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I was at a friends house the other day and to my shock, he still had his Laserdisc Player. We watched Bladerunner which looked spectacular. I remember LD being kind of like a prototype for The DVD/Blu Ray..the only problem was, with LD, you would have to flip it over to watch the rest of the movie. My question to all is, has anyone else had or has a Laserdisc Player? If so what are your experiences with owning one?

Never had, I went straight to DVD from VHS.

Friend of mine then got into LDs late in the game, probably around 1997, he was convinced DVDs would not take over so he kept buying LDs up until they were pulled from the shelves to stock up his video library. iirc, some of the special edition LDs were $100+ back then, but averaged around $35-$40. What a fool.

Originally posted by Robtard
Never had, I went straight to DVD from VHS.

Friend of mine then got into LDs late in the game, probably around 1997, he was convinced DVDs would not take over so he kept buying LDs up until they were pulled from the shelves to stock up his video library. iirc, some of the special edition LDs were $100+ back then, but averaged around $35-$40. What a fool. Yeah. I recall them being pretty pricey...I sure as he'll couldn't afford them at the time. The one thing that kinda ruined it for me with LD, is the fact that movies would come with at least two discs, and you had to flip from side a to side b.

Yeah, I think The Godfather Collection was something like 6-7 disc, three films and a disc for the extras or something, meaning to watch a single film, you had to use two disc and then flip each disc from A to B.

He's gonna take you back to the past...

to check out his laserdisc collection:

W6jVw5eZJjk

Pretty cool actually. Would love to spend a few hours in his basement, checking out what he had.

I still have my DVD collection in storage. Forget now, but I'd guess around 150ish store bought dvd's and another 1300-1600 burned dvds I made back when Netflix first started.

Originally posted by Robtard
Yeah, I think The Godfather Collection was something like 6-7 disc, three films and a disc for the extras or something, meaning to watch a single film, you had to use two disc and then flip each disc from A to B. From what I recall, the godfather on LD looked amazing. I mean from the specialized box and packaging ...though I never got view it on LD

Originally posted by Jmanghan
He's gonna take you back to the past...

to check out his laserdisc collection:

W6jVw5eZJjk That is f**king awesome

I havent ever had a laserdisc player..... Im more interested in VIDEODISC players

I love VHS like crazy.......

Yeah. Never knew anyone that had one back in the day but LD kind of skipped my area. We just went straight from VHS to DVD.

Originally posted by Robtard
Pretty cool actually. Would love to spend a few hours in his basement, checking out what he had.

I still have my DVD collection in storage. Forget now, but I'd guess around 150ish store bought dvd's and another 1300-1600 burned dvds I made back when Netflix first started. My dad had one in the early 80's he had things like Westworld and Future world on it and some pork including Emmanuelle, but he bought videoworld every month. Ha, it was another time.

I remember laserdiscs. Must have been 4 or 5. Huge things, the size of records.


I think the movie was..... I want to say Ghostbusters. Pretty sure it wasn't Star Wars.

Originally posted by Putinbot1
My dad had one in the early 80's he had things like Westworld and Future world on it and some pork including Emmanuelle, but he bought videoworld every month. Ha, it was another time.

Ah, the video store. Going there, looking around, pulling out a single movie.

I can watch anything I want now, whenever I want. Just isn't the same, is it.

Originally posted by cdtm
Ah, the video store. Going there, looking around, pulling out a single movie.

I can watch anything I want now, whenever I want. Just isn't the same, is it. Exactly how I feel

Originally posted by Putinbot1
My dad had one in the early 80's he had things like Westworld and Future world on it and some pork including Emmanuelle, but he bought videoworld every month. Ha, it was another time.

Ha, I remember watching that softporn Emanuelle as a kid after a classmate showed me how to get around the security controls on the cable box.

Originally posted by Robtard
Ha, I remember watching that softporn Emanuelle as a kid after a classmate showed me how to get around the security controls on the cable box. Haha in the UK when video stores first happened no one cared about certificates, the stuff a 14 year old Whirly watched on vid lol.

I'm sure it shaped you into the fine person you are today.

You know it's amazing because I just looked on Amazon, and Laserdisc Players are in the $400-$700 plus price range, but LD movies like "Goodfellas" "Cape Fear" and a few others are from $7.00-$12.00. Tempting but I think I am better off with Blu Ray/DVD.

My friend informed me there was a downsides to owning an LD player. The thing is that the LD themselves develop something called "Laser Rot" over time, and it can inter fear with playback and distorting the picture.

Unless you're some sort of collector and you want an LD player/LD films as part of your film-format collection, I'd not invest in an LD player; as it's obsolete tech.

I'd not even invest too heavily into BluRay. Everything is going digital; why have bulky physical discs when you can fit thousands of film on a computer hard-drive and stream the films to your television using a film media server.

What I do now; have just a bit over 1,800 films.

Originally posted by Robtard
Unless you're some sort of collector and you want an LD player/LD films as part of your film-format collection, I'd not invest in an LD player; as it's obsolete tech.

I'd not even invest too heavily into BluRay. Everything is going digital; why have bulky physical discs when you can fit thousands of film on a computer hard-drive and stream the films to your television using a film media server.

