Laserdisc - Why It Ruled (And Still Does)

Culturedog Sam Hatch delivers a primer on the now-outdated laserdisc home video format and a testimony of his personal connection to all things big, silvery and semi-digital.
Listen to "Culture Dogs" Sunday nights at 8pm EST on WWUH, 91.3 FM in CT. Also streaming live (and then archived via StreamRewind) on:
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Intro music: "Anger Mgmt." by Sever the Drama.
www.severthedrama.com
Stop by Zaranyzerak's channel and check out some of his laserdisc musings:
/ zaranyzerak
This episode is brought to you by the word "shiny" and the phrase "12 inches of goodness"
Contents:
0:00 Opening Titles
0:14 Introduction
0:41 LaserDisc Format
2:00 First LaserDisc Encounter
3:17 Home Theater Origins
4:30 LaserDisc's Evolution
7:00 Collecting in the 90s and Anime LDs
8:56 Seeing the Aliens Special Edition
9:38 Letterboxing
11:29 Shopping for My First Player
13:04 CAV and CLV Formats
14:41 LaserDisc's Longevity
15:49 Signal Chain (Circa 2014)
16:14 Reasons for Collecting
18:00 LD Shopping Memories
19:21 LD Audio Formats
20:20 LaserDisc Magazines
21:01 Imported LaserDiscs
21:30 Final Thoughts

[@StefanHomberger]

Awesome video. I may only be 27, but I'm far more excited to start collecting anime on Laser Disc than getting blu ray films.

[@Culturedog]

Stefan Homberger Thanks! Glad to see there's a newer generation of laserdisc fans out there! I need to start adding anime LDs too - need to get some classic Macross and Dirty Pair. And Robot Carnival. And the Akira CAV boxed set... and... :-D

[@StefanHomberger]

I just ordered two different (1 NA, 1 JPN) versions of Akira as my first 2 LD purchases! I love 80's and 90's Japan. I'm also a big PC Engine and FM Towns collector from that period.

[@kabazoochuboom1]

Almost 5 years later and still coming back to this video because it's cool!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks buddy! Someday I'm gonna freshen it up with some real lighting haha.

[@IIGrayfoxII]

Imagine if they made a Bluray in the size of a Laser Disc? 4.7" or 12cm can give you 25GB on single layer, 50GB on a double layer and 128GB on a quad layer. 100GB on single layer? 200GB on double layer? 500GB on quad layer?

[@JonnyInfinite]

the new 4K bluray discs support 100 GB

[@Herfinnur]

+IIGrayfoxII A 30cm laserdisc has two and a half times the diameter, but a bit over  six times the area (I think?). 25Gb times six is 150gb. The always-buy-the-largest-pizza principle applies here too :)

[@JonnyInfinite]

+Herfinnur Árnafjall dude you have no idea what you're talking about

[@Herfinnur]

How so?

[@JonnyInfinite]

Yo can't compare a Blu-ray to laserdisc, laserdisc is an analog forma. Its like comparing an SD card to a video tape

[@batman.darthmaul]

One cool thing about laserdisc was, even though DVD had much better picture quality, the audio was actually better than DVD. DVD uses a lot of compression because it''s so small, but laserdisc had the luxury of using essentially uncompressed Dolby Digital and DTS. The audio on the laserdisc versions of Attack of the Clones, or the DTS laser of Jurassic Park totally blew away the DVD versions.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Funny thing is Jurassic Park actually keeps loosing more and more picture informations with every new Video release. The DVDs already have a slightly cropped image compared to the Laserdisc. And the Blu-ray is cropped even more.

[@tvillingplymouth519]

I love all these old format,really cool to listen to different,records,cassette,8 track,reel to reel,cd,minidisc,dvd,blue ray,DAT,VHS.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Yeah. It's like every format is a different teller of a story. So you can't help but listen to the way these different tellers read you the stories you know so well :) It's always fun to experience them in a slightly different way. And the physical aspect adds a lot to it. It's a difference enjoying different physical formats rather than different digital file formats.

[@runeodin7237]

Then you might enjoy Techmoan's channel, where (among other things) a lot of audio and video formats (many of them totally forgotten) are presented (from a UK perspective)

[@tbonethemann3525]

Great informative video. Laserdisc had its day. Surely paved the way for DVD, BLu Ray , streaming and 4K.

[@Culturedog]

Thanks! Yeah, there's a direct throughline there for sure! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@dvdmike007]

Still my favorite format

[@spida1a]

LOVE your story! Thanks for sharing it (subbed!). I collected for about six years and it's hard to explain but ... when you collected LaserDiscs, it FELT special. :)

[@Culturedog]

+spida1a Thank you, thank you!! (one for watching, one for subbing!) Absolutely, it's hard to put into words. It always felt like you were picking up something far more serious than VHS - like you had gotten a 35mm print of the film or something.

[@TwoboltsPictures]

Thank you my friend! This info really helps! I really appreciate it! And thanks for posting your cool laserdisc videos, love watching them!

[@Culturedog]

jrdaisy100100 No problem! Glad to hear you enjoy the videos! Will be posting a bunch more this week.

[@leejones7139]

I'm a massive movie guy got hundreds of blu rays and even started a collection of 4k blu ray, but for some reason I really want to buy a laserdisc player all of a sudden! Never seen one in my life and I'm nearly 30 which makes them even more intriguing and I really love the look of the covers and box sets!

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, there's something about that oversized artwork and the killer presentation that a lot of the box sets have. There are a lot of cheap players out there, depending on where you're located. Watch out though, once you get hooked you'll be ordering discs left and right!

[@leejones7139]

I'm in the uk, I've got my eye on a pioneer cld d925 which looks ideal as it's multi region. I really have to find a bargain though as convincing my partner that I need a laserdisc player in 2016 will be tough if it's not cheap!

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, I have no idea how some hobbyists can pull off dropping over a thousand dollars on the late-era Japanese Muse LD players. There's no way I could ever explain that to my wife and not get the "are you crazy?" look. Good luck with snagging a CLD-D925 - that's pretty much the ideal PAL/NTSC player right there!

[@leejones7139]

Well the auction ends in a few days so I'll report back and let you know how I get on. By the way really enjoying your channel it keeps me entertained (and awake) while working nights haha!

[@andycristea]

Hey! How did you do on that D925? I just got a D704 myself! :D

[@janey4319]

I've been interested in LD since like 2018, especially because of anime and Japanese music videos/karaoke. I finally found a DVL-700 at the thrift store for 29.99 so I guess now's my chance! Your videos have been a great introduction to the format, thank you!

[@Culturedog]

Wow, that's a great price for a DVL! Thanks for checking out the videos!!

[@matthewgaudet4064]

Love the audio on laserdisc, the supplements. The cover art. It is probably my favorite way to watch anime.

[@kingcrimson234]

I love Laserdisc, and I didn't even get into it until a couple of years after they stopped making them. I wanted to back in the early 90's but I was just a kid. It's got it's limitations, but it's just such a fun format. The presentation is great, and a well-made disc *does* look pretty good on a quality player as far as standard def goes. It can sometimes get near-ish DVD quality. It certainly blows VHS out of the water.

[@SuperKokuJin916]

Like most kids of the 80s & 90s, my first run in with the LD format was in school. My science teacher had one in a lab room and showed us a documentary about the tropical rain forests! I was blown away! The sound and video were amazing. As an anime fan, I knew for years how the much better the LD releases were. Central Park Media were the only major US distributors that supported LD. I always wanted one but being a 9 yr old 4th grader didn't leave many options. I begged my parents in vain for it as a combo birthday and Christmas gift (only a day apart LOL). It was a couple of years before I knew someone with a player. His parents only used it for karaoke VCDs when family would visit! LOL. I wonder if they still have it...

