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[Sectorseven]

I ain't getting up to flip the disc halfway through the movie.

 

[Yaboosh]

A friend had one. The first time I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark was on laserdisc.

 

[tomjr]

Yup. It was much better than VHS. I've still got a bunch of discs.

"You heard about that new format called DVD? They're supposed to be clearer than laserdiscs."

"What? Unpossible!"

 

[Rhomega Beta]

Yes, we did. We would watch Star Wars (until the Special Editions came out), The Adventures of Mark Twain, and a number of others, but we didn't use it nearly as much as our VCR. We pretty much got rid of it and all the discs we got because they were taking up so much space, and we had replaced almost everything on DVD anyway.

 

[HUELEN10]

Woah, welcome back, Huelen!

"Some of these scenes are so funny, you can laugh your sides off."

*wacky music cue*

*Khan's

Spoiler

death scene

from Star Trek II plays*

What.

Thanks for the welcome! Yep, that's why I chose that promo; what were they thinking?!?! (The guy who cropped it I mean)

I ain't getting up to flip the disc halfway through the movie.

They made non-flipping players.

 

[plainr_]

My dad owned several but It was mostly used for Karaoke.

The first movie and only movie I watched on laserdisc was the first Die Hard. I was blown away by the picture quality back then and I was around 5-6 years old.

 

[Seraphis Cain]

Thanks for the welcome! Yep, that's why I chose that promo; what were they thinking?!?! (The guy who cropped it I mean)

They made non-flipping players.

Yep. Here's a neat video showing how the auto-flipping players worked:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcRKHjCMYZY

 

[Platy]

I only knew a store that had it.

Only saw it on display a few times, usual with some Enya music videos

 

[MetatronM]

Laserdisc version is still the best version of Star Wars ever released to the public.

 

[HUELEN10]

Yep. Here's a neat video showing how the auto-flipping players worked:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcRKHjCMYZY

Damn! See this guys? You don't see quite the mechanical and artistic expertise and moving mechanisms nowadays. I feel old now.


Seriously, your kids will never know what it's like to deal with analog TV signals, or really "get" the concept of mechanical rewinding.

 

[Wag]

Didn't laserdisc also introduce the concept of "letterbox" to home video?

 

[thefit]

Everyone knows that CEDs were the superior obscure video format.

(Not really, but honestly I've seen more CEDs in the wild than Laserdiscs, and I have no idea how that's possible.)

I still have one of those with working ced's

 

[Noema]

I bought Raiders of the Lost Ark on Laserdisc at some point in the 90s, probably something like 1992. I was obsessed with the movie and when I saw the Laserdisc at a store I knew I had to own it...

...even if I didn't own a laserdisc player.

It was a thing of beauty.

My cousin (who was also my neighbor at the time) did own a player, so I'd go to his house to watch it. He had a very nice home theater setup for the time, with what I thought was amazing audio. I was stunned, and it was also the first time I watched the movie in its original aspect ratio, as I'm pretty sure the original VHS release was panned and scanned to 4:3.

Didn't laserdisc also introduce the concept of "letterbox" to home video?

I don't know about that, but I do remember that Raiders on Laserdisc was one of the very first (if not the first) letterboxed movies I ever watched. I remember my uncle complaining about "those damn bars" and I was like, "No, it's awesome! It's like the same shape as a movie theater screen!"

 

[Alphahawk]

But yeah OP, Laserdiscs are awesome. If you feel like getting a player, go for it; just make sure it has a good remote with those nice twistable circle controls for scanning.

.

Oh no ha ha, I would never get one. I barely even watch DVD's anymore just get a couple a month from Redbox. Also the flipping issue would drive me insane

 

[hateradio]

I knew this would get mentioned.

Ha, I used my position as special orders clerk when I worked at a Borders to get this with a, shall we say, rather generous discount. Such an amazing package.

Do yous still have it? Do you think you can take a picture of the cover for Episode 25'? That looks cool.

That, and those oh-so-retro promos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnzs6IgMc2E

But wanna know which format really is King of the Losers format-wise?

