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Boom! I’m visiting my dad and he’s got a bunch of these so I thought I’d share. Does anyone remember Laserdisc? Their big thing was quality - much better than VHS. The downside is they were expensive, and you had to swap disks a lot because a single one couldn’t hold as much runtime as a VHS. My dad was an early adopter, and these days I think their value lies in the big beautiful artwork they plastered all over these things. Let’s take a look! Here’s the back:  Here’s what the average disk looks like. They’re usually double sided:  It’s about 4x the size of a CD, and a scratch will usually make them skip. Check out this classic:   Whenever possible my dad tried to preserve the plastic cover, to varying success. Also the disks have plastic sleeves too, in various types and styles:  This movie was okay IMO but the cover is gorgeous. The backside is pretty standard.   Hell yeah.  I love this one! Very striking.  They stuffed about 16 classic episodes in it. This seems familiar. Copyright much??  The back is boring but apparently it’s a documentary about the Apollo missions. Now we’re talkin. This is a 2 disc 4 sided mammoth.   The front of this one was dirty and faded and you can see the bottom is mega warped, but the disc still looked good and the back is neat.  Zulu was the first one in the pile that opens like a book. Neat.  But on the inside they decided to write a loving novel lol.  Anyway that’s about half the pics I got so far. I’ll do the rest in a bit. Oh wait I got one more  This is before George poo poo up the movie with CGI so it’s probably worth its weight in gold. It also opens up like a book and I’ll share that later. Talk about Laserdiscs ITT or share any Laserdiscs stories!
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Mar 17, 2025 22:03
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| # ? Apr 26, 2025 19:24 |
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the original trilogy star wars movies on laserdisc are the best, highest-quality versions of the movies you can get that aren't touched by the late 90's
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Mar 17, 2025 22:09
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My HS chemistry teacher showed us this video about the alkali metals on laserdisc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZY6d6jrq-0 We watched it over and over and it basically became a class meme. ("Let's try cesium!") Teketeketeketeke fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Mar 17, 2025 |
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Mar 17, 2025 22:17
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Yeah I'm a big LaserDisc collector. Movies with the appeal of vinyl? The only way to get decent quality releases of a lot of stuff that is nearly impossible to find on DVD? Commentaries that were only released on LD? A lot of cool reasons to collect LDs. I got a really nice player with the ability to flip the laser inside the player so you don't manually have to flip the disc along with some other bells and whistles. I got a bunch of CAV discs which are really fun to play with because they're the ones where you can go frame by frame. I also have a really nice VCR capable of that and that one also has a jog wheel but VHS of course looks like poo poo and has limited widescreen releases whereas LD tended to release movies in their actual aspect ratios. Some of the things I have that are p cool little niche purchases: Special edition of The Arrival. I have a soft spot for this corny 90s sci-fi movie. The LD has a commentary track by David Twohy that was never released on any successive platforms. I have the Goldfinger and From Russia With Love releases with LD commentary. Not much value in these opposed to later commentaries honestly. You're not going to hear anything you haven't heard before except with a side of like, an occasional homophobic slur. I have a Japanese Twin Peaks boxed collection, along with Fire Walk With Me. Not much unique about these, I just like them. The box set contains an extras disc that I can't understand a word of lol.
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Mar 17, 2025 22:19
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MrQwerty posted:the original trilogy star wars movies on laserdisc are the best, highest-quality versions of the movies you can get that aren't touched by the late 90's I have these too but you can get fan Despecialized versions that have better quality footage online nowadays.
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Mar 17, 2025 22:19
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is this just going to be what the forums are going forward, a big sequence of sad "remember this garbage from the Reagan administration?" tours of the thrift shop for the ones who aren't allowed to leave the memory ward anymore?
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Mar 17, 2025 22:26
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you don't have to post here if you don't like it
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Mar 17, 2025 22:27
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i guess I was just hoping for more of the soothing pictures of nature imagery as they euthanize you from the 1973 classic Soylent Green
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Mar 17, 2025 22:32
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Teketeketeketeke posted:My HS chemistry teacher showed us this video about the alkali metals on laserdisc: holy poo poo, i believe i saw this same video in school, also on LD.
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Mar 17, 2025 23:09
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I have the Star Wars trilogy on CED which is like a laserdisc but vinyl (or something similar). It's neat but I think the player might be broken.
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Mar 17, 2025 23:17
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lmao CED was so loving dumb to continue with considering the time and monetary investment + reliability and quality issues that it destroyed RCA as an actual company
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Mar 17, 2025 23:20
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I have two or three full boxes of CEDs and each box weighs like 50lbs. I inherited them from my dad when he died. My mom was going to toss them but there are a lot of good movies in that collection!
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Mar 17, 2025 23:28
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Weird, I have never even heard of the CED format.
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Mar 17, 2025 23:29
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No one has. I've never met a single person in real life that knew what that was.
