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Unknown Memory
Joined: 15 Jan 2007
Posts: 155
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:37 pm
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Wow... I also really had no clue that they were still making laserdiscs. O.o I don't even know if I still have my RH: Men in Tights laserdic anywhere in the house. Our LD player has stopped working for years now.. Sitting in the living room dead like a rock. ^O^
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megumi's guy
Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 67
Location: Murfreesboro, Tennessee
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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:43 pm
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Unknown Memory wrote: | Wow... I also really had no clue that they were still making laserdiscs. O.o I don't even know if I still have my RH: Men in Tights laserdic anywhere in the house. Our LD player has stopped working for years now.. Sitting in the living room dead like a rock. ^O^ |
The last laserdiscs were pressed in 2001. Apparently they really liked laserdisc in Japan and kept making the players. I really would like to get my hands on one of these last new players. You should be able to find a laserdisc player on eBay.
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StudioToledo
Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 847
Location: Toledo, U.S.A.
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:48 am
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kokuryu wrote: | Ah but you all forgot about Laser Rot. I have a TON of LDs - both original Japanese and US releases. Tons of Japanese series that never made it to the US, and many US items that never got done onto DVD. But Laser Rot has crept in, and probably 1/3 of my Laser Discs are no good anymore. It's a shame. Most of those are irreplaceable.
I will probably have to buy one of these last LD models made just to make sure it's compatable with the latest TV equipment. |
I hardly saw much of that in mine.
Unit 03.5-ish wrote: | Wow. I'd heard about LDs before, but I never saw one in person in my life.
Those f*ckers are HUGE! No wonder they never caught on, they'd take up way too much space and be too unwieldy for any kind of sensible usage. |
Heh, I never thought of it that way at all. I loved what they were, and still have a giant LD collection to exploit thereof.
cool3865 wrote: | they are only as big as vinyl, make a crate and you have a nice shelve space.
forgot to say, if you think about it you can put more LD's on a shelf than you can using DVD's |
How soon we forget!
jsevakis wrote: | This makes me a sad panda, though I have to admit I thought they'd all been discontinued a few years ago. Last time I was in Tokyo I hauled back a ton of LDs of old rare stuff that never got DVD release in any country. Paid through the nose for the overweight bag I had them in... These suckers were heavy! |
Heh, I was happy as a pup when I found my first LD player 8-9 years ago ditched in a school dumpster one summer, and it worked! Those things were GOD.
Quote: | I should see if I can track down the old Streamline LD of Twilight of the Cockroaches and the Criterion LD of Akira. (It was bilingual!) |
I have the Cockroaches LD myself! Some of Streamlines titles ended up being licensed by Lumivision (they've had some nice animated titles I can't get anymore) whom I felt did a nice job releasing what they could get, many titles boasting bilingual audio tracks though without English subtitles such as with closed captioning that others like Pioneer used. The Twilight of the Cockroaches disc featured the film in widescreen (though placed closer to the top of the screen) with Japanese audio and English subtitles provided, no English-dubbed audio was provided.
st_owly wrote: | Don't forget that the laserdisc was the father of the audio CD, which then fathered the DVD.... Much higher quality than VHS, accoding to my dad. My dad reckons the reason LDs failed was that people were so obessed with the fact you could "record" your own videos, which you couldn't do with LDs. |
I feel that was the case with simple America (let alone the battle between VHS and Beta which also added to the confusion).
Quote: | Philips made LD players in Europe ~1982. My dad created a museum exhibition called "Technology of the Future" in 1983 (something like that) featuring fax machines the size of filing cabinets on each side of the gallery sending faxes to each other, an ATM dispensing genuine Bank of Toyland money, a barcode reading till and a LD player! Seems almost comical now... |
I remember stuff like that in the 80's, it was all cool.
RedTail wrote: | I found Twilight of the Cockroaches a few months back. Pristine condition. Seller only wanted $10 for it. Can you believe that? I've got Criterion's standard Akira release too, but I've been trying to get my hands on the special edition for a while. I can never find it cheap enough though. |
At least you came out lucky.
Quote: | While you're trying to snag old Streamline LDs, Justin, it might be worth tracking down a copy of Lensman too. The 3D animation is just awful. You find yourself wondering why anyone on the production staff ever thought it was a good idea splicing traditional cel animation with that crap for the entire final battle scene. |
Heh, I liked the movie anyway, have both the US and Japanese LD's of it too (the CGI was not THAT bad over Golgo 13's helicopter, and it was 1984 mind you)!
Descent123 wrote: | Lensman, what a ultra lame movie (while typing this I'm looking at my Lensman movie poster and my LD copy of the movie). |
I also have a few anime comics and some storybook adaptation of it, not to mention the souvenir booklet.
Quote: | The CGI was cool for its time, but yeah it aged. Man, that chick in Lensman looks too much like Princess Leia from Star Wars. |
Heh, wasn't that too obvious (course we also had Starchaser: The Legend of Orin which did the same).
