Any Hypers still use laserdisc?

[Bat Attack]

Are there any Hypers out there that own a Laserdisc player? Or did? And if you do, do you still watch movies on it?

 

[hitmanyr2k]

The only reason I still have my laserdisc player is because I have the original THX version (not that special edition crap) of the Star Wars trilogy on LD.

 

[Movies205]

An argument can be made for laserdiscs sounding better than DVDs since they use full-bitrate I believe...

 

[Bat Attack]

The only thing that bothers me with laserdisc is that I have to flip the disc over once one side is done.

 

[Kaboom]

i watched the bear on laser disc in high school

 

[Wolfwood]

I remember the first and last time I ever saw a laserdisk movie, which was back in the third grade. I only remember because in the movie, this really fat guy and a couple of other guys had to get naked and huddle together under a blanket to prevent hypothermia.

 

[Kaboom]

naked guys under a blanket in third grade.

what school did you go to?

 

[thedeadite]

my next major electronic purchase is going to be a laserdisc player.
why? cause i'm weird like that.

 

[Wolfwood]

naked guys under a blanket in third grade.

what school did you go to?

The school was named Berlin, maybe the relation to Germany had something to do with the educational material.

 

[Bat Attack]

An argument can be made for laserdiscs sounding better than DVDs since they use full-bitrate I believe...

Thats true, and the picture has a more "Film-like" quality.

 

[SpHinX]

I have one... Well, my dad has one, but aside from that point lol I have a bunch of Laserdisc's including the original Star Wars... It was always some sort of event to me when we would watch them lol I feel like watching Star Wars on Laserdisc now

 

[Bat Attack]

I'm still working on adding more movies to my LD collection right now, I only have about 10 so far.

 

[Shuley]

most of these hypsters aren't even old enough to remember when it was around ,nevermind owning one.

 

[Bat Attack]

Well it was used until the late 90's which wasn't that long ago.

 

[BatMatt]

Two years ago, Senior year of High School, we watched High Noon on laserdisc in Message of Film

 

[The Chairman]

I have not and probably never will use Laserdisc.

 

[Donnie Darko]

on the Chasing Amy dvd, they use the same commentary that they used on the Laserdisc, and it is hilarious because Kevin Smith is like "this is the commentary for the special edition laserdisc... LASER DISC! **** dvd!"

 

[<(o_o)>]

My family was poor & could never afford fancy things like laser disc players back in the day. We were lucky to even have a vcr to watch movies on.

 

[Bat Attack]

on the Chasing Amy dvd, they use the same commentary that they used on the Laserdisc, and it is hilarious because Kevin Smith is like "this is the commentary for the special edition laserdisc... LASER DISC! **** dvd!"

Yeah, they used the commentary from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" special edtion laserdisc on the first DVD release of the film in 1999.

 

[Jackasscoley15]

I used to watch T2 on Laserdisc a lot.

 

[buddha182]

my good friend (a home theatre junkie) has a whole bunch of laserdiscs... including the original star wars, gladiator, saving private ryan, aliens, and much more... he's a firm believer that the audio (especially in the star wars discs) is much much better than what's currently being put on DVD (due to compression and other manufacturing decisions)

 

[Bat Attack]

I've really been wanting to buy this T2 set.

 

[Bat Attack]

my good friend (a home theatre junkie) has a whole bunch of laserdiscs... including the original star wars, gladiator, saving private ryan, aliens, and much more... he's a firm believer that the audio (especially in the star wars discs) is much much better than what's currently being put on DVD (due to compression and other manufacturing decisions)

Yeah, here is an article about the sound quality on laserdiscs.

(from Laserdisc Forever)

The Sound
The audio is a different story. Listening in 2-channel stereo, laserdisc audio almost always sounds richer and fuller than its compressed DVD counterpart. DVD sound quality is generally acceptable, but barring substantial mastering differences the 2-channel downmix sounds thinner and less vibrant than the uncompressed PCM audio on a laserdisc. Both formats offer Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 channel surround sound for those with high end audio equipment, and these soundtracks tend to be closer in quality (with the edge still usually going to laserdisc).
As for the reasons why this happens, there are several factors at work:
Laserdiscs have four separate and distinct audio channels. Two carry the PCM digital stereo signal and two carry the analog stereo. If a laserdisc includes a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, that signal is distributed in RF-modulated form through one of the analog channels. The other analog channel usually has either a mono sound mix or an audio commentary. This leaves both digital stereo tracks free.
The advantage to this method is that the 5.1 mix and the stereo or Dolby Surround mix are kept forever separate.
DVD has the potential for even more audio tracks, but the disc producers almost never use them for this purpose. They usually fill them with extra commentaries or foreign-language soundtracks, if anything. DVD also has one feature that sounds in theory like a great innovation but winds up being its greatest curse. All of the audio on a DVD is Dolby Digital-encoded. The player then is capable of taking the 5.1 mix and (within the player itself) down-converting this into a regular 2-channel stereo or surround mix for those people who don't have 5.1 surround sound.
Why this is such a problem? In preparing the audio for this down-conversion process, many compromises have to be made. One of two things usually happens:
1) The disc producers will favor the 5.1 track at the expense of the stereo downmix. One common mistake is to direct all of the bass in a soundtrack towards the LFE channel, leaving none whatsoever for the stereo mix. If you listen to it in stereo or Pro-Logic, therefore, important parts of the sound design may be practically silent. Or,
2) The disc producers will compromise the 5.1 track in order to accomodate more favorable down-conversion. If listening in Dolby Digital the bass is not going to be as deep as it should be, and the discrete sound effects will be limited.
This second process is the more common and leaves both soundtracks at a disadvantage. So you see, it's really the worst of both worlds. A simple fix to this would be if all disc producers would simply include separately both a 5.1 mix and a 2.0 mix on the same disc. A few do this, but very few and it is becoming rarer all the time. Even when they do, the 2.0 mix is not going to sound as good as the uncompressed PCM digital on laserdisc, but it will at least be closer and the 5.1 should be the same on both. Given this, one might think that DTS audio, which remains separated from the PCM or Dolby Digital mix on a disc, would remain uncompromised. Sadly, this is not the case. DTS requires significantly more disc storage memory than Dolby Digital. In order to keep everything on a 5" platter, this means that either the bitrate allotted to the picture quality must be reduced to make room, or the DTS signal must be processed at a lower bitrate. Again, these compromises are not necessary on the laserdisc format.

 

[imdaly]

I'm still bummed I haven't seen any laserdisc burners for my computer yet

 

[Warhammer]

I still have The Lion King on Laserdisc.
...Michael Jackson 30 min. music videos as well.