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Mar 17, 2025 23:31
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AcidCat posted:Weird, I have never even heard of the CED format. RCA dumped their entire existence into it and then got clowned by laserdisc by the time they got it to work semi-properly in a manner which was not particularly but more cost effective on production, and it still cost like the better format and they both got clowned by VHS, VideoCD and DVD
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Mar 17, 2025 23:34
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Here’s the interior of the Star Wars case. Excellent screen grab here. Two copies of The Thing? I’ll leave it to you which is better.  Another classic, but I’m not a fan of their use of space here. The backside isn’t much better.  Aww hell yes. My dad isn’t a big fan of comedies but this is a banger.  Maybe the only time a low res jpeg is appropriate for a movie case.  This one was especially filthy but I liked the sharp use of color.  This is the first example of showing the sides of a disc on the case, which is something I’m not a fan of.  Ok now here we loving go. This is another book style case and it owns.  I especially love the inside. Just the chapter names and rad screen grabs. All killer no filler.  This might be my favorite. Just excellent tone setting going on here. Gorgeous.  Weirdly he also has this sample disc of various music videos. This one is special because it’s smaller, and also colored on one side of the disc. Maybe it came with the player I dunno.  This one is okay. Decent movie decent case, but I like how the plastic film is hanging on for dear life.  Here’s an example of one I think sucks. They can’t all be winners! But it had some charm for me because it made me think of the guy you find in the shipping crate in Disco Elysium.  Finally, we have the worst of the bunch. This is just a low res screen grab. Very little effort here.  Even the back is uninspiring. Great movie though.  Anyway, that’s all I got! There were others but they weren’t interesting. I remember watching a few of these growing up. I never minded having to swap out discs all the time but alas those were the days.
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Mar 18, 2025 00:55
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Those are some good movies you got there. Ayup.
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Mar 18, 2025 01:27
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The CED theoretically could've been made in the 70s, since they started working on it in 1964, just the labs division wasn't very organized and they preferred to come up with new ideas rather than finish up old ones and move them to market. There's a big long Technology Connections youtube series about it. It's a silly story, and I think that it might actually be better for the world in general that rewritable tape formats initially dominated the market and shaped our media landscape. And then over in Japan where the economy was booming at the peak of the bubble, the market was robust enough to sustain lots of different consumer electronics and multiple media formats, there was fairly wide adoption of Laserdisk, including HD laserdisk, and JVC even ripped off the CED with their own vinyl disk format, the VHD, which had moderate success within its region. Meanwhile over in Europe, Philips tried to do its own videotape format with the Video 2000, and failed miserably. It's kinda funny how bitter they were over Japanese domination of the market, they got the government to price fix Betamax and VCRs in order to better compete, and also had ads like this. 
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Mar 18, 2025 01:28
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MrQwerty posted:the original trilogy star wars movies on laserdisc are the best, highest-quality versions of the movies you can get that aren't touched by the late 90's Not entirely true sir!  https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k77/
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Mar 18, 2025 01:34
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There's still some wild poo poo out there that's exclusive to laserdisc. One of the releases for Alien accidentally featured a text sound mix for the 70s "Sensurround" format (infamously used by disaster movies like Earthquake for bass so booming it shook your seats in the theater) that's never been heard before or since. I don't have a good sound system to tell if any of the ridiculous bass or stereo surround carried over into these youtube clips, but you can still hear some differences in sound effects and editing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIAiSzg6x0k (Full playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNv8OzIxI7Oe8nqSljJQ5BfiellNb8kVi&si=rDJ6jY4WNyAiuVTs) There's also some audio commentaries for the James Bond flicks that have never been carried over from the laserdisc releases because they were considered too frank and opinionated/offensive.
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Mar 18, 2025 01:43
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Thank you, OP, for sharing. Laserdisc is very cool to me, since it's an analog format that nevertheless was based on the same principles used for audio CDs and DVDs. A fun video on the CED format, an interesting "could have been" (he has videos on most media formats): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpX8d8zRIA Edit: someone linked it above
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Mar 18, 2025 01:47
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Sir Mat of Dickie posted:Laserdisc is very cool to me, since it's an analog format that nevertheless was based on the same principles used for audio CDs and DVDs. I was about to be all  but decided to google it first and discovered, whadya know, turns out laserdisc is indeed an analog format. Which I totally don't understand how an optical disc could be analog, and it's like every time I think I actually understand this AV poo poo I get the rug pulled out from under me and it's like "nope I don't know poo poo lol!"
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Mar 18, 2025 01:51
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Just another way corporate America poo poo all over MovieRecord before it ever saw the light of day.
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Mar 18, 2025 04:08
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I had an off brand laserdisc player that could read both sides of the disc without having to flip it. I sold it though, and kept a Pioneer player without that feature but was a combo 5 CD changer that can hold 5 CDs and a laserdisc at the same time.
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Mar 18, 2025 04:20
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I have about 75 laserdiscs. I used to have over 500 VHS tapes but they took up too much room and I did a major hoarding overhaul and got rid of a lot of stuff. All my laserdiscs fit neatly on one shelf. I used to have a player that automatically played both sides that I got at a thrift store for $15 but sometimes the disc tray wouldn't open it and I broke it trying to fix it (I got high on amphetamine and took it apart). Now I just have a boring library player I got 15 years ago for $15 at the university surplus sale. I don't have it hooked up and haven't played a disc in years so maybe I will sell these too but it seems like a big task. 