[@Culturedog]

Oh man, sorry that birthday/Christmas combo gift idea didn't pay off! That totally sounds like the sort of thing I'd have tried as well - I was always pitching big-ticket items to my folks as "combo" presents, and failing to succeed!

[@mrhappy0121]

Just found your channel great content.... I'm happy that this channel exists

[@Culturedog]

mrhappy0121 Thanks a ton! Glad you're digging the videos!!

[@The_Husband_of_Jane_Lane]

A lot of Laserdisc films can be found at Rasputin Music and Video stores in the Bay Area.

[@rickshawjr73]

Just started collecting Laserdisc last year. Just posted collection video on my channel. Love the format even though it's 40 years old but still going strong.

[@Culturedog]

Heck yeah! So much fun collecting them, and I love being able to nab boxed sets and imports for a fraction of what they originally went for!

[@kylel3703]

Nice video.. Long live laserdisc!

[@Culturedog]

+kylel l Thanks!

[@clyth41]

Hear hear...

[@cashe18]

Robocop 2 on AC3 is still the best surround I ever heard! I still have my unit.

[@Culturedog]

+Carlos Pineiro Nice! Do you have the pressing that came out in the late 90s? That one is pretty hard to find.

[@cashe18]

Culturedog I'm actually not sure. I have had the unit in storage for years. I recently put the player with my whole collection up for sale. So I took pics of every disc. Check them out if you like. it's a public album. facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10156757531795454.1073741829.722240453&type=1&l=797fba939a

[@cashe18]

Culturedog Here is a direct link to the pic of the RoboCop 2 disc. facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156757533010454&set=a.10156757531795454.1073741829.722240453&type=3&theater

[@CrowTRobot-ni7zu]

From a young guy (24) who grew up with this format, thank you for this video. I wish our DVL-919 still worked properly!

[@Culturedog]

No problem - thanks for watching, James! Sorry to hear your player stopped working.

[@candelariosaenziii2729]

Wow! I'm so impressed and amazed by this video and your knowledge and stories!!!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@candelariosaenziii2729]

@@Culturedog I would really like to start collecting!

[@mikecozart2505]

Laserdisc is physical media at its most physical. Fun to collect and nostalgic to watch.

[@Culturedog]

Absolutely!

[@morrisonAV]

Great video, dog. I've been into LD since the late '70s when my more "affluent" friends started buying players and disks. I didn't get my first player until the Pioneer 838 came out with Digital Audio. I'm sitting on a collection of hundreds of titles but I've been wondering what to do with them lately. It was the best format for collectors/film fans like me and you are right.....the audio was a lot better than what got released on early DVD's. Thanks for keeping the faith!

[@Culturedog]

***** Thanks! Super cool to hear from someone who was there from the beginning. If you ever get tired of that collection, give me a shout! :-) Cheers!

[@joelbooska7664]

Thanks for the vid, man! I remember my first experience with LD was back around 1993. This older guy my friend knew had just this HUGE collection of everything; VHS, CD's, 35MM prints, posters, cardboard promo's, projector, movie theater screen room with theater chairs, old pop-corn machine...I was floored. One day, he let my friend borrow a LD player and we ended up hooking it up at my house to watch that evening on a regular old tv set. The only title he had was "The Sleeping Car" with David Naughton. Not a very good movie as I remember, but it was awesome to be watching a laserdisc.

[@Culturedog]

Joel Booska No problem! Glad you enjoyed! Man, that collector sounds just like a guy who used to live down the street from me until a few years ago - same thing, impossibly huge collection on any and every format, and he would buy chairs from a theater out in California every time they rotated stock. Made my setup look puny!

[@joelbooska7664]

His name didn't happen to be Steve, did it? lol

[@Culturedog]

Joel Booska It certainly did! That's hilarious! He lives down in Florida now.

[@joelbooska7664]

Holy s**t! No way lol! Yes, he lives down in Fla now! Exactly! Same dude, no question. He had an upstairs collection off to the right side an then you'd go down the stairs to the leftand enter a dark world of mystical movie magic with his theater room...Seedpeople cardboard movie promo on the right. Small world man!

[@Culturedog]

Joel Booska Yup, that's it exactly! He used to do screenings on the weekends and half the town would cram into his basement. I only got to go over there once or twice before he moved, but it was crazy!

[@phenwagner7]

awesome video!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks for watching!!

[@JoelCrager]

I am right there with you laserdiscs are old, but cool at the same time to true laser peeps. I have grown my collection to over 20,000 movies and karaoke discs over the last 12 years. I am in the big pain in the ass process of putting them in alphabetical order right now is going very slow. I also have many of the players one in particular though that I am still surprised I managed to buy is the Pioneer LC-V3000 the commercial karaoke 72 disc changer setup from 92 in mint condition. You only have play and stop functions for movies, but works out for movies that are more than 1 disc. I have very much enjoyed collecting laserdiscs and still do today. I keep telling myself I am done buying them, but still have not stopped. Keep on collecting :-)

[@Culturedog]

Nice! That's one hefty collection you've got! I feel your pain regarding sorting them properly. Very cool that you've got one of those karaoke mega-changers! I've seen them crop up for sale once or twice, but usually in bad shape. I always wondered how they performed though. Thanks for watching and commenting! Hope you keep enjoying all those giant shiny discs!

[@odotb9916]

Brilliant video. I absolutely adore my Laserdisc collection to this day. Like you said, 12 inches of shiny goodness! I have many Laserdiscs and i spin them up on a Pioneer CLD-D925 (I live in the UK). My favourite LD has to be the special edition CAV Lion King boxset. It is the only way you can watch the original theatrical cut in its original ratio and the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack still blows me away. Thanks for the video.

[@Culturedog]

Thanks for the awesome comments! Glad you enjoyed the video - it's always great running across more laserdisc enthusiasts! I definitely need to pick up a copy of that Lion King box. I've got the CLV bare bones version, but that CAV set is really nice looking!

[@Culturedog]

Riddler95 It's pretty sad actually - my Disney collection is pretty much all on DVD and Blu-ray (and VHS, but don't tell anybody). I think on laserdisc I only have The Lion King, Fantasia and Toy Story. I need to start grabbing some CAV sets for sure!

[@adbarrnz]

What a great summary, and my history mirrors yours in many ways! It's like a walk down memory lane. I first saw LaserDisc in 1992 at a local audio store, and decided I would buy one a year later during my first year at college, just after I turned 17. I bought a Sony MDP-533 (the European version of the 333: I haven't thought about that machine for more than a decade) as it was literally the only player in my city at the time, and a copy of Dances With Wolves. Eventually I ended up with a stash of great box sets (Star Wars Definitive, Aliens, T2, lots of Criterion stuff, and some of the nice box sets from Disney and Universal like Toy Story, Jaws and The Thing) all shipped in from Ken Cranes (man, imagine shipping that huge Star Wars box set from the US to New Zealand: it was over US$500 all up, and I saved for months first. My family thought I was insane). That Sony used to annoy me every time I used it, as the stupid sprung drawer would always jam up when it opened, and the remote had a life of its own. The Sony was eventually replaced by a Denon 3300 for AC-3 (with a Yamaha DSP-A3090), then a Yamaha DVD player in 1997, an HD-DVD player in 2007 and a Blu-ray player in 2008. My house now has a dedicated home theatre room with a projection set-up and 11.1 audio, with a whole wall dedicated to shelves of movies, plus a very tolerant wife. I've been been through so much hardware, and bought my favourite movies over and over in so many formats, I don't even want to think about it! I always wanted a copy of The Keep on LD, but by the time I could actually get one I didn't have a player, unfortunately (I gave them up when quite a few started to rot, which was a crying shame).

