LaserDisc player.
Anyone else have one? I remember when they were being sold at local (Massachusetts) stores like Lechmere and Ann & Hope and I think my childhood neighbors had one, but they recently retired to Florida before I could raid their garage. I did see one at a Salvation Army, but there were not discs and nowhere to test it out.
Anyone else own and play LaserDiscs to this day?
Thanks!
Dave
I don't have a player, but I do own about 200 Laserdiscs... I bought them over the last 5 years or so because I was looking for certain films that didn't get a release on dvd, and Laserdisc offered better image quality than a VHS tape would. I have an older friend who has a player, so we cut a deal and he'd make recordings of them on to dvd-r's for me.
"Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
That's cool, yeah! I was thinking of finding one at a yard/garage sale or Craigslist as most people want to get rid of their outdated stuff without knowing that there are nuts like me who want it. Anyone could have one shipped from Ebay, but what's the fun in that?
shareI still have three players, all from Pioneer, although one is badged as Hitachi. It's been several years since I've played a movie on them, so I'm worried that rubber parts like belts or rollers might have perished by now. I briefly had a Sony player, but it lived down to the lousy reputation that Sony's laserdisc players have on Avsforum by not working at all.
Real soon now i plan to capture the lossless PCM audio from some discs and see if they'll sync with video from dvds. This requires a player with S/PDIF output, a surprisingly rare feature. The Hitachi had locations on the circuit board for digital output, so it wasn't hard to add both RCA and Toslink outputs. See my post at diyaudio.com for more details.
Ended up getting a nice Pioneer model from a guy in the next town over (after 2 people backed out). Now I just have to work in a solid horror collection.
sharewhy?
shareGod knows! It's the classic "get stuff as an adult that you always wanted as a kid". Plus I like older electronics and stuff.
shareWas thinking of getting one myself but decided against it as LaserDisc are huge and I have nowhere to store them safely.
shareI happened to have lucked out with a guy in my next town selling one for $65.00 with a pile of discs. Others in the area wanted at least $100-200, which is too high for a dead format. I hooked it up in my Three Season Porch to a basic LG 24" HDTV.
Pros:
It's a nice looking piece and not nearly as bulky as I would have thought. It's actually smaller that my '70's era receiver.
This discs, while large, have a heft to them. They feel like business.
The online LD community seem like a nice group.
Cons:
I totally forgot that half of the movies are not in letterbox or widescreen format.
It's nearly impossible to find, sell or trade discs locally. Most vintage record stores are cool and fun to deal with, other nearby Craigslist folk are either clueless or outright hostile.
Similar to VHS, there's a cutoff for when movies were put out in the format.