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Mar 18, 2025 04:24
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you broke my grill posted:I have about 75 laserdiscs. I used to have over 500 VHS tapes but they took up too much room and I did a major hoarding overhaul and got rid of a lot of stuff. All my laserdiscs fit neatly on one shelf. I used to have a player that automatically played both sides that I got at a thrift store for $15 but sometimes the disc tray wouldn't open it and I broke it trying to fix it (I got high on amphetamine and took it apart). Now I just have a boring library player I got 15 years ago for $15 at the university surplus sale. I don't have it hooked up and haven't played a disc in years so maybe I will sell these too but it seems like a big task. I'll give you $15 for it.
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Mar 18, 2025 04:26
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Pennywise the Frown posted:No one has. I've never met a single person in real life that knew what that was. I have a few discs and a non-working player. It's actually really bizarre format.
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Mar 18, 2025 04:59
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When I was a weirdo curious preteen who tinkered with electronics, I bought an RCA CED player with a select few movies that went along with it for $5 at a yard sale. It powered up, but the intake mechanism was touchy. I took the unit apart and greased the gears along with cleaned the inside and it worked like a champ. Some of the movies I remember it came with were The Beatles Let It Be, An American Werewolf in London, Rocky II & III, Fame, and Excalibur. It just didn't hold my interest enough to keep it and the movies skipped a lot, so I traded it into a record shop that took in niche electronics and I’m sure some other curious goober bought it and/or the movies. This was over thirty years ago.
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Mar 18, 2025 06:05
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sure okay posted:I’m visiting my dad and he’s got a bunch of these so I thought I’d share. Does anyone remember Laserdisc? Their big thing was quality - much better than VHS. The downside is they were expensive, and you had to swap disks a lot because a single one couldn’t hold as much runtime as a VHS. My dad had a great Laserdisc collection when I was a kid but then he sold it all when we needed money  . He had some awesome ones too. I vividly remember the huge laser disc cover of Shocker. I've thought about getting him a new Laserdisc as there's a local video store that sells old Laserdisc films there but my understanding is Laserdiscs dont play that well with modern tvs anyways so it'd be more of a display gift than something he'd actually use probably.
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Mar 18, 2025 07:36
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Need to see SLC Punk on LD to get the full recursive loop going Of course there’s more; much more!
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Mar 18, 2025 07:46
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:is this just going to be what the forums are going forward, a big sequence of sad "remember this garbage from the Reagan administration?" tours of the thrift shop for the ones who aren't allowed to leave the memory ward anymore? Welcome to middle age Seth Pecksniff fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Mar 18, 2025 |
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Mar 18, 2025 11:47
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My dad was also an early adopter and continued buying them until we had the Japanese release of Phantom Menace and The Matrix. I grew up with a library of a little over 500 titles and so I had a depth of pop culture awareness that still makes me a handy pub trivia teammate. I have fond memories of the Full Moon Features collection, especially
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Mar 18, 2025 22:51
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SonOfGhostDad posted:My dad was also an early adopter and continued buying them until we had the Japanese release of Phantom Menace and The Matrix. I grew up with a library of a little over 500 titles and so I had a depth of pop culture awareness that still makes me a handy pub trivia teammate. I have fond memories of the Full Moon Features collection, especially That's cuz Full Moon movies rule. Some of the best B movie output
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Mar 18, 2025 23:01
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I haven't looked at these in over 30 years.   Score! Knowing my dad, everything is probably alphabetized or organized in some way.  I hope my CED chat isn't ruining the laserdisc chat. That's not my intention. They just seem very related.
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Mar 18, 2025 23:11
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i wanna watch some puppet master movies on laserdisc ngl
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Mar 18, 2025 23:12
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Sometimes the laserdisc version has deleted scenes that haven't been included in other media. The Muppet Christmas Carol, for example, has "When Love is Gone," as God intended. The laserdiscs are still the best way to watch the original theatrical cuts of the first Star Wars trilogy and some prints include deleted scenes. Also, although the picture is on average not as good as DVD, the sound is much better. Jurassic Park on laserdisc is insane.
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Mar 18, 2025 23:15
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Lil Swamp Booger Baby posted:
No poo poo. I loved this movie growing up and I need to revisit it to see if any of it holds up today.
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Mar 18, 2025 23:18
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Sir Mat of Dickie posted:Thank you, OP, for sharing. Laserdisc is very cool to me, since it's an analog format that nevertheless was based on the same principles used for audio CDs and DVDs. Fun fact: CDs are called "compact discs" because Laserdisc came first and were gigantic, so they needed to manage expectations directly in the format name
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Mar 18, 2025 23:20
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Laserdiscs were made that size in part to be compatible with record cases and racks, haha.
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Mar 18, 2025 23:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5MjyUCnJD0
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Mar 18, 2025 23:53
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