[@Culturedog]

adbarrnz Wow, shipping that Star Wars box from Ken Cranes showed some serious dedication - that's awesome! Very cool home theater evolution story, thanks for sharing! Someday I hope to be able to get the room to really spread out with a large home theater, instead of just cramming everything in my living room - 11.1 must be a lot of fun. My wife-to-be is thankfully very tolerant of my HT obsession as well, and luckily doesn't think my laserdisc collection is a concern for my sanity. Glad you enjoyed the video and that it delivered a blast from the past for you! And always great to meet another survivor of the Sony MPD-333/533 experience! :-D

[@ericparis224]

This is a very informative video. Keep sharing your passions!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks for watching! Cheers!!

[@Nitroxity]

Just actually purchased my first Laserdisc, which is hella rare as far as I know. It's a release of the 1985 OVA, "The Chocolate Panic Picture Show". Doesn't appear to have any laser rot, and I'm going to get a really nice player to transfer it! I don't believe there are any transfers for it YET, so I'm pretty damn excited!

[@Culturedog]

Nice! I've heard tales of that release, but never seen it or seen an LD of it. Don't even think the LDDB has it listed, though their catalog of Japanese titles is definitely missing some stuff. Good luck on the transfer! What player are you looking to get?

[@PlanetCHH]

Man, I tell ya. Even though we have better "qaulity" releases since the laserdisc era, I swear there is just a sense of theatricality that has never been duplicated since laserdisc.

[@Culturedog]

Absolutely! I forgot to mention that flipping sides and swapping discs never bothered me because it made me feel almost like I was a projectionist changing reels. Thanks for watching, man!

[@shaolin95]

CHRISTIAN HANNA HORROR it's called nostalgia... Snap out of it

[@AsbjornGrandt]

IIRC many of the first DVD's released were in fact LaserDisc conversions. It took them quite a few years before the DVD format caught up with the LD's

[@Culturedog]

Asbjørn Grandt Yeah, I was mostly sold by DVD's lack of chroma noise, but now that I've got some LD players with noise reduction the difference isn't that dramatic. I wish I'd had a CLD-D704 back in the day!

[@strtofdrms]

As a big Rock and music fan, Ill tell you there are a massive amount of concert films that came out on VHS and Laserdisc that have never made it to DVD or Blu Ray. There are also laserdisc concerts that came out in Japan that never made it to the USA.

[@Culturedog]

strtofdrms I just picked up a decent lot of discs last week that had quite a few Japanese music laserdiscs in it - including a few I'd been looking to pick up for ages like Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder. Will be doing a collection update video with those shortly!

[@strtofdrms]

+Culturedog That Pink Floyd is a great disc. I just grabbed a Japan-only Stevie Ray Vaughan Live in Japan LD that never came out in the US on LD or VHS...love the videos, keep up the great work!

[@Culturedog]

strtofdrms Thanks! I'll have to keep a look out for that Stevie Ray Vaughan disc too. Would definitely enjoy having some SRV on LD!

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

@strtofdrms: yeah the problem with music nowdays is the issue with licenses. It's often scattered across multiple holders that make a simple thing like a DVD / Blu-ray release such a problem. WHich is also why some movies get the music of their soundtrack changed with new music because the of copyright issues for the music. TV shows are even worse because of the royalities. For TV broadcasts there's different royalities than for homevideo. And this has gotten so bad that big labels refuse to pay that and just change the audio. That's why some shows and movies probably never get a descent DVD and Blu-ray release. Or if they do, with swapped audio (like the opening theme of "Married… With Children") or that scene with the music completely cut entirely (like with that Chipmunks song in one episode of ALF).

[@Korgi_Polymer]

Very nice story! You have earned a new subscriber.

[@Culturedog]

Y2k4ever Thank you very much! Cheers!

[@SchockBluesFitness]

Great vids man i subbed, i got into laserdisc a couple years ago. Laserdiscs awesome to collect!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks!! Glad you dug the videos. Always great to meet more peeps who are into laserdisc!

[@erikmolnar6585]

I have a collection (140) in my livingroom. Everyone thinks they are records until I show them the awesomeness they actually are! Some of my favorites are 2 copies of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Akira. ClV and CAV, Trainspotting and Boogie nights.

[@Culturedog]

I still need to grab Fear and Loathing on LD - I've got the Criterion Collection version on DVD, but I really should pick that up on laserdisc for fun. They really are cool conversation pieces - it's funny to hear the range of what people do and don't remember about the format, if they remember anything at all.

[@lhawksey]

Great video and channel dude. Subscribed

[@Culturedog]

+Goth Scouser Thanks a ton! Cheers!

[@futureshock7425]

it's good in terms of original unaltered theatrical presentations and special features

[@lasercoffins]

Thanks for the vid. Lots of good insight. My Dad was really into LaserDisc when I was really young so we had a lot in our house. All the VHS tapes and DVDs have come and gone - but we never got rid of any of the LaserDisc collection - because like you mention in the video, they're just cool + fun to collect ! It really is like having a record collection in that way.

[@Culturedog]

Lucy Valerie No problem, thanks for watching! That's awesome that you held onto the LaserDisc collection. I was heavily into DVD when it first came out, but resisted the temptation to offload my LDs (apart from a few double-dip titles that I've since reacquired). Too many other collectors just dropped off crates of all their discs at Goodwill and called it a day.

[@tristanmackid4953]

Great Video!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks for watching - glad you enjoyed it!

[@Deutschland01]

I love the Title of this great Video!

[@Culturedog]

Thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Shagrat65]

A real wealth of information here friend. I really enjoyed Zaranyzerak's Laserdisc videos as well. LSD is a format which I never got round to getting as they were sadly a little before my time collecting wise but I never get tired listening to people's views on them. Truly brilliant video mate.

[@Culturedog]

Thanks a ton for checking it out! I love your user pic too - Michael Mann's Thief, right? Gonna pop on over to your channel right now to check out some vids. Cheers!

[@austinwillcut4919]

People can talk shit about laserdisc all they want but if it wasn't for these huge discs we wouldn't have DVD or Blu Ray right now, people really need to think about that fact long and hard! We would probably still be watching VHS right now LOL!! With all the video deterioration and deluxe HIFI sound we could ever ask for and charging 20 to 30 bucks a piece for a tape that won't last very long LOL!! Laserdisc.........I salute you!

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

We wouldn't even had VideoCD. The thing that pissed off people the most was the inconvenience. Laserdiscs were too huge and you had to flip them. VideoCDs had the movies usually split upon 2 discs as well. If DVD would not have gotten the DVD-9 dual layer format, it would have flopped too. Because squeezing movies to a single layer of 4,7GB or splitting to both sides of a DVD-10 would have annoyed the customers too.

[@edwardbarr1533]

laserdisc is like vinyl Timeless essentially analogue and beloved of real students of film and the true cinefile.They are ajoy to own and collect.Your videos are wonderful and articulate,more please

[@Culturedog]

Thanks so much! I've got plenty of LD videos on the horizon!

[@cynical44]

Great intro! Thanks for subbing me & introducing me to your channel! I really dig your stories about Laserdiscs & your history with the all the formats. I remember all the Director's Cuts & Special Editions being available only on LD, it's was such a big deal to see Aliens & Abyss with extra footage. I really learned my appreciation for film, directors, cinematography, etc - all through the LD format. Keep up the great work & Laserdisc content! Thumbs up!