Quote: | I got lucky on Lensman, I picked it up for $7. |
Felt I got a decent copy that doesn't have the rather buzzy audio I used to hear on it's VHS release.
Michi wrote: | I think the people crying about how big they were never grew up with a vinyl collection... haha. You store them the same way you did with those, in crates or boxes. 8D My family had some laserdiscs, but by the time I got into anime we were really just using VHS. |
I'm just glad I was around when LP's were in the stores.
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Descent123
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 3:59 pm
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StudioToledo wrote: | Heh, I liked the movie anyway, have both the US and Japanese LD's of it too (the CGI was not THAT bad over Golgo 13's helicopter, and it was 1984 mind you)! |
The only downside of the movie.
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BlackJaded
Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 332
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:10 pm
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Man I love the 80s and 90s, I may have seen laserdiscs at my years but I know their not that well back in the day! But those were great times anyway.
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StudioToledo
Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 847
Location: Toledo, U.S.A.
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:57 pm
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BlackJaded wrote: | Man I love the 80s and 90s, I may have seen laserdiscs at my years but I know their not that well back in the day! But those were great times anyway. |
I used to see them at stores in the mall and kept wishing I could have a player and some discs of my fav movies to play.
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The Unknown 24
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 112
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:24 pm
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I gave my old laser disc player away a few years ago. I still own Animeigo's Bubble Gum Crisis Laser disc Vol 1 & 2. Keeping them for souvenirs!!! I also still have the advertisement poster for the Bubblegum Crisis Laser discs.
My laser disc player was a pain in the ass. At least once a year I had to take it back to the store and have the sliding door realigned or fixed.
Laser disc here where I live, back in 1993, 1994, 1995 cost you about 25 to 30 bucks a disc. Vhs tapes were way cheaper.
Due to my money situation, I stuck with the good ole, vhs.
I think what killed the Laser disc here in the USA was the high cost of the disc and the players, and the fact that the disc were big like 12 inch vinyl records.
I have a friend who I helped get into anime collecting back in 1991. And he got crazy about it and was buying just about everything that came out on laser disc(here in the USA and Japan). The majority of his collection was lost to laser rot a few years later!!!
I was glad to see dvd's when they finally started to get released here. Easier to store.
I just hope that dvd's and vcd's don't get laser rot. That would suck to lose a video collection due to laser rot!!!
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Teriyaki Terrier
Joined: 26 Mar 2008
Posts: 5689
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:41 pm
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This reminds me of how the 80's and 90's were great times. I was just talking about to this to a couple of my friends and they said they haven't seen a laser disc in over two decades. Funny how technolgy changes over the decades. From laser discs to blue ray players.
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tygerchickchibi
Joined: 29 Sep 2006
Posts: 1474
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Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:43 pm
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Well, now I know why Tenchi Muyo is pretty popular in Japan.
It was kind of a guinea pig project that became pretty successful, sort of..
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psipsy
Joined: 01 Jul 2005
Posts: 54
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 5:36 am
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Hm, looks like I should stock up on parts. I'm pretty sure I have an extra drive belt lying about, but should supplement this.
Funny thing about my LD player is I only got it after DVD came out, which put LD player prices in freefall.
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Unit 03.5-ish
Joined: 07 Dec 2008
Posts: 1540
Location: This space for rent
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 1:15 pm
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Two things...
1. Why is it that LDs don't seem to command high prices even in after markets? It's basic economics that if something becomes rarer or of limited supply, prices will rise. That's part of the "supply and demand" theory, though, so I take it "demand" was pretty damn low after DVD took off as the standard video format.
2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't some video games/video game systems equipped for LD usage? Damn, man, imagine how huge your X360 would be and how you'd have to load it every time were this still the standard disc size!
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cool3865
Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Posts: 770
Location: Austin, TX
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:23 pm
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Unit 03.5-ish wrote: | Two things...
1. Why is it that LDs don't seem to command high prices even in after markets? It's basic economics that if something becomes rarer or of limited supply, prices will rise. That's part of the "supply and demand" theory, though, so I take it "demand" was pretty damn low after DVD took off as the standard video format.
2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't some video games/video game systems equipped for LD usage? Damn, man, imagine how huge your X360 would be and how you'd have to load it every time were this still the standard disc size! |
it was mainly used for arcade games, i dont remember any home systems that used LD's.
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rg4619
Joined: 30 Jun 2007
Posts: 163
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Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:24 pm
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Unit 03.5-ish wrote: | 2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't some video games/video game systems equipped for LD usage? Damn, man, imagine how huge your X360 would be and how you'd have to load it every time were this still the standard disc size! |
Yeah, Pioneer launched their own LD-based game system around the same time as the early CD-ROM/32-bit consoles (3DO, Amiga CD32, etc.). IIRC, the retail price was at least $1000, so it naturally bombed.
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