wergo

I'm still holding on to the Pioneer box set edition of 'Natural Born Killers' - greatest laser packaging EVER. And the DVD is packaged like a crappy grey-market pirate edition.

I've held on to other lasers because of commentary tracks etc. but this one I just can't bring myself to toss out. It's the standard by which other video packaging should be judged.

matome

Ah, Massachusettes, the East Coast laserdisc mecca. The good old days of Laser Craze, Laser Exchange and Sight and Sound. I actually drove up from NY a few times just to browse the Craze on Newbury Street. Those were good times.

Chrisedge

I have around 300 with some duplicates I got when my mom died. Last one I watched was probably around 2 years ago. CC Dracula...

This would be great, as I would dump some of my titles if I knew they were popular or worth anything...

Brooklyn

The last building that Sight & Sound was in before Leo closed it down was just torn down.

RickWJ324

I bought a laserdisc player a while ago to transfer Star Wars to dvd (before the SE dvd editions were ever announced). I picked up the "faces" editions as well as the Definitive Set. I had made a decent dvd set of the Original Trilogy with all of the LD extras included. Being a perfectionist, I bought a Pioneer CLD-97 (one of the best ELITE players made) and picked up another Star Wars Definitive Collection that was still SEALED!! As I was about to start a brand new project, it was announced that GL was finally going to release the Original Trilogy (the way they should be seen)! So, right now, my project is on hold till I see the outcome of the new discs.
I also picked up the Looney Tunes Golden Collection sets (1-4, missing volume 5) to transfer them to dvd. I have been buying the Golden DVD's, but a lot of the ones on laserdisc will never see a dvd release (not politically correct). I've also picked up a few other "non-dvd" releases on laserdisc, such as Monster Squad and a few others. It's been a fun hobby transferring them to dvd. I guess the hobby will come to an end soon once everything I have on laserdisc is finally released to dvd. Still, it was fun while it lasted and I have some really great homemade dvd's to show for it!
--RickWJ324

darmok

thanks for the cleaning instructions, JoshZ; i'll have to do that on my Pioneer 504. right now, my player makes grinding noises upon disc insertion and ultimately gives up, ejecting the disc and giving me an U1 error on the display. in one out of five or more tries, i get lucky and it loads properly.

matome

I never got to Sight & Sound unfortunately. Just Laser Craze.

ScottsDvds

Sadly I haven't had time to watch my laserdisc collection for a long time now. With HD DVD and new DVD releases my laserdisc watching has diminished, even though I have a couple thousand. I'm even thinking of taking my laserdisc player out of my equipment rack in favor of Blu-ray . I miss the days of receiving huge packages from Ken Cranes and looking through the bargain bins at Camelot Music.

matome

Yeah, that should solve it. Basically what happens is the gripping ring that spins the disc loses it's "stickiness" with age and gets hard and glossy, causing it to slip when grabbing the label ring of the LD. You're basically scrubbing off the hard stuff to get the stickiness back.

rennervision

My laserdisc collection is very important to the lives of DVD Talk members. Everytime I break down and buy a laserdisc off Ebay for a movie that's not available anywhere else, a new DVD is announced within six months.

Josh Z

I'm even having trouble going back to DVD after watching a bunch of HD DVDs. I haven't played a laserdisc in probably a year.

bboisvert

I noticed that... really sad. That really was a special place, especially in the pre-DVD days back at the older location. Good times.


I actually wasn't too sad to see them go, ultimately. They really struggled in the DVD era to be relevant, and pretty much failed. They canned some of their longterm staff, hired generic (rude) help with no movie knowledge, and just became too much of a hassle.

My last interaction with them was a phone order. They had a customer screen on their system that would list all of your information -- every purchase you had ever made with them since day 1, along with a $$$ total. The guy on the phone was being a total prick, confused which edition I was ordering, and then started getting bitchy and blaming me for not being clear. I'm thinking that this guy is literally staring at a screen that says I've spent $20,000 in his store, and he's treating me like I'm a bug he's trying to swat away.

My last few orders were at Ken Cranes, then by 2000 or so, I was buying exclusively on eBay. I didn't even go to S&S's closing sale... although I was there for the Laser Craze closing, which was pretty insane.

Mike Adams

Right there with ya, Rick. You definitely have to be careful in checking for upcoming DVD releases before starting any LD-to-DVD project. Of course a lot of what I'm into is so obscure (or not obscure enough) that most sites don't mention that it's coming out on DVD, so there I am in BEST BUY and there it is. That's always a nice surprise if I'm in a DVD-buying mood (which is often), but if I've just dropped a bunch of cash on a Laserdisc of that same film on eBay, I end up turning a little green.

Most of the time I'm lucky enough to trade with someone who's already done a transfer from Laserdisc, but often it's a crappy transfer done with a standalone, so you get a two-hour-plus movie that would be too long to fit at SP, so you end up with a blocky mess that only takes up two-thirds of the disc on EP, not to mention the fact that all that "on the fly" compression can reveal itself when there's a lot of motion. I've got three different DVD transfers of "Max Headroom: The Original Story", and none of them are satisfactory. I'm in the process of tracking down a Laserdisc so I can do my own.

Mike Adams

I have more LDs now that they're obsolete than I did when they were the latest thing, mostly because I could never afford a player. Obviously, the stuff that's not on DVD yet is my top priority when buying LDs, but I do buy some just for the cover art, most often because the DVD version uses different art. I try and decide what the appropriate format would be (i.e., 1983's "The Meaning of Life" makes more sense to have on Laserdisc than 1974's "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", which I have on CED, or 1972's "And Now For Something Completely Different", which I have on Beta.) and I buy that.