[@Culturedog]

No problem! Thanks a ton for checking out my channel! Getting all my collection videos in order now - should have another one posted shortly. Thanks again for the awesome comments!

[@TripperGetem]

Great video.

[@Culturedog]

Thanks man!!

[@Redhotsmasher]

There is actually an HD format available on LaserDisc, i.e. there are actually HD LaserDiscs. Sort of. Not the digital 1080p we have these days, but an analog precursor called MUSE Hi-Vision. Was only ever released in Japan, so you need an expensive player, expensive MUSE decoder and expensive Japanese MUSE LD's, but it was a thing. There were also HDTV broadcasts in the MUSE Hi-Vision format in Japan, but the last channel still available in MUSE ended their MUSE broadcasts in the late 2000s.

[@Culturedog]

+Redhotsmasher Yeah, a lot of the Hi-Vision discs go for some serious coin (especially Back to the Future Part III and some other relatively rare titles), and the players are still much sought after even if only for their superior playback of regular standard definition LDs. I'd love to snag an HLD-X9 or X0 someday, but don't see it happening anytime soon.

[@MrBuc128]

I'm from Boston and I remember Filene's well. Service Merchandise too. I never owned a laserdisc player but I had always wanted one. The first time I came to appreciate widescreen was when I had seen a vhs tape of Jaws in the 90s. It was an anniversary edition presented in widescreen. I was only really familiar with the pan and scan version on TV and full screen vhs prior. But the scene on the ferry with Brody and the mayor was what made me realize what the shot should look like.

[@Culturedog]

MrBuc128 Yeah, I remember seeing a few widescreen VHS releases here and there. Was pretty interesting that they tried to make a go of that. I remember FOX in particular had quite a few widescreen titles with cool copper-looking clamshell cases. Jaws definitely shines in widescreen - great introduction to the format! Spielberg wasn't shy about aggressively filling the frame with multiple characters!

[@seancurtin5131]

AWESOME. So great to see other people get Laserdisc. My excursions into Laserdisc have revealed the following amazing points and strengths for Laserdisc. 1. If you want the retro feel of analog video without the pain of tapes and with far superior sound quality, Laserdisc is king and unbeatable. There's some older movies that I have on Bluray and I actually found I enjoyed the Laserdisc more because some of the enhancements to the picture quality with Hi-Def ruined the look and feel I remembered of the movie in it's hayday. Thankfully that look and feel is preserved thanks to Laserdisc. 2. Laserdisc jog, pause and jog is amazing. Say your watching a movie and there's one of those funny explosions where everyone goes flying through the air. With Laserdisc, you can actually play the movie frame by frame back and forwards instantly. You can't do that with and DVD or Bluray player I've seen yet(please let me know if there's a model you can). Sure you can skip tracks, fast forward and rewind but there's no jog shuttle function that I've seen on a DVD or Bluray player. With Laserdisc you can and it's a really cool feature to have for the avid movie buff. Best of all it's so seamless. 3. Some titles are simply not available on DVD or Bluray and who wants VHS tapes? Enter Laserdisc to fill the void and provide you with a far superior medium to watch analog style movies in there best possible quality. 4. If your a Star Wars fan like myself and in particular a die hard that grew up with the ORIGINAL trilogy and were horrified at some of the many annoying additions that George Lucas vomitted onto the picture with CGI that was neither wanted nor did it really enhance the movies for this fan. Laserdisc is THE only medium to feature the final pristine best possible quality transfer of the original Star Wars trilogy. (I'm speaking of 'The Definitive Collection' all 3 movies on Laserdisc). You also get photos and movie making material that I have not seen on any other medium since and sadly you probably will never see again. Which is a shame as the model making process and photos were superb and made the purchase worth while on it's own. Best of all. Han shoots first. Darth Vader does not yell NOOOOOO (what a corny addition) when he picks up the Emperor in the new Return of The Jedi and annoying CGI effects are not present. Just superb modelling and animation sequences which were so perfect all I could think of with the new CGI additions was 'If it aint broke, don't fix it'. [More points continued in next post, there's only so much space in these comment windows].

[@Knightmessenger]

the unaltered star wars versions were available for a time on dvd. Nobody got too excited for the time because they were taken from the 1993 THX video master. Non anamorphic dvd was pretty lame in 2006. But the dvd's are a pristine transfer of the master tape and you don't have to worry about finding the best laserdisc player and setup (the X9 and X0 still go for a lot). Plus you can watch them on a blu-ray player with a HDMI connection to a digital tv. The extras on the 1993 Definitive Collection are exclusive to that set, but have been copied to dvd by fans.

[@arcyfatale]

Great Laserdisc Collection!!! I still have mine. =D

[@Culturedog]

Thanks for watching!! I'm totally glad I resisted the urge to downsize it once I started collecting DVDs!

[@leejones7139]

I’m back 5 years later, I have two pioneer players a cld 925 and a 2950 and about 400 discs, I absolutely love the format and I’m glad I took the plunge, Although it’s kind of become abit of an obsession haha. This video and the why bother? Video I’ve watched a few times over the years and I’m currently enjoying the Wolfpack . So thanks for your content Sam it really has had a massive impact on me 😀👍

[@Culturedog]

Thanks man!! Glad to hear the obsession has taken hold! haha

[@UltraDTA]

Almost 27k views! Congratulations man.

[@Culturedog]

+UltraDTA Thanks! Yeah, I never expected it to receive this much interest! Of course now I wish I'd waited to film it until after I picked up some decent lighting gear. haha!

[@UltraDTA]

+Culturedog Haha, how about a George Lucas remaster!?

[@Culturedog]

UltraDTA That works! I'll add a CGI Jabba the Hutt in there!

[@sugarbunify]

Wow thank you for sharing! I always wanted to get into Laserdiscs but they were so much money when I was a kid - am 31 now, (the player as well as the discs), and it seemed like nobody sold them where I lived lmao. Just VHS rental places as far as the eye can see. So much anime I never got because of the format, too... xDDDD; It felt, at least in the 90s, that more anime was available on Laserdisc than VHS. Japan had seemingly entirely embraced it for a period. I was a VHS/S-VHS kid that ripped a lot of my own stuff, and did the whole old snail-mail fansubs, and then progressed to DVD format once PlayStation 2 became a big thing (everyone basically had a DVD player in their house because of that, so I think that shaped a lot of the people's motivation to switch to DVD). I had some VCD anime movie rips that a friend used to send me in the mail that were just Laserdiscs ripped and burned, and they always for some reason just felt like so much better quality than the VHS ones, even though they had gone through this ripping process and was burned to a super tiny CD format lol. I always attested that that was just the Laserdisc superiority, but I learned much later that it wasn't that much of a gigantic difference (picture-wise) as I had assumed as a kid. I liked the huge disc shapes of Laserdisc too! XDDD I thought they were wild looking. Similar to vinyls, which I was fascinated by my father's collection. There's a lot of old anime releases where they had specialty Laserdisc cover art and that's literally the only way you would have gotten those images. They weren't re-released with the same art on DVD later on, and if it wasn't a series popular enough to get an artbook, you were kinda SOL if you're into collecting that type of stuff. No point getting into collecting it now (for me) since bluray and 4k releases are a thing, and I don't really have the room for yet another collection of media... :') But it's still cool that there's people out there that do this. If I had the room and money for a collection, I probably would, at least for stuff that's not available anymore. Again thank you for sharing! It was fun learning more about this format!

[@yellerdog]

I support this course of action.

