Hello all.

I am hunting for a rare film on LD or DVD, being the two best formats it's been released on. That being said, I need a LD player as well.

My questions:
1) I can get a Pioneer LD-V6000 rather cheaply. I'm looking to make one copy of this movie digitally and leave it at that. Is this player of a decent quality to get a somewhat nice looking copy from? (I've searched this board for this player, but nothing is really coming up. If you have experience with any similar Pioneers, that's fine.)
2) How good is LaserDisc compared to DVD (specifically keeping prices in comparison with each other)? The film in question on LaserDisc costs about $5 while it's closer to $75 on DVD, which is much too expensive for my tastes. Being able to watch the movie at around half the cost is great, but I'd rather not get the movie and a player if it's not going to look that great.

Your help in this matter is very much appreciated.

Thanks,
cb481

You should just tell us what it is. More important than LD vs DVD is exactly what LDs and DVDs are available for this specific movie. Many DVDs, especially of hard to find stuff, are worse than the LD even though that shouldn't be the case. If this is all about one movie than the merits of the formats overall don't matter.

Also, have you checked all the pirate places? There's no point in spending $$$ to digitize something if it's already been better by someone else.

The film is Big Wave which was released in 1984. I Googled around but couldn't find anything digital; even the DVD is long out of print. And I'm not sure which is better...

The middle section here has more information (in Japanese).

I have a rare surfing film in my shop now.
While this may be rare on DVD, I highly doubt it will be cheap on LD.
You will end up spending more on the LD player, disc and transfer machine than 75 bucks.

And that is if you can even find a copy on LD which I'm sure is super rare.

Don't know much about the player in question other than it's probably an industrial player. Never had one of those so I can't say much about the picture quality.

As far as the movie you're looking for, you're in luck as two of them are on Yahoo Japan:

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/p541385476

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/253136005

As far as quality of the LD itself, can't really say. I do have some Japanese released LDs from the mid-80s (around the same time as that disc) and they looked good, not great. They at least looked good on the CRT I use. Keep in mind that these discs I'm talking about are generally dark movies (Terror in the Aisles and Halloween II) and LD most of the time looks weakest for dark shots. I'm imagining your surfing movie would have mostly outdoor shots, so it will probably better.

Thanks for the information on quality. I've done some comparisons on YouTube and found the quality to be good enough. Now just to find a player that won't break the bank... maybe it'll be doable.

Btw, picture quality from a V6000 will not be great. What capture/post processing you use may make that irelevent though.

I own an LD-V6000, first player I picked up, while it could be an intriguing unit for someone new to LD, it's lack of functionality
will leave you quickly wanting something better if you plan to continue the format.

For a one time capture it might be ok, I do use mine sometimes to playback CAV discs, which I think it does quite well.
It is a very early front loading design, I believe one of the earlier solid state players. Consumer model is LD-700.

I have the remote for mine and even with that I can't make many commands on a CLV disc (no time search,chap search etc) the last CLV I played in it also had horrendous crosstalk.

CAVs on the other hand play very well and I get full features with the remote, without remote you get stop, play and thats it.

Other downside is very weak audio section, easily worst of all the players I own, mid 80s pioneers weren't known for their sound.


Long story short a wouldn't pay much more then $25-30 for it, especially without remote.
I do really like the build quality and style of it though, it's built like a tank!

Edit: I forgot you can in fact use scan on CLV discs, so on CLV you can actually play, stop, scan, but that's about it, still limited compared to newer players.

Thanks for the picture quality info on the V6000, signofzeta and sjoerg. I think I'll pass on that player considering that the film in question is CLV (I think, anyway, as I've only seen one disc pictured and it's longer than 60 minutes).

CLV isn't the real issue.
The real issue is that the disc from Japan will cost you 40 bucks with all extra fees, player if you are lucky will be 40 bucks and then you need
to transfer the disc, what will this cost???

If you say its on DVD for 75 wait till you find the guy who has it for sale for 40 bucks and you have a deal.

LD is not really for the transfer of one disc, its for collecting and enjoying
Better off finding someone who does this already like signofzeta said and buy that copy.

If you just want to transfer it, anything will do. If you want to transfer it with best possible quality, then you're looking at spending past 1000 USD. The high-end players usually isn't cheap, and good capture equipment costs a bit too. Then there's the post processing which has a learning curve to it too, if you want to do it right. If not looking to spend a lot of hours and money on it, then just find the cheapest working player you can find and a cheap working DVD recorder. Even then, it can still be sensible to just buy the overpriced DVD. Especially if you only want that one movie.