Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I bought three about 18 months ago and looking to buy a few more. Looking mostly for music titles which Pioneer has exculsive rights too on laserdisc.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Never bought/collected LaserDiscs, however I've seen lots of them being sold on Craigslist as of late (usually with a player for 100 bucks). Still not interested in them.

I've invested in the following formats only; VHS [had a big 1000+ collection at one time], DVD, [at over 2,500 and growing] and now Blu-ray [at a much smaller scale/only buying newer releases mostly].

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

The local Half Price Books stores all have some, and I always check to see what they have, but I haven't picked one up in ages. I haven't spun up my player either in a long time. Main reason I got it was for the original Star Wars versions and a few other things, but honestly I should have just gone "alternate methods" for Star Wars and lived without anything else.

I've been in the process of setting up a man-cave, if I ever get it in decent shape, I'll have the LD player set up in there.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I saw one once, but I've never owned one. I'm really not into flipping discs to see an entire movie.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

No. I've been throwing them out little by little. There's a stack of titles that I'll never get rid of though. I just watched my copy of Let It Be the other day.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I buy LDs only when I want to get them signed.

for autographs

LD > DVD > Blu Ray

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Never even saw a player or disc until I got a free player a couple years ago. Finally bought a couple discs at a used record store last year just so that I could say I had an LD experience.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I've never bought a laserdisc, I went straight from VHS to DVD, and until the studios come out with the extended Director's Cut of Lawnmower Man and the extended cut (or any cut) of The Keep on DVD, I'll be continuing to make that transition...-rolleyes- -kd5-

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I had over a thousand and sold them all off except two. Both are signed and framed on the wall leading to my home theater.

Michael's was selling LP black frames for $10 and get one free. If you want to hang those special covers, that's where to go.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Dumb question, when you frame an LD like that, do you take out the disc? If so, where do you store the disc?

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I bought a used Magnavox player back in 1995 for $300(!) just because I wanted to see the Halloween Criterion Collection disc.

It was a CAV disc which had better picture quality than the standard CLV disc but you could only get 30 minutes a side, so Halloween came on two double-sided discs.

The format was a big improvement over VHS with all of the features that were what made DVD a success.

The discs were expensive, I think the cheapest was $34.95, but compared with new release VHS at $89.95, it was a good price. I got The Wild Bunch, Scarface, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Apollo 13 & Clerks.

I still have the player (it still works) but I sold off the discs for about $10 each back in 1998.

It's a good thing I had the foresight to not invest anymore in that format when DVD was just around the corner.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I haven't bought one in more than a decade, but I still have about 200 from when I collected them between '92 and '98. I have considered replacing most of the films with DVDs, but the cost has put me off thus far.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Excellent idea!
I wouldn't mind buying but my player broke and BEST BUY couldn't fix it cause no parts.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I started buying LDs around 2002 and I have gone through stages of buying them and not buying them. At first I was interested in titles not on DVD (at the time), picking up things like the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy, the international cut of Blade Runner, The Red Menace, Big Man on Campus, Goldy III, The Brain, the theatrical cut of Highlander, etc. There were also things that I found cheaper than their DVD counterparts at the store that I'd buy them from, and through that I found myself really enjoying the uncompressed PCM soundtracks. In about 2006 I stopped going to that store and didn't really buy any for a while, but then I started up again when I became interested in the Disney animated features and wanted to see them on laserdisc for the PCM audio and potentially less altered representations than DVD/Blu Ray. I like laserdisc a lot, even though it's been thoroughly surpassed by Blu Ray now.

EDIT: Ooh I forgot one absolute must-own title on laserdisc, the Pioneer Special Edition of 1776.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I saved all my Disney LDs just for that reason. That, and for potentially unedited content found in such titles as The Rescuers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

A while back I bought a few Twin Peaks laserdiscs that I found used. Mostly for collector's reasons since I had the show/movie already. I've never watched them, but if I come across a used player I'll give them a spin.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Not a dumb question at all, the discs are still in the sleeve. I didn't have the heart to throw them out, even though I don't have a player anymore.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I did for a short while. I mostly bought movies that were not available on DVD at the time or if they had different special features. I bought Jetsons: The Movie long before it was on DVD, I had It's a Wonderful Life: Criterion Collection for the commentary but never watched it and just sold it. I had Mortal Kombat for the commentary, I had the Criterion of Halloween long before the commentary and stuff were put on DVD.

I've since sold all of these and some others I had as well. I'd still buy 1776 if I could find it for that extended version that has been put on DVD though.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I bought one for decoration purposes once.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Actually most laserdisc players would play both sides automatically.

I bought about 600 of them through the 90's, but haven't bought one since and I've pretty much replaced them all multiple times. Still have them all for nostalgia purposes though.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I got into Laser at the bottom. Around 2002-2003 you could buy just about any laserdisc for just a few dollars. I was after Criterion LD's that hadn't and wouldn't make it to DVD or with exclusive supplements that I thought would never make the transition. I got Robin Hood, Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, the three Bond films, Showboat, David Holzman's Diary, Magnificent Ambersons, King Kong,

A few that surprised me by later actually making it to DVD:
Blader Runner Extended Cut
Repulsion
Fires on the Plain

I also bought up select Disney titles that at the time they were eternally sitting on: Lady and the Tramp, Pinochio with special features, Bambi. They're all pretty much worthless now, but maintain a certain value by virtue of being Disney collectables. They're more valuable to Disney collectors than film fans or laserdisc fans. I bought a CAV copy of Snow White for a few bucks and when it came in the mail I was shocked. The owner was maticulous, every disc was removed and stored in it's own sleeve, the artwork was stored seperately in it's own sleeve, the whole thing is in brand new condition. If someone found a still sealed copy somewhere it wouldn't be in this good a condition by virtue of sitting with the discs in the sleeves all these years. I'm holding on to it because I think eventually it will be worth a lot to a Disney collector by virtue of it's near mint quality.

The Criterion stuff went way up in value, but today they're almost all nearly worthless. The only ones with any value are the Bond films with their infamous commentary tracks (like the Disney films, Bond films are sought after by a different breed of collector than simply "movie fans") and Showboat (which is still MIA). Maybe Amberson's will go up when the shitty DVD comes out in a few months.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Not in a LLLLOOONNNGGG time!

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Eventually they started to.

Some guy in the dorms tried to sell me his, where you had to do a flip, back when the non-flippers started to be at a reasonable price. He wanted about the same price for his used one that I could get a new one for and wouldn't negotiate because he paid so much for it new.

Those were the good old days. Back when people bought computers at high prices and expected to be able to sell it years later for a slight discount of what they paid for.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

I don't actively shop for them, but every now and then I run across one at Half-Price Books that's worth picking up. Last time this happened was about a year ago when I found a copy of Orson Wells' MACBETH.

Re: Are you still buying laserdiscs?
 

Are there any LD-only titles to get? (ie not on DVD, significant improvement over VHS).