[@sdimedriver27]

I actually got into LD after becoming a fan of rca CED videodisc format . I really like laserdisc still for the classic 80s and 90s movies that you can get way cheaper than dvd and also the cover art is big and fun to look at.

[@jamesmiller4184]

Was plumbing the Cudo Archives from back in the day and ran across this one I'd missed before. As usual, it's filled with bits-and-pieces of useful into, as well as novel angles on the normally usual. Great job, Sam. If asked, to other collector/enthusiasts i would recommend doing the same , and reviewing for things missed earlier. You are a one-man center for information and LD boosting in-general, and are nearing sheer indispensable status, I think. (A long time from now, future LD worshipers may vote to BRONZE you!)

[@Culturedog]

+James Miller Wow! Thanks so much for the amazing feedback! And I can't wait to be bronzed!

[@DvdXploitr]

Awesome story! My first encounter with laserdisc was in 4th grade. It was one that had a barcode scanner. That was my first exposure to it and I was very intrigued. It took me a LONG time to finally get my first player but I now have 3 total. All of 'em require manual disk flipping, it doesn't bother me b/c i'd usually end up needing to pee or get some more chips or popcorn by the time it was ready to flip the disk.

[@Culturedog]

+DvdXploitr Thanks! Man, I feel ripped off that my school didn't have one of those barcode scanner LD players. I've been hearing a lot of people saying that those were their first exposure to the format. We just had clunky old toploader VCRs at school. :-D Glad you enjoyed the vid - thanks for watching and sharing your story!

[@carmadme]

+Culturedog we only had a single tv and vcr player in our whole school this was in 2006 imagine our excitment when it was wheeled into the room

[@HerrBjork]

Loved the video! Looking forward to view more Laserdisc related videos in the future. I never experienced Laserdisc when it was "alive", I'm 17 and no one I know has Laserdisc, but it's my favorite format. I'm hoping to expand my collection, as of now consisting of ~100 titles and two players, to 1000+ titles sometime.

[@Culturedog]

***** Thanks for the comments! Welcome to the Laserdisc party!!

[@HerrBjork]

Culturedog Thank you! By the way (not to critique but to inform) there was a CLV version that could hold 70 minutes per side. The achieved that by compromising the sound quality. There was also a third Laserdisc format, CAA, that was similar to CLV but acheved the extended time per side with other methods.

[@Culturedog]

***** What's totally weird (and I never knew until this past year) is that CLV essentially died out in the 80s and CAA took over - but they kept the name CLV for simplicity's sake. I guess 3M held on to the old CLV format for a while, but after some time all the extended play discs on the market were really CAA. Crazy!

[@halcyondaystunes]

Fantastic video. i was feeling a little nostalgic and decided to pull my Pioneer CLD 2950 out of storage and play my T2 Box set. It's been a while since i watched it on Laserdisc and even though the picture was pretty crap i just couldn't turn it off and watched the whole thing. I don't remember it looking so bad but then everything looked good once. I'm in The UK where Laserdisc didn't take off like it did on The States, but i remember buying a PAL player mid 90's and then discovered a local independent dealer who was selling players and discs,this was when it was extremely hard to get NTSC discs outside of the USA but my friendly dealer imported discs over and where kept 'under the counter' and seeing as all the latest films and special collectors editions were only NTSC i decided to go for the new Pioneer 2950. He even let me pay in installments while letting me take the player. I was in that shop every Saturday morning spending my hard earned salary. I was addicted. I used to demo T2, Jurassic Park, True Lies etc to friends and family and they were blown away. I also had the full set up home cinema, No one i knew had anything like it and it really didn't take off in this country until DVD started. Being able to get True Romance while it was initially banned here was amazing. It truly was the pre-curser to todays DVD's and Blu Rays. The extras on the T2 box set were the future and i always tell people that DVD wasn't the first format to have extras. anyway, found your videos when i decided to search for Laserdisc videos, and now i'm trawling Ebay looking to start my collection again :)

[@Culturedog]

halcyondaystunes Thanks! Glad I was able to stoke the Laserdisc flame! That's cool that you had a source for import discs like that. I remember talking to UK friends back when, and they would mention that most of their collection was made up of NTSC discs, but I always wondered about the logistics of that, what with certain titles being banned like you mentioned. My LD of The Fifth Element even has a big "Available For Sale In North America Only" sticker on it. That apparently didn't dissuade anyone! In any case, glad you enjoyed the video and good luck on the Ebay hunt! Cheers!

[@halcyondaystunes]

Cheers for the reply Sam, yeah i was lucky to have a place to go to get the NTSC discs. dealers back then in this country were seriously playing with fire when it came to importing US movies on VHS and Laserdisc. There were crazy fines for people depending on how many copies of the movie they had. I heard it was upwards of £10,000 fer disc.The guy i was buying from had his house raided by customs and the police in the end. i seem to remember him saying he had alot of discs in his house including 10 copies of The Mask. He's place shut down not long after that. He re opened for a while at a different location and it was a much bigger place with alot of home cinema equipment and a good collection of NTSC discs which he was obviously allowed to sell. That last a couple of years a i think. He was always backwards and forwards to the states sorting out deals though. All he wanted was to give film fans what they wanted but got in trouble. Anyway, managed to grab myself the Toy Story CAV Boxset which is being delivered tomorrow. After seeing it on your boxset video i had to get it.I also remember back then i wanted the Disney boxsets but they were so expensive i just couldn't afford them. So like you i'm now able to get them.

[@Culturedog]

halcyondaystunes Reminds me of the guys I used to buy copies of Hong Kong movies from. I'd always order as much as possible, because sooner or later they'd always get raided and shut down and I'd have to find a new vendor. I'd still love to get original LD copies of those flicks, but they're still harder to come by than I expected. Congrats on the Toy Story box - that's a fantastic set! I just saw a local ad for a guy selling a big collection of sealed CAV Disney sets. I'm tempted to jump on it, but I'm trying to behave for at least a few weeks.

[@halcyondaystunes]

I remember my guy used to have those Disney boxsets in display cases on the walls of his shop and were close to £200 each. I've also seen a few sealed once over here which is very tempting. One guy is selling his collection of 1500 discs and there are a lot i've been hovering the mouse over the buy it now button :) He has the pulp fiction criterion, and natural born killers box sets and they look in great condition. Also want that Door's box set you showed in one of your videos but there are no sellers with it over here but seen a couple from across the pond. mmm choices, choices. ;)

[@TwoboltsPictures]

Thanks for the info my friend. Glad to know that it's not something that I'm doing wrong.

[@Culturedog]

jrdaisy100100 No problem!

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Why don't we go back to this disc size for 4K or 8K? Imagine how much even 8K material we could fit on this physical size of blue-laser density of disc!

[@Culturedog]

MaxxFordham I do remember Widescreen Review magazine making the case for continuing the 12" disc trend into the digital video age. For that same reason - the storage potential is massive!

