I've got the Faces set, and three LBX VHS sets, so I think I'm good for now.

Josh Z: how can I play the digital tracks on the star wars faces set ? can you only do this through digital coaxial or optical ? can you not play the digital tracks through a rf demodulator ? im trying to decide if I should buy a cld-704 to get digital coaxial or optical to play the digital track on this set. if I can buy a rf demodulator and do the same thing thats an option too, I just dont know the ins and outs and specs of how to do this. when I play it through rca hook up the screen says digital but I know this must be some sort of analog digital it playing. i just dont know. I want my reciever to light up digital when I play this set so I can get the best possible sound.

as you stated above "If you connect the player to your receiver via the coax or optical output, your receiver will pick up the PCM digital soundtrack and decode it into either ProLogic or ProLogic II"

does this mean my reciver will light up digital and play the digital track ? is it a true digital track on these discs? so many questions/ but also so much confusion. please help!

If you mean the Faces discs, the digital tracks are digital like CDs are. I'm not sure about the outputs though. My player only has the RCA type outputs, but it plays the digital tracks fine, and my receiver decodes some pretty good ProLogic.

Bru, I hardly know where to start! Let's try to walk you through it.

Laserdisc audio is more complicated than DVD audio. Every laserdisc has four possible audio channels: analog left & right, and digital left & right. (Really old laserdiscs don't have digital tracks, but we'll disregard those for the moment.)

A disc like Star Wars has two stereo-surround mixes on the LD, one that occupies both analog channels and one that occupies both digital channels (encoded as a PCM signal, like a CD). Either one will be decodable into Dolby ProLogic or ProLogic II by your receiver. Generally, you want to listen to the digital tracks for superior audio quality. Some laserdiscs keep the movie soundtrack only on the digital channels, while the analog tracks will contain an audio commentary or other supplemental audio content.

If you've only hooked up the two L/R RCA audio cables to your receiver/TV, you can still listen to the digital tracks. The LD player performs D-to-A conversion itself and outputs the soundtrack as an analog signal. You use the LD player to toggle between the digital channels and the analog channels if you decide to listen to the other tracks instead.

Otherwise, you can connect the LD player to your receiver by a coax or optical cable. These cables ONLY carry the digital signal, and will not work for the analog tracks.

Therefore, to listen to the digital PCM tracks on Star Wars, you can have your player connected to the receiver by either the analog L/R cables or the digital cable. Both will work just fine. Which method of hookup is better depends on the D/A conversion quality in your receiver versus that in the LD player.

An RF-demodulator is only needed for Dolby Digital laserdiscs. Dolby Digital is very much a pain in the butt on laserdisc. Because of the limited storage space on an LD, it was decided to store the DD signal in RF-modulated form on one of the analog sound channels. That way the disc would remain backwards-compatible with non-DD equipment. Remember, in 1995 Dolby Digital was a new and exciting thing, and the equipment was very expensive and rare. A DD laserdisc still has a PCM digital soundtrack for ProLogic, but one of the analog channels is missing.

To get Dolby Digital, you must use an LD player that has an AC-3 RF output. This output is only used for Dolby Digital and nothing else. You plug this in to an external RF-demodulator, which then gets plugged into your receiver.

DTS is easier, and is more like how it works on DVD. Laserdiscs that have DTS soundtracks carry this signal on the digital channels in place of the PCM soundtrack. On a DTS LD, you can get DTS (must be output through a digital connection; no LD player will perform D/A on a DTS signal) or whatever is on the analog channels, but there is no PCM track. By the time DTS came around, it was decided to screw backwards compatibility. It was easier to just issue dual DD and DTS releases separately. Frankly, they should have done the same thing with Dolby Digital in the first place and issued dual PCM and DD releases, but they were afraid of consumer confusion and opted to shove everything onto one disc.

Confused yet?

To summarize, when all is said and done your LD player should be connected to your receiver three times:

1) Digital coax or optical to carry the PCM digital tracks or DTS.
2) Analog L/R to carry the analog tracks.
3) AC-3 RF (connected through a demodulator) to carry Dolby Digital.

You can skip step 1 if you don't plan to listen to DTS and you don't mind using the LD player's D/A conversion. You can skip step 3 if you don't care about Dolby Digital.

See my site at the link below if you have more questions.

Say JOSH Z....where were you 7 years ago years ago when I was trying to figure out how to hook up my New Laser Disc player to my first DD receiver! LOL !! I could`nt get anything to work. I eventually figured it out but its easy to see how most people would get confused!!

great stuff josh , thanks.

I get it now. Thanks for confirming my thoughts.

Im really going back and forth deciding on taking the jump to a cld-704.

I have a 27" 1998 tv and heard using the rca's on the LD player will be better as the tv is newer and will have better quality translating the picture(hence my complaint of the softness of the faces discs)

as you said the 704 would be a better bet to improve this.

well for giggles I tried the s-video( and let the LD player do the work) and the picture is much sharper, much better and much more crisp. this doesnt make sense to what people say about using rca if you have a newer tv or s-video if older. anyway it works for me. maybe i got it wrong and its the other way around but it definitley made a difference.

BTW: as stated above im using a cld-d505 LD player.


Josh: Nice site= bookmarked. should have gone there first.
didnt realize you are a local guy.

I just bought a LD player to supplement my DVD collection. I figure that even if I wait for one year for some titles(Lion King, etc), the pleasure of watching it now in DD 5.1 or with extra supplements is worthwhille. Also, all the uncut stuff that was released to laserdisc that won't be available on DVD ever. Roger Rabbit is an example, the Golden Age of Looney Tunes vol. 1 is another!

"Soul Sauce" for one. It was a compilation of R&B, Urban songs from the early 70's (like Curtis Mayfield's "Future Shock", and Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa, just to name 2). It isn't available on CD.

There's also James Brown's "Hot Pants" that contains an extended length cut of the title track.

But even when some 8-Track tapes are available on CD, they can be nearly impossible to get... like Malo's self-titled debut album "Malo".

I know that the original post was meant as a joke, but there is some truth to it.