My latest obsession---Laserdiscs---Any other collectors?

[Arcadiac]

Hi y'all.
 
Last summer at the end of the flea market season, a guy was packing up his stuff, disgusted at having a bad sales day.  He had a stack of laserdiscs and a player he was about to pack in so I asked him how much he was asking for them.  He said he had paid $25 for the lot at auction and he just wanted to get his money back, so I gave him the $25 and came home with over 25 movies and a working player!

I was hooked! 
The sound and picture is great on my older big screen TV and I have been collecting ever since.

In our area, when they can be found, I've been buying them for $1-3
(usually on the low end  ) per disc in box lots.

I have accumulated over 100 discs that way, my prizes being the earlier editions of the first three Star Wars movies in WS, a Spike Jones video collection and the first Golden Age of Looney Tunes Box set (1 of 5 sets, my most expensive buy at $30 shipped/5 disks). 
Of my collection I have had 30-40 discs just given to me by people who had them around collecting dust.

Now I can't keep off of EBay, trying to get the other
Looney Tunes sets and some other things I want.

I'm gonna have to limit myself to one good purchase a month or this could get out of control real quick!

I'm a notorious gadget addict, however my tastes tend to lean to older technology (read cheap/finally more affordable).<<<--Addict behavior, rationalizing, justifying!!

Can anyone else relate to the obsessive collecting?

Anyone else collect Laserdiscs?

ARCADIAC!

 

[Loafmeister]

Laserdisks were great for their time and still have a place (especially if you don't partake into hi-def screens).  I had a pretty big collection but my problem with them was laser rot, which became a big issue in the laser disc community and specifically in my own collection. Gone was the Sinbad trilogy box set. Gone was my favorite film shawshank Redemption and many more.

At the price you're paying, no big deal you're doing great!  Just be aware of that if/when you play your movies and start seeing "snow" on the screen.

[CheffoJeffo]

I've got two still working players and may buy a disc if I come across one at an absolute bargain price, but I don't go looking for them anymore.

[Arcadiac]

I really like that I can get some uncensored cartoons, many of which are not available in any other format.  And the Star Wars early pressings are the least-tampered with of any of the releases.

I've yet to run into laser rot, I have a copy of Blazing Saddles that skips toward the end, is that a symptom too?  I've only just begun the hobby and some collectors say that laser rot is a misnomer for dirty/scratched disks.

I have the 3rd set of Looney Tunes on the way, I'm looking forward to it's arrival!

Still seeking the elusive Tex Avery set, bidding gets pretty crazy on Ebay, $50+!

As far as a chain store that still carries LD, Half-Price books sells used
for $3.99 and up but their stock is small.

HD is not an issue, we gotta be late adopters of new technology as it gets more affordable.

ARCADIAC!

[Mauzy]

I bought a really nice Mitsubishi player at a garage sale for $5 this summer and it came with Pink Floyd's The Wall. It plays great but you have to take apart the entire machine (not kidding) to change disks. Im working on it though.

[Loafmeister]

laser rot: I'm not sure if I remember correctly but laser rot is the term used to describe the breakdown of the glue that holds the two platters together.  It's not really visible but the laserdisc players' laser can't seem to pick up the video properly if the disc has such an issue.

I'm not saying it happens to all disc but it happened too often.

[Arcadiac]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_rot
http://www.lddb.com/laserrot.php

The disks become separated according to lddb.com.
A couple of crappy vids on Youtube show results, speckles, etc.
Definitely a real issue, but less than 1%, I probably won't run into it much.

Oh, I have to tell on myself regarding the first player I had, the one I got in the buy with the 25 discs... 
Here's my first post from last October at alt.video.laserdisc:

"I did something dumb--
I bought an RCA LDR600 last weekend.
It worked great with LD, but I got the bright idea to try a dvd
("Idiocracy", how ironic!) in it (figuring the worst that would happen
would be a disk error message) and it got stuck.
Wouldn't play of course, also wouldn't open and release the disk.
I opened up the player to find that the machine had clamped down on
the disc.  I very gently loosened the top rail and removed the disc.
The disc holder/clamp is still locked tight as if it still has a disk
in it.  Now upon powering up, the door won't open, the display will
read "open" then "close" but nothing happens, no motor noise or
anything.  Then the display reads 0 min 0 secs.
Is there anyway to fix (reset?) this or did I totally ruin it?
Is it worth taking to a repair shop?
It seems a damn nice player, 2-sided play/s-vid etc.
I feel like such an idiot."

At any rate with some help from the members there I decided to just get another player instead of trying to fix the RCA.