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

Yeah, exactly, Culturedog, and thanks for the +1! I've heard that they're gonna put 4K movies on existing Blu-ray discs soon -- or have already started doing it -- and someone said that they'd even work on our existing players, but I don't know how. I guess if it's just another compression scheme then our existing players would just get a firmware update to tell it how to play that. Right? But then with that much more compression, wouldn't that make our 4K movies look trashy? If we didn't have to compress it so much, that'd be better. Oh, and I just remembered that a standard-length movie (roughly 2 hours give or take several minutes) already needs 2 layers to fit on one Blu-ray disc. Enter the 1-foot disc size all over again, yep! But then even imagine how much *that* would fit with 2-4 layers, like the XL Blu-rays! And then aside from disc-size-related things, others are saying that you'd need a second HDMI cable for that much picture information -- I guess because then you have some kind of serial-parallel connection (a single HDMI cable is serial only, right?). But in that case then we would obviously need new players. Why shouldn't we try again with those FMDs (fluorescent multilayer discs) that were being developed even before Blu-ray made it big -- and even *then* have a 1-foot version (with the same small hub so that the big machines could play the smaller discs without an adapter, and then there would even be more "real estate" for data? Yes, Blu-ray discs already employ multilayer technology like standard DVDs do, so to go back and pick up FMD technology wouldn't be new as far as layering goes, but it was my understanding that each layer of an FMD was supposed to be able to hold more than one layer of a BD. *Without* the extra compression that would make a 4K-vertical-line movie fit on the same size of disc that a standard-HD (1080 h. lines) movie fits on right now, I guess it would be about 4.5 X the physical disc space (for a 9-MP picture instead of just 2 MP). I don't know what diameter that would be, though, because of the extra math I don't know that I'd have to use just to work out the area of a bigger circle. And then of course I wonder the same thing about 8K-line (v.) movies when those come out! (Primitive 8K displays were already being shown at CES 2014, as I heard on the radio last year. Well then, what are they still working on before they can make them ready for the market?) That's a 33-MP picture! But I'm pretty sure that they'd figure out a way to fit that onto a 1-foot disc without or with some compression. Enter the 1-foot-wide FMD! :-) Or what about 1-foot, multi-layer *HOLOGRAPHIC* discs (as well as the smaller, CD-sized version)? Wasn't someone supposed to have been working on holography for data storage that was supposed to even be bigger and better than either BDs or FMDs? I've been thinking the same thing about hard disks: we've had those 5 1/4" drive bays in desktop computers for a long time. If we can fit... oh, where are we now... 3-4 TB (?)... onto one 3 1/2" hard disk, but there's the space for a 5" disk in there, why not see how many TB we can fit on an HDD that's that much wider, just like the physical size of the older HDDs? And even then, we could REincrease the *height* size to what it was before, back from the about 3/4" height they are now to about twice that, and still fit it into one of those bays. Imagine the huge amount of data that would store now!

[@haraldsegebrecht]

MaxxFordham Because you could simply use an HDD, SSD or USB-Stick instead?

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

No, Harald Segebrecht. I'm talking about the capacity of a standalone player of commercially released removable media, just like LaserDisc, CD, DVD, and Blu-ray already are. And I even want HDD manufacturers to go back to 5" disk platters using today's density since desktop computer cases have been at least that wide anyway.

[@callisto2761]

4K and 8k aren't even relevant, most people don't have 100" and larger sized tv's or sit 6" from the screen to even notice the difference and companies are hesitant to release 4k masters because of pirating. Regular DVDs still spank Blu Ray in sales, 4k is dead in the water 8k is not even in the discussion.

[@lilretrobrothers]

Quality stuff man , love the channel we are big laserdisc lovers as well

[@Culturedog]

Awesome to hear! Thanks for checking out the video!!

[@WammyGiveaway]

I was unfortunate to have never really tried out the Laserdisc personally. Just by reading the specs and capabilities of the product alone, Laserdisc was definitely ahead of its time. It's a shame that Laserdisc production is no more, now with DVD and Blu Ray having seized the video market (video on demand as well). I would have loved to experience owning and operating a Laserdisc device. In fact, this product would be something I'd like to see a revival of, if given the chance. Look and size of a phonograph record, I don't mind. For me, it's all about getting a taste of the 80's (I was born in 1983).

[@pkkingcrimsonrequiem1332]

Any format that has all the original Tom And Jerry has my extreme respect.

[@Culturedog]

Those boxed sets are very nice too! Those and the Tex Avery and Looney Tunes boxes are always in high demand.

[@pkkingcrimsonrequiem1332]

The Compleat Tex Avery is something you will never get on DVD or Blu Ray unfortunately due to WB neglecting their entire animation library. For Tom And Jerry, there was going to a complete collection on DVD and Blu Ray titled Golden Collection and Vol 1 was great, but when they announced vol 2 was not going to have 2 shorts (thereby defeating the entire purpose over the set) the negative backlash has delayed the set. This all happened in 2013.

[@Y0cke]

I wanted a laserdisc player so bad in the 90's, but since I was a teenager then, I couldn't afford one. Also, I live in Sweden, so everything was imported (ie even more expensive). Love the format though, even though I still don't own a player. Great channel by the way. Been looking through your videos over the last few weeks. Keep it up!

[@Culturedog]

+Y0cke Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the vids! Yeah, the players were expensive enough here in the US - they must have cost a lot to import. Shipping alone is tough with those things. I've met quite a few Swedish LD fans here and on the LaserDisc Forever page on Facebook, so there are still some players out there somewhere. Thanks again for watching and commenting! Cheers!

[@lghaze42]

I have alot going on right now but after Christmas I will send it to you.

[@mykylew]

I finally found a Laserdisc player at Goodwill for $10 always wanted one when I was a kid in the 90s but my parents said no we had a VCR Now it's time start collecting your videos are helping me with what to look for I just found Raiders of the Lost Arc and Jurassic Park for $5 on eBay

[@Culturedog]

+Mykyle Williams $10! Can't argue with that! Glad you're finally able to live the childhood dream! Enjoy the new discs and glad to hear you enjoy the vids!

[@mykylew]

+Culturedog Thanks It looks like it belong to a school and looks like it was hardly used and had the remote

[@mykylew]

+Mykyle Williams I was Goodwill and found DVD recorder with a HDMI out and routed the Laserdisc player through it to my HD TV it looks better my partner now thinks I'm insane

[@Culturedog]

Mykyle Williams Haha! That's awesome! Embrace the insanity! :-D

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

When you talk about joining Columbia House and ordering your first titles you remind me a bit of what my best buddy did in the late 90s when DVD was pretty new here in Germany and wasn't sold everywhere yet. He too sometimes ordered titles like that that. For example, i think he paid like 100DM for an Import codefree DVD of "Dante's Peak" which was one of the rare titles with Fullrate DTS. He kept it real and really sold the format to me. Because at this point i was still skeptical and really didn't believe that DVD could make it after the debacle that VideoCD was. lol Well after all this was still 1998 so yeah ;) Your story really brought back these memories.

[@Culturedog]

Oh yeah, good old VideoCD! I was intrigued by the format, but never could get into the picture quality. It was probably A Bug's Life or Austin Powers that sold me on DVD - I just remember being blown away by the colors not having any chroma noise. Glad you enjoyed the video - thanks for checking it out and sharing your story!

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

@@Culturedog Yeah, that and there was no colour bleeding as well. One of the first DVDs i ever saw, when my best buddy was showing it off, was the DVD of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla. And even thou he didn't have adjusted his DVD player properly yet (it was set to Letterbox, not anamorph) and was showing it on his 16:9 CRT TV with the 16:9 crop function, it still already looked much better than any VHS. Shortly after he discovered the Anamorphic mode of the DVD player and suddenly DVDs (who actually had anamorphic masters) looked even better :D

[@voorhees1972]

fun video, thanks. I remember getting so frustrated by vhs in the 90's that I had to have a laserdisc player. I eventually got a used one, but due to the the expense of discs I never really got much of a collection. Now, just recently I bought a pioneer cld 99 and cld 79 player along with 250 LaserDiscs and it's just awesome.

[@Culturedog]

Thanks! Wow, a 99 and a 79 - nice players! Enjoy those discs. Cheers!

