A friend of mine is getting rid of his laserdisc collection, and I am considering picking it up..... I have a hardware question & a media question.
Would be better off running the laserdisc through my mini or my AV receiver (onkyo nr-709)?
Is there any truth to the following assertion: "You won't be able to find a better source for the original cut of Star Wars."
How is the audio? I wasn't sure if comparing DD/DTS from laserdisc to other digital formats was apples to apples.
I've done just a little bit of research, and it seems like there will be some cool stuff I've never seen (or heard...so many concerts!). For instance, I've never seen the unaltered cut of Robocop. With that said....I've been so spoiled with HD over the past many years...will I need to buy specialized components in order to play these movies in my home theater? A similar circumstance was buying the xrgb-mini in order to play my older consoles.
Star Wars on Laserdisc was the best version of the original cut. The ultimate edition came on 9 discs though (the trilogy). So hopefully at least you have a flipper player that reads top and bottom of the disc.
Laserdiscs audio had a better bitrate than the DVD counterpart. But it won't best Blu ray in any shape or form. The best sought after laserdiscs were the DTS ones. About 10 years ago they were fetching a pretty penny but I don't know now.
As for the receiver question. It outputs through optical. The better your receiver the better it will sound. Can't say anything fairer than that. Please remember that Laserdisc was an analog format so the best your going to get video wise is 480i on NTSC format. I am not even sure if component was ever supported. I used Svideo on mine years ago, but more recent than that I heard that composite was better for some reason. Apparently the svideo was decoded from a composite signal in the first place/or something.
Remember nobody makes laserdiscs anymore, they take up lots of room and the sleeves rip after a little wear. I would only have one for nostalgia reasons. Since you didn't ever have one, I am surprised your going for it now.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
Star Wars on Laserdisc was the best version of the original cut.
the bonus discs included with the seperate SE DVD releases included non-anamorphic transfers of the original cuts. Those are USUALLY superior to the laserdiscs, unless you have VERY high end equipment to play back the laserdiscs.
To get DD 5.1 from a Laserdisc you need a RF-demodulator. Many older high-end receivers and amps have one built-in, but it disappeared around 2000/2001.
Composite is the native format on the LD and it has to run through a comb filter at some point. There's a 90% chance that your TVs comb filter is better than the one built into your LD player (that is unless you have a HLD-X0), so it's better to use composite from the LD player.
LD quality is heavily dependent on the quality of the player. If you're in the US, you might want to look into a CLD-97 or 99 (Pioneer Elite). If you have access to the japanese marketplace, a R7, S9 or X9 would be your choice.
The best processing chain you can build for laserdisc is a good player (little noise and sharp picture), then a proper comb filter (Pioneer DVR or Entech CVSI-1). after that a denoising processor (Algolith Mosquito or Flea) and finally a video processor with lightning fast cadence recovery and a great video mode (VP30/ABT102, VP50, 50Pro, Edge, Duo).
If you're on a budget, chose a good player (CLD-97) and pair it up with a Faroudja-based deinterlacer.
Mini vs. Onkyo: probably won't make much of a difference. The Mini has a terrible comb filter - don't know about the Onkyo.
neorichieb1971 wrote:Remember nobody makes laserdiscs anymore, they take up lots of room and the sleeves rip after a little wear. I would only have one for nostalgia reasons. Since you didn't ever have one, I am surprised your going for it now.
Hipster appeal? Those big shiny discs do have a certain wow factor.
I'd suggest it's the same impulse that moves people to buy vinyl today, but I'd probably get lynched.
people usually buy vinyl for their sound quality. It's hard to justify laserdiscs for their audio visual appeal nowadays. People buying laserdiscs usually do it for one of the following three reasons:
a) dirt cheap classic anime
b) lots of great 80s music concerts and clips which will never be available anywhere else
c) the haptic perception of LD collector's sets.
If we're talking about the best way to watch the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy, without a doubt, the answer is to obtain "Harmy's Despecialized Editions" of the movies. They're 720p, but they're heads and tails above anything else you'll find. There's a version for each film, and an updated version of the 1st film as of now. He's probably eventually updating the other 2 as well. If you're a Star Wars fan, you need them.
a) dirt cheap classic anime
** I didn't realize this.
b) lots of great 80s music concerts and clips which will never be available anywhere else
** There are a lot of concerts in the collection I was looking at....
** Wasn't sure about the availability of certain cuts on better media.
c) the haptic perception of LD collector's sets.
** My small ass condo already has a lot of questionable/eccentric collections.
Dirt cheap classic anime in Japanese. There are some US discs floating around, but I think we're mostly talking about imports here.
As a sidenote, I remember back in the day, the fansub scene was primarily people buying Japanese laserdiscs, and ripping them to vhs while adding subtitles. Then the vhs tapes would get passed around among trading circles.
orbus wrote:Dirt cheap classic anime in Japanese. There are some US discs floating around, but I think we're mostly talking about imports here.
As a sidenote, I remember back in the day, the fansub scene was primarily people buying Japanese laserdiscs, and ripping them to vhs while adding subtitles. Then the vhs tapes would get passed around among trading circles.
Mr GaijinPunch was even involved in doing many of these