What I do now; have just a bit over 1,800 films. Agreed about the LD player(Still lingers in the back of my mind) but as far as investing in BluRay, I already did so when I purchased my PS4 and Xbox One. Basically I like owning classic movies such as The Godfather, Bladerunner etc. Another friend of my basically goes the same route that you do which I have to admit, is a pretty good setup.

Originally posted by Robtard
Unless you're some sort of collector and you want an LD player/LD films as part of your film-format collection, I'd not invest in an LD player; as it's obsolete tech.

I'd not even invest too heavily into BluRay. Everything is going digital; why have bulky physical discs when you can fit thousands of film on a computer hard-drive and stream the films to your television using a film media server.

What I do now; have just a bit over 1,800 films. Originally posted by P-Geyser
Agreed about the LD player(Still lingers in the back of my mind) but as far as investing in BluRay, I already did so when I purchased my PS4 and Xbox One. Basically I like owning classic movies such as The Godfather, Bladerunner etc. Another friend of my basically goes the same route that you do which I have to admit, is a pretty good setup.


I barely remember Laserdisc. I seem to recall I might have seen one in like 4th grade or something. Yeah, pretty sure my teacher played something on one, I remember that big ol' disc.

While I agree with Rob to some extent (having digital films is basically the wave of the future) I also agree with Geyser. I like having hard copies of films too. You get highest quality that way, too. Some movies you just want the highest quality video and sound. I have a ton of digital films, but many of them are noticeably lower quality, unless of course you have so much storage capacity that you can have huge, huge files. But that gets ridiculous.

I find that a 1080p digital film at around 3.5-5gigs is good quality in both video and sound. Anything higher improves it more. Over 10gigs is kind of a waste unless you're on an 8K TV or similar.

On some older flicks, you can get away with 2-3gigs as those were never HiDef to begin with. eg I think my copy of Hawk the Slayer (1980) is 1.8gigs; it's fine, as the film was grainy and low quality goodness upon release.

The ones that are 30+gigs are ridiculously large, it's basically the full BluRay ripped to digital with no file shrinking.

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
I barely remember Laserdisc. I seem to recall I might have seen one in like 4th grade or something. Yeah, pretty sure my teacher played something on one, I remember that big ol' disc.

While I agree with Rob to some extent (having digital films is basically the wave of the future) I also agree with Geyser. I like having hard copies of films too. You get highest quality that way, too. Some movies you just want the highest quality video and sound. I have a ton of digital films, but many of them are noticeably lower quality, unless of course you have so much storage capacity that you can have huge, huge files. But that gets ridiculous. Yeah I agree with you and Robtard. Another reason why I like DVD's/Blu Ray is not just because of the classics, but I also own alot of wrestling DVD's and enjoy watching them for the memories...since the current product leaves ALOT to be desired.

I still own a working Laserdisc player. The visual quality compared to what VHS was in the day was breathtaking, not to mention the superior sound. It was an early preview of DVD & Blu-rays. But when I bought my first HDTV in 2006 and plugged in the LD player, the visual quality was disappointing; almost looked like second generation VHS. Incompatible technology - there was no HDMI connection to make. So I started replacing most everything I had bought on Laserdisc with DVD and Blu-ray versions, and by the time I bought a PS3 player, I just put in in storage along with my discs.

Laserdiscs were expensive; I only owned a dozen or so, and rented the others. Buying some for $30-40 dollars Canadian seemed a good deal, as they often retailed between $60-100 dollars. The most expensive set I owned was the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, bought at Christmas in 1997 for $180. It felt like the Holy Grail of my movie collection for a long time. When DVDs came out and were retailing for $20 each, I felt so spoiled and lucky to buy them in big numbers!

Originally posted by roughrider
I still own a working Laserdisc player. The visual quality compared to what VHS was in the day was breathtaking, not to mention the superior sound. It was an early preview of DVD & Blu-rays. But when I bought my first HDTV in 2006 and plugged in the LD player, the visual quality was disappointing; almost looked like second generation VHS. Incompatible technology - there was no HDMI connection to make. So I started replacing most everything I had bought on Laserdisc with DVD and Blu-ray versions, and by the time I bought a PS3 player, I just put in in storage along with my discs.

Laserdiscs were expensive; I only owned a dozen or so, and rented the others. Buying some for $30-40 dollars Canadian seemed a good deal, as they often retailed between $60-100 dollars. The most expensive set I owned was the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, bought at Christmas in 1997 for $180. It felt like the Holy Grail of my movie collection for a long time. When DVDs came out and were retailing for $20 each, I felt so spoiled and lucky to buy them in big numbers! Was it a pain in the ass to have to flip the disc over to continue to watch whatever movie?

Early hdtv's had bad upscaling.

Modern vhs honestly looked decent on a 720p hdtv with good upscaling, the same as a PS2 with components.

Originally posted by P-Geyser
Was it a pain in the ass to have to flip the disc over to continue to watch whatever movie?

They found a good part of the movie to break at so it wasn't that bad; it was just what you dealt with. No different than having an intermission, which longer movies used to have when I was younger before audiences got more patient.

The Star Wars Special Edition laserdiscs had frame-by-frame advance and freezing on the third act disc sides, but that meant double the amount of encoding on that side of the disc. That meant that side of the disc could have no more than a 1/2 hour of content, when the standard was an hour on each disc side.