[@Malkmusianful]

I barely remember LaserDisc. I remember LaserDisc players with the barcode scanners being used at our schools up until 2004. I remember LaserDiscs for sale at their own little box over at Hollywood Video around the time when DVD became a thing. However, it's the format I've been the most interested in mainly because it simply intrigues me how it was considered the cinephile format for about a couple of decades.

[@Culturedog]

I see those old industrial units for sale a lot on ebay (though usually missing the barcode scanner) - never seen one in action though. Pretty crazy that they were using them as recently as 2004 though! It was pretty fascinating how VHS was the format for the masses, while like you said, laserdisc was more of a cinephile-centric niche market. I love tripping back in time and reading old issues of Widescreen Review and revisiting the mindset of a 90s videophile. It was a wild period when DVD came along and somehow successfully merged the two markets. Cheers!

[@lasercoffins]

Culturedog Yeah they definitely still had LD in classrooms around that time. I distinctly remember when I was in 7th grade (around 2003) my science teacher loading up the discs and everyone laughing at how ridiculous it was

[@Culturedog]

Lucy Valerie That's awesome! I guess the school system really got their money's worth out of that investment.

[@manleys69]

I loved my laserdisc players & films I had wish it was still going.

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, it was a great time for film collecting!

[@aprilfaith765]

I can't believe that some people I knew thought that a laserdisc player was something to connect to computer. lol I still have my laserdisc collections. I got ninja turtles, and famous singers from the 1990's, Halloween, Beverly hills 90210 season one and holiday movies.

[@deadplantrecords4151]

Sick, yet another thing to collect. Was getting a bit mad at the prices of vinyl and retro games.

[@Culturedog]

+deadplant records Yeah, considering how much these suckers sold for back in the day, the prices now are a steal. Horror titles can get a little inflated, but there's plenty of stuff you can snag for as low as $1 a pop.

[@jiggygino2855]

I used to love collecting laserdisc movies back in the 90's. I still remember going to a bunch of stores that carried them and just flipping through the catalog of titles. Now with online shopping, that's all gone with BluRay. Stores rarely carry a decent selection. Walmart only carries new titles or best sellers. I miss those days going into a store picking a movie..... Couldn't wait to go home and watch it. For some reason, I don't get that same feeling with BluRay today. Maybe it was those nice covers on LD. I really loved the ones that opened up like Titanic. I'll never sell my collection. I think the most expensive one I bought was Terminator 2 special edition. Cost me $150 Canadian. I can see why the format never worked for the general public. It was definitely an expensive hobby. I remember showing one of the disks to my friends and the first thing out of their mouths was "wow, that's a big disc". Then making a reference to how small compact discs are.... To this day.... Never regretted the money I spent. The audio was amazing and still sounds better than some DVDs! Wish stores in my area still sold them. I still remember putting in " the perfect weapon" starring Jeff Speakman, and showing off what my sound system could do. Laserdisc far superior to VHS. No contest.

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, I have lots of great memories shopping for discs and trying to get the best bang for my buck! No regrets at all! It has been pretty sad lately - even before the lockdown, my local Best Buy slashed their Blu-Ray section to bare bones, so now there's just room for a small selection of random new UHDs and pretty much all Disney releases after that. No more cool cult movie finds.

[@carlosoliveira-rc2xt]

I remember when VHS rentals were king, I could rent laserdiscs for half the tape price, with better letterboxed picture. The only downside was that releases every month were few compared to VHS tape. I had a 108" data grade projo setup back in the early 90s and watching laserdiscs was an event.

[@jiggygino2855]

@@Culturedog Yeah....ever since Best Buy upgraded to their new look (aka renovation) their selection of movies pales in comparison to what they used to sell. I remember how huge their BluRay and DVD sections were. They had titles sorted by genre and there were rows and rows of titles. Loved going in to see what they had. 1000s of choices. Pretty sad today with the setup you described. Mostly Marvel titles and Disney cartoons. Now we only have Amazon for selection. Gone are the video stores. Truly disappointed. There a few dvd/BluRay stores outside the GTA (I live in the Toronto, Ontario area) and my wife and I drive nearly 90 minutes to check them out. I really miss those days. ☹️

[@jrios662]

The funny thing about it is that I have over 300 Blu-rays and I would trade them for laser disc at the drop of a dime. There's something about LaserDisc that makes you feel like you're back in the old theater watching a movie. The only thing missing is the popcorn smell. And who's complaining about noise Anna movie I love the noise on the movie that takes me back to the first day I seen Escape From New York

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, I was just watching my old theatrical cut LD of Enter the Dragon the other night and when the end credits rolled, that feeling hit me - like I could sense what it would have been like catching that in the theater when it first dropped.

[@jrios662]

@@Culturedog yeah that's only something laser this provides.

[@martinez1701a]

I built a windows PC and installed a program called dscaler, it deinterlaces also has filters and stuff like that makes my vhs and laserdisc look alot better.

[@laserramon9926]

Good stuff Culturedog. I have a HLD-X9 that is giving me some problems at the moment. When it works properly LDs look very good on my plasma TV. Keep up the good work.

[@Culturedog]

Thanks man! Sorry to hear your X9 is giving you trouble - that's an amazing player!

[@laserramon9926]

Thanks man. One of the many reasons why I still love laserdiscs is the films are unaltered (cough, Lucas, cough). Original audio, color timing, studio logos during in the intros, etc, etc, are all preserved.

[@boratliff]

19 people watch movies on their iphones.

[@ilcool90]

I had armageddon criterion edition, that one was really awesome.

[@christianpersson5260]

Thx for your Laserdisc story..:-) (y)

[@Culturedog]

Thanks for watching!!

[@MaisonOtaku]

Yo, Mike here. I finally got around to subscribing to your channel. Great video! My first LD was a japanese import copy of My Neighbor Totoro. I actually picked it up around a year before I got a player. Love my CLD-V2800. That sucks about Alien 3 but at least it wasn't anything good. ;p You probably already know this but stay away from the Lodoss War LDs. They're notorious for laser rot. You'll have to give me some tips on rigging up my system with some of the crazy tech you've got on yours.

[@johnricco5366]

I BOUGHT A PIONEER LD PLAYER IN 1994. THIS WAS IN THE PERIOD BETWEEN VHS AND DVD. STILL WORKS GREAT. HAD IT CLEANED A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO AS IT NEEDED SERVICE. 27 YEARS. I THOUGHT PIONEER WAS THE ONLY MANUFACTURER OF LD ONLY USE MINE FOR MUSIC VIDEO. CLASSIC ROCK AND BLUES.

[@zookeeper2872]

I had a LaserDisc player back in the 90s that I got rid of once I bought my first DVD player. I accidentally won a player on eBay background 2005. Anyway I've had a collection of about 250 movies for years now. Just kind of a fun way to watch old movies. I have Saving Private Ryan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Trainspotting, The Sex Pistols great rock and roll Swindle, Clerk's, Etc. In the nineties I had all the crappy movies so when I started collecting them again I was finding all the great movies for like $0.50 at Half Price Books. I just can't believe people are collecting these now. I'm almost starting to see dollar signs come out of my collection if anybody's interested in buying some good movies on LaserDisc :-)

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, the sheer number of great titles and boxed sets to be had for peanuts now makes it a fun hobby. It is starting to heat up too - I've been seeing a ton of newcomers lately.

[@ace942]

I still remember when LaserDisc came out. The image quality was way better than anything that was available on VHS. I would have loved having it back in the day but it was out of my price range. At least now Bluray is affordable.