I used to collect certain movies on all the different formats, but I don't do that anymore unless the artwork is significantly different (for example, I have the Criterion LD of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", since the cover is different than any other release. Come to think of it, I also have it on Beta, since the CED had different artwork as well.).

Another thing I've started doing is that since VHS is about as obsolete as Beta these days (but takes up more space), I try to get stuff on Beta whenever possible. I'm hanging on to my VHS copies for now in case I never find a reliable Beta deck, but once I've transferred the movies to DVD I don't really need to play the tape anymore, so Beta is a better choice if something is just gonna sit on the shelf.

I know a lot of people love their LDs, but for me it's a big thrill to cast off the older format in favor of a DVD release. I'm very careful to make sure I'm not losing anything when switching over to DVD, and like I said I do have several LDs just for the sake of nostalgia. Still, since space is at such a premium for me, I quite enjoy filling up my "trade-in bin", not only because it opens up some space, but because once I have enough, I can trade for more tapes & discs!

mike7162

[
Most of the time I'm lucky enough to trade with someone who's already done a transfer from Laserdisc, but often it's a crappy transfer done with a standalone, so you get a two-hour-plus movie that would be too long to fit at SP, so you end up with a blocky mess that only takes up two-thirds of the disc on EP, not to mention the fact that all that "on the fly" compression can reveal itself when there's a lot of motion. I've got three different DVD transfers of "Max Headroom: The Original Story", and none of them are satisfactory. I'm in the process of tracking down a Laserdisc so I can do my own.[/QUOTE]


I had the same compression issues with my standalone also, but fixed it by transferring each LD side at XP speed on a DVD-RW, then stitching the two together with DVD authoring software. My Star Wars transfers, some Ken Russells and Russ Meyers are, after much testing, indistigushable from the lasers.

big e

Do you guys have anything special that you store your laserdiscs in or do you just keep them on a shelf?

laseca

I bought my first laserdisc back in '94 even before I had a player. In '95 I got a top-of-the-line Sony player and my LD collection grew to about 80 just before DVDs became the rage. About half of my collection is now on DVD but the rest are titles that won't see DVD or have yet to.

Being an aviation buff, I have a lot of LDs focusing on various aircraft with air-to-air footage, some that are imports from Japan. Have a chronological set of Three Stooges LDs from Columbia and four box sets of the Little Rascals. I know some of these episodes are available on DVD but they're all in compilation DVDs and not a set in chronological order. My favs are the four LDs of the original Mission Impossible series featuring select episodes. I have the Star Wars Definitive set but given these films will be on DVD, I may still hang on to the set.

I may think about unloading half of my collection that's on DVD but the rest are keepers. My player has about 50 hours of usage so it's practically still new. I don't expect it to have any problems.

I bought special LD clear slip covers from a laserdisc store and even ones designed for box sets that have three or four LDs in them. They're all in these cases (other than the real huge ones) sitting in a stereo rack (vertically) behind glass doors.

Josh Z

I was out of town the weekend of Laser Craze's blowout sale. By the time I got back Sunday afternoon, the store's stock was pretty much decimated.

I still have one of their orange logo bags in a closet somewhere.

jdslater1

I bought my brothers Sony player and about 80 films for about £120 last year. Sorted out what I wanted to keep and sold 50 films last week at a swap meet for £50. So i didn't do too bad out of the deal.
The Stuff I kept was:
Criterion:
Ghostbusters
The Game
Robocop
se7en
The Rock
others:
Star Wars trilogy SE boxset (also have 7 signatures on that)
3 disc deluxe Cliffhanger
12 Monkeys signature collection
ID4 SE
The Long kiss goodnight
The Last boy scout
and a few others.
The last 2 I keep because I refuse to buy them on DVD until they get better treatments.
I always remember hating DVD when it came out because I said you could play any lazerdisc on any player without region coding. And that DVD would die due to the fact it was region locked.
Glad to be provern wrong!

JohnBeas

The other way to fix this problem with transfers is to have a DVD recorder with a hard drive. I have a Panasonic that you can transfer a show from the hard drive and squeeze it onto a single DVDR no matter how long it is. So I transfer to the hard drive in XP and then record onto a DVDR in the FR mode (I assume FR means "fit recording").

I still occasionally pick up laserdiscs (maybe 1-2 a year). A few years ago at one of my favorite record stores in Lansing, MI bought out someones collection. They had around 2000 discs which included a number of Discovision discs and Criterions (plus many of these were sealed!). They had them all priced at $5 a piece with a discount for buying in bulk. I found a sealed Criterion "Robinson Crusoe On Mars" which I ended up selling on ebay for around $125.

milo bloom

Is anyone in the Chicago burbs still finding used laserdiscs at any of the pawnshops and such? I used to find them at Cash Converters, but haven't seen any there for some time now.

Filmmaker

At its height, my collection was 230 titles strong, but now, I've whittled it down to about 45 titles, all either unreleased on DVD or with vital bonus features that never ported over to DVD. Unfortuantely, though, it's hard to get excited to watch something so obviously below DVD's video standard, so I couldn't tell you the last time I actually watched one (though I did use the main T-Rex scene from JURASSIC PARK's LD to test my new surround system I got for my birthday last month). Does anyone know why laserdisctracker.com is offline? Assuming it's permanent, is there any other online catalogue source that's good for LDs?

Josh Z

Go to LDDb. Much better than LaserdiscTracker ever was.

chente

This makes me sad. You're my Laserdisc hero, Josh.

ScottsDvds

I use One Stop Chicago plastic sleeves and store them in bookcases purchased at Target a few years back. The bookcase has nine cubicles that are just a little taller than the laserdiscs and it's well built.