Look no further.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRFoLD45URI

50 GB though, just like Dual-Layered BD.

Thanks. I just spent 30 minutes on Wikipedia on obscure formats.

 

[Bluth54]

My dad had a laserdisk player. That's how I first watched the Star Wars trilogy, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Ghostbusters, Batman and the Star Trek movies.

Having to flip those laser disks multiple times during the movie was really annoying.

 

[terrisus]

No, but we did own a BetaMax

(Got a VCR as well, of course)

 

[neptunes]

It's sad that the best version of Star Wars is only avaiable one the most obscure format avaiable (Aside from CED)

 

[SBH]

My cousin had one and surround sound to go with it. It was amazing for me at time. Only ever looked one movie on it when he showed it off. The Fifth Element was glorious.

I was bummed when I had to go home and look at VHS or crappy analog tv-broadcast.

 

[Shouta]

I still have LDs myself. The art inserts and the covers are amazing but the discs themselves are now kind of out of date. I haven't decided what I want to do with all my anime ones.

 

[NEOPARADIGM]

I did not, but my grandparents did.

Watched this almost every time I visited:

 

[Fox Mulder]

my family had one, but burglars stole it. They even broke our tv trying to take that too. It was a sad day.

 

[R1CHO]

That, and those oh-so-retro promos...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnzs6IgMc2E

But wanna know which format really is King of the Losers format-wise?

Look no further.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRFoLD45URI

50 GB though, just like Dual-Layered BD.

Wow, no idea about this, pretty awesome.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Still have my Pioneer auto-flipper, before DVD, when friends came over, I would pop in Terminator 2 on LD and watch their mouths gape open at the opening scene . Even the first 2-3 years into DVDs, laserdisc versions of movies were usualy far superior due to a lack of compression.

I've been whittling down my LD disc collection over the years tho, I still have Cemetary Man, Angus, all the Star Trek movies that came out on LD, and of course

 

[hairypeckpeck]

still have both of my players working

Spoiler

and used on a regular basis

being filipino, this machine was used at every party we had for karaoke

 

[XiaNaphryz]

being filipino

Your username kinda gives it away.

 

[Darth Pinche]

Yes, we had a few players and many discs growing up. But the first was this monster that my dad bought from a Navy surplus auction. It was massive. We eventually took it apart to see what made it tick and it was an amazing machine. It had a laser similar to the one I show below, with a large laser emitter tube with a complex series of mirrors and prisms to track across the disc as it played! So over complicated by today's tech ,but beautiful.

 

[Shiv47]

Do yous still have it? Do you think you can take a picture of the cover for Episode 25'? That looks cool.

No, I sold everything in the set separately on ebay a few years ago. I would think with all the crazy Eva fans out there that there must be a decent image of it up somewhere, though.

 

[jond76]

I had the Pioneer elite that would auto flip. Awwwww yeah. As a huge movie nerd, it was awesome to see the real start of OAR and extended editions of movies come onto the scene. Some of those special editions were awesome packages (Natural Born Killers, Seven, T2).

Fucking expensive though.

 

[Neo C.]

My dad had one. He is notorious for wasting money for stupid shit.

 

[outunderthestars]

Everyone knows that CEDs were the superior obscure video format.

(Not really, but honestly I've seen more CEDs in the wild than Laserdiscs, and I have no idea how that's possible.)

Holy shit. I was just coming here to make a post about these. We had one of these. I loved it.

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

For anime fans, Laserdiscs were a godsend. Dual audio and subtitles, zomg!

did you ever listen to "be a pioneer" on a series produced by pioneer on a laserdisc machine made by pioneer?

 

[L3E2]

My parents had one growing up, we barely used it though I'm pretty sure my dad put no thought into buying one. I think we used it less than 5 times. I remember going to rent movies and the cases were so massive, they took up so much shelf space. I wonder if it's still laying around my house somewhere. Probably collecting dust in the garage or something.

 

[BLunted]

A couple of my friends had them, but were only used for Karaoke.

 

[PetriP-TNT]

There are still many movies that only have proper (as in non-wrong aspect ratio, non-added censorship or other dumb shit) version in Laserdisc format