[@Culturedog]

ace942 Yeah, it's crazy to think of the level of quality available now and how low the price is. Even when DVD first came out and discs were pretty expensive, they were still cheaper than most laserdiscs and I felt like a kid in a candy store - running through Circuit City like a madman with armloads of titles!

[@KK4CNM]

I remember the first time I really saw laserdisc was in a mall in Thailand. This would have been circa 89-90. I was totally blown away by it, it looked amazing. I don't remember what it cost but I do remember the price was staggering. I think that the high price is what ultimately prevented mass adoption here in the US. I did enjoy this video, I love learning that there were people just like me out there around this time period.

[@Culturedog]

dnelms2 Thanks! Yeah, if my priorities had been in order I probably wouldn't have invested so much into laserdiscs and pizza deliveries. It's funny how now I'll argue with myself before spending over $30 on a Blu-ray boxed set or Criterion release, when LD boxes usually started at $100. No regrets though, it was a really fun era!

[@BrianSmith-lj6ug]

I'm suprised theirs still working laserdisc players around to play the discs on to be honest.They were so cool.

[@Culturedog]

Yeah, thankfully they're pretty hearty, and some of the more common "failures" are remedied with simple maintenance. The optics can wear out and the electrolytic capacitors can fail eventually, but I've got an 80s player as one of my main workhorses and it's still going like it just came off the store shelf!

[@Ruxor]

I started to watch this video as a goof. "What the hell is this guy going to tell me". I am not sure what happened but sometime around 5 min in I was hooked over what you were saying. Your voice, knowledge...Idk man. Great video /subscribed.

[@Culturedog]

Ruxor That's awesome! Thanks for giving the video a shot, even as a goof. And thanks for subbing!

[@user-vv5tk9vn4l]

Большое спасибо за ваш рассказ. Много споров об этом формате. Самый высококачественный фопмат записи аналогового видеосигнала, а таже звукового, первоначально аналогово, а затем и цифрового. У меня небольшая коллекция , но в ней представлены все варианты дисков. Самое главное, этот формат не использовал пережатие сигнела. Как и Вы., очень люблю этот формат.

[@Culturedog]

Awesome, thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@gregson99]

I remember my elementary school showing off laserdisc in the library in the late 80's early 90's. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And the projection screen came down from the ceiling on a motor. That was the last time I saw it.

[@Aenigma1001]

Watching your presentation on the laserdisc format brought back many memories of my collecting days. I got into the format around 1991 and collected them for about ten years before they were deposed by DVD as the preeminent medium of home video playback. Despite laserdisc's fall from grace I hung onto my collection and still watch certain LDs that were never released onto DVD. When you began discussing buying sources in the 1990s I was a little surprised you didn't mention Sight & Sound in Waltham, Massachusetts. Remember them? Those guys were my primary mail order source for both domestic and imported discs for quite a few years. Also, do you recall Laser Island up in New York? They had an incredible selection of rare Japanese imports, literally thousands of them. Thanks again for this entertaining and well spoken overview for what was the high end home video medium of the '80s and '90s. I'll have to check out some of your other videos.

[@Culturedog]

+Aenigma1001 Thanks! Glad to hear you enjoyed the video, and very cool to meet another collector from the early 90s! I always wanted to go to Sight & Sound - I used to get their catalogs all the time, but for some reason on all of my trips into the city, I never got a chance to take a side trip to Waltham. I think I still might have a brochure of theirs around somewhere. Don't think I remember Laser Island, but it sounds like a place I would have loved! Thanks again for the feedback! Cheers!

[@clyth41]

Love laserdisc and I collect discs from all eras and use my pioneer cld 1750 every day..

[@Culturedog]

Excellent! Keep those discs spinning!!

[@MultiPedroAndrade]

my first laserdisc was PAL AC/DC Live at Donington and the player a Sony MDP-850 in 1994, wich i had modded for AC-3 a cuple of years later.

[@TexasToast09]

Awesome video! I wish we lived close. I need friends like you!!!

[@rica7577]

RIP MY CHILDHOOD

[@Onneff69]

Really nice collection, dog. I sold the first Magnavox "DiscoVision" machines back in '79 (we used "Jaws" mostly as the demo at the store I was at). But you definitely severely UNDERstate the quality difference between Laserdisc and VHS. LD is actually much further away from VHS than, say, DVD is from LD (except for the noise on some solid colors that you mention).

[@Culturedog]

Cheers! I'll definitely be getting into the format's technical superiority over VHS in the next series of laserdisc 'basics' I'm planning.

[@TwoboltsPictures]

Do you know how to remove interline twitter problem with laserdiscs? I know it's do to interlaced video. I de-interlaced it and apply comb filter and also upscaled it. Now the image looks great but the only problem that I still have right now is the interline twitter effect that can get really annoying sometimes. Any thoughts on this? Is it even possible to remove? Thanks again

[@Culturedog]

jrdaisy100100 It seems like a lot of discs with aggressive aliasing issues are that way because of how they were scanned and mastered. Especially on certain 2.35:1 titles like Criterion's version of Halloween. Unfortunately, once they're mastered that way we're pretty much stuck with the interline twitter on playback. I'll see if it's still available, but I know there were a few fans out there who were compiling lists of discs with really bad aliasing problems.

[@waverly2468]

Wow--you're bringing back a lot of memories from the 1990's. Yes I remember how we all looked forward to Batman being released on VHS. Actually many movies came out on video right away but they were priced for use by video rental stores (around $100). The picture quality on these early VHS tapes could be pretty bad. I remember how bad "The Empire Strikes Back" was on VHS tape.

[@Culturedog]

+waverly2468 Thanks! Yeah, I was just talking with someone about how VHS "sell-through" pricing wasn't that common in the beginning, and how LDs were cheaper to purchase than the $100 rental tapes. I remember "Beverly Hills Cop" being another early priced-to-own tape. Think I got that for Christmas in '84 or '85. But yeah, most people I knew who had a collection of tapes either recorded stuff off of cable or made illicit copies of rentals.

[@salmansaysit]

its really SAD that movies on bluray shipped with watered down as compared laserdisc that felt so awesome the fidelity that punch I really missed that feeling and never gonna have it, with just hiting the digital audio on remote and its completely a new world and now with all the technologies having 4 to 5 audio track 4k video and audio is compressed . This is the only reason people still collect laserdisc . I don't understand the logic behind compressing the original theater mix on Blu-ray unless user have the equipment to decode they won't have high dynamic range nobody blew their TV with laserdisc than why don't they include original track .

[@alliasneo]

Good video man. Have you done a video on your physical setup? You mention about putting it through equipment to make it upscale to 1080. Would be interested to see how you have it set up

[@Culturedog]

Thanks, man! I do give a short runthrough of everything in this older player collection vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYiZkH-FjsaUZ7sm25s I should do a more in-depth one though. I'd love to try out a Crystalio II or a Lumagen 2144 scaler at some point, but those suckers are still super expensive.

[@modoc1888]

thanks for a great video. i live in scotland in the uk and im thinking about getting into laserdisc :) thanks

[@Culturedog]

You're welcome - thanks for watching and commenting! There's a pretty big UK LD following now - are you on the Laserdisc Forever page already? A lot of great trades and local sales go on through there.

[@modoc1888]

My uncle did karaoke for Years and remember in the early to mid 90s he used LD frequently until the onset of midi, vcd and cdg. But I always admired the LD. The sheer size and future look of it all :) so yeah thanks again for a cool informative video. I haven't seen that page yet but I'll sure check it out. I am a real music and movie buff so the idea of starting a collection of LD for nostalgia really appeals to me. Now I just need to source a LD player. My uncle got rid of his years ago :( thanks again 👍