Will laserdiscs ever make a comeback ?
 

I just received an ad from J & R about vinyl LPs so if they can still be around why can't laserdiscs. I can see a small company grabbing exculsive rights to alot of movies yet to make it to DVD and license them on LD. Producing players might be the big problem. I couldn't see anyone spending over 200 for a player.

Vinyl LPs are still around because, with a proper setup and care, they still offer better audio quality than any other available format, so there is an audiophile market for them.

Laserdiscs, on the other hand, offer inferior A/V quality to currently available technology and that would be the only reason for them to be around. I guarantee they won't make a comeback. The home cinephile has moved on to DVD, if not Blu-ray.

I'd say it's about as likely as VHS making a comeback.

is this a serious thread?

My dvd's dont occupy enough of my storage space, I wish they made them bigger

I can't tell.

This is a silly thread. However, to play a little bit of devil's advocate, IF Blu-Ray HD with uncompressed sound was not currently available I could see a potential very small niche market of people who would prefer the uncompressed audio options of Laserdisc to DVD.

However, as that is not the case, there really is no chance of a laserdisc. Just because laserdiscs are the same size as LPs doesn't really mean they directly translate as the video equivelant of LPs.

The laserdisc is dead. I don't think there is any nostalgia for laserdiscs the same way there is for LP records. Just like CED video discs, Betamax, VHS, audio cassettes and 8-Tracks, they will never return.

I still love that one scene in Back to the Future Part II when they are in the year 2015 and you can see in the background a huge garbage bag of laserdiscs laying in the back alley.

I've just purchased exclusive rights to begin producing more laser discs, thereby proving all you naysayers wrong. It's the best $25 I ever spent. My assembly lines in China are already running. And in order to get more people interested, I've made LD's even bigger! All LD's will now be the size of car tires... that way no one will be able to miss my product! Bigger is better, right?

I'm also setting up an exchange program. You can trade in all those pesky DVD's and Blu-Ray's for store credit toward your new LD's! I expect my new job to rake in millions. When I've earned enough I will buy this site and rename it FuckingHugeLDTalk.com. I hope you're all ready for a real change around here.

Go team!

As kefrank said, it's not merely an issue of nostalgia when it comes to records. They can genuinely offer a much richer audio experience. But laser disc can't say the same thing. It's dead. Hell, I never even knew anyone that had laserdiscs before DVD came out.

BTF II almost got it right. If that big garbage bag had eBay written on it, they would have nailed it.

In addition to everything already posted, unlike vinyl LPs, pressing a laserdisc requires stringent clean-room conditions. It's too impractical for a hobbyist to set up in his basement or a small company to run out of a warehouse. It just isn't going to happen.

Also still used by a number of club DJs.

Laserdisc is dead. End Thread....

Just a random question: is it possible to make a Blu-Ray or a DVD the size of an LD, or is the physical size of the disc an unchangeable part of the format? Whenever I saw LDs, I found it amazing that they seemed to have trouble getting the entirety of a movie onto the surface of a single LD and yet they can even cram three not-too-lengthy films onto one DVD.

One of the innovations of DVD was the dual layer process. Essentially it allowed them to put two sides onto one side by having two layers that are readable by the laser.

The earliest DVDs did NOT have this, and actually had side flipping, just like LDs.

LDs were made in a bunch of different sizes, there were 8 inch discs that were usually music discs, and contained a few music videos.

Is it possible? I guess so, but the physical size of the disc is part of the respective format specification, so you'll never actually see one produced that is outside of the specification.

Well, yes and no. With Laserdiscs you always had to flip the disc to watch the whole movie. With single-layer DVDs, most movies still fit on a single side with a bit more compression, so you didn't have to flip. You only needed to flip if it was a longer movie, or sometimes to see the extras.

Anyway, in regards to the original question, "Selectavision or no sale!"

I don't think I've ever laid eyes on a laserdisc lol.

I never had an LD player. I didn't know you had to flip them to watch the whole film. No wonder it was such a niche market.

I remember when Media Play (also now long dead) was clearing out LDs at the end of 97 or so. They had them all 95% off.

Well, I would say that if a small company decided to license movies that haven't made it to DVD, it would be far more likely that they would just put them on DVD.

I would imagine Laserdiscs are much more expensive to produce. They're bigger, bulkier, and the machinery to produce them are obsolete and likely hard to come by. You can buy a hundred blank DVD's at Best Buy for a few bucks. Also, almost no one has a Laserdisc player while most people with a TV do have DVD players.

If you're operating on the assumption that a small company would find producing Laserdiscs to be cheaper than DVD's, I think you're mistaken.

They already make 3-inch BD-R's for camcorders, so they could make 'em bigger than 5 inches if there was anything to play them on.

Exactly.

fyp :d

Yeah, laserdiscs were DVD's competition. DVD has not only dominated the market, it completely turned home video ownership into a pretty new market compared to what VHS offered. We're talking day and date releases instead of 'rental only' releases, and a whole slew of TV shows in season sets, for starters. Laserdisc is dead and gone, and we're already past the HD format war. I've got my eye on blu-ray...

Not only did you have to flip the LD, depending on the way it was encoded on the disc, you may have had to change out the LD and then flip again. Soem higher-end players could automatically flip playing sides, but I don't think I ever heard of an LD changer.