Lesson Learned--NEVER put a DVD in a laserdisc player! 

BTW my current player is a Pioneer CLD-v5000 auto-flip model w/S-Vid.
Got it for $30 shipped on Ebay, not too shabby!
Sold the other ones I bought over the summer/fall to finance it.

PS- earlier today a friend told me of another local store that has laserdiscs for around $3 ea., might be time to go feed the addiction!

ARCADIAC!

[Mauzy]

BTW my current player is a Pioneer CLD-v5000 auto-flip model w/S-Vid.
Got it for $30 shipped on Ebay, not too shabby!
Sold the other ones I bought over the summer/fall to finance it.

Holy Crap! I didn't think an LD player could even be shipped for 30 bucks. Maybe yours is newer and lighter, but mine weighs a good thirty pounds. I know how you feel when it comes to finding an unfixable problem with these things. I worked for about 10 hours to sync up the gearing on the tray of my garage sale find Mitsubishi M-V7010. Still can't get it right. I think one of this years garage sale season goals will be a new LD player.

[bishmasterb]

I collected Laserdiscs before DVD and have about 300 of them. We still watch them occasionally, but the picture quality is really fairly poor on larger HD sets. I assume it's just the usual thing with most HD sets not displaying SD signals very well.

Towards the end of the LD life-cycle, Pioneer used to host a large fire-sale every once in a while in SoCal. I picked up a lot of brand new discs there in the late 90s for $2/each.

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been hijacked by the "Laserdisc is superior to DVD folks" yet.   

[Loafmeister]

LOL, I remember when the first batch of non-anamorphic DVD's that had awful grainy blacks were released, boy was there interesting debates.  But once the DVD mastering got better, and with the advent of anamorphic releases, I don't think there's one LD fan who has the guts to try that line to push "LD superiority".

No one misunderstand please!  I'm a big fan of the format so keep the knives in check!

[Arcadiac]

The store I went to Saturday has several hundred used disks for $5.99 or 2 for $10.  And they trade 2 for 1.  I found some good stuff there but put off buying until I trim down my collection of the stuff I'll never watch again.
I did however pick up Gigantor Vol. 1 Anime disk for $3.99 at a comic book shop.

The great thing I see about laserdiscs is that some titles have yet to be released on other formats, making them somewhat rare.
Especially the uncut animation, like the Looney Tunes and Tex Avery sets.

I enjoy buying machines that used to cost $1000 for $20.

As far as HD, again not an issue for me, can't afford it!
Plasma/LCD TV's still look just plain weird to me.

But, one of the guys I bought some disks from a while back had his player hooked up to his 63" flat-screen and it looked great to me!
I guess there are ways to optimize the output depending on the player and TV.

Hell, I still have a VHS player hooked up for the occasional movie or taped program! 
I just got rid of my 8-tracks, so what do I know!?!

ARCADIAC!

[Level42]

Ah, it's great to see this brilliant Dutch invention to be still alive

Laserdisc never sold in Europe. Only the real movie die-hards had one.

I would love to see the original SW movies on LD.

I've got a couple Level 42 CD-video singles. (some of these: http://forevernow.com/music/cdvideo.shtml)

Remember, gold colored, with one track video and 2 or 3 audio tracks. I bet he video part of those discs have never been played. They used to be quite valuable some time ago because of their rarity.

I think one of those was actually the very first CD-video's released overhere. IIRC there even were special CD-video only players....now who would want that ?

[Arcadiac]

On one of the colder weekends a few weeks ago, my son and I had a
Star Wars fest and watched all three of them in a row! 
Original pressings, I bought them recently in a box lot of 17 disks for $40.
They're said to be most true to the theatrical version, all I know is they looked and sounded great on my old-school 52" RCA projection TV.
Good Times!

ARCADIAC!

[ark_ader]

I used to collect laserdisc arcade games.

I have had some rare ones in my collection, but after my Sony 1450 died I sold them.

I still have Interstellar and Esh's Aurunmilla.

But I they will all go to a happier home soon. 

[DaveMMR]

I bought a used Laserdisc player from the record store I worked at a while ago (right at the dawn of DVD).  I used to buy everything on LD - man expensive.  Somehow I ended up with this strange activity disk called "Fun and Games" that used the player as part of the play (e.g. - you had to try to stop on a particular frame; you advanced frames like a board game, etc.)  It was made by Scholastic and Bill Murray was in a few chapters (doing Tongue Twisters).  It's actually a bit insane.  I haven't gotten around to transferring it over to DVD yet.