| Author |
Message |
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 13 Nov 2017, 16:29
|
|
|
| Value is unknowable until you put it on eBay and learn how bonkers fans of Bon Jovi can be. There’s probabky a few high rollers out there. What makes one LD worth thousands and another totally worthless has never made any sense to me. I can see this going for $8 or $800. It’s not pure gold for sure, you’ll probabky have to drop it on eBay at exactly the right time in order to see an impressive figure. |
|
 |
Global announcement Jump to topic |
| Guest |
|
|
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 25 Dec 2017, 03:33
|
|
|
clashradio wrote: Thanks substance. I guess I'm confused as to why some mid-90's players had ac-3 rf-out when it seems 1999 was first year of D.D.?
AC-3 and DD may as well be considered two terms for the same thing. In the LD world there is no separating the two. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 20 Jan 2018, 01:33
|
|
|
| The number of models with DVD compatibility...not many. However the DVL-909 and 919 were very popular players (as far as LD players go) and were available until 2009 I think. If you were buying a new LD player anywhere from 1997 on up it was probably a 909 or 919. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 23 Jan 2018, 04:01
|
|
|
I recently was given a model kit of the Benetton B187 and in it was a flyer where you could win a bunch of stuff by sending in your answer card. One of the items was the Sony MDP-9.
Since I didn’t know this model I looked it up and it seems to have two pickups...but also two spindles, audio sections, drawers, etc. Like most LD players it can play CDs but for a change this one can play one of the each at the same time. It’s two players in one case with serial link built in.
http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/laserdisc_archive/sony/sony_mdp-9/sony_mdp-9.htm
Does anyone have better pictures? Has anyone ever seen one? |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 25 Jan 2018, 22:38
|
|
|
| The only problem with that is when you go to play it in your car you have a maxi single without the title track. The point of the format was that it would be useful in regular CD players as well. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 26 Jan 2018, 04:31
|
|
|
| Ahhh, the CDV is the general release and the VSD is for the F1 show that uses that song as it’s theme. Totally different releases, really. Is the video content even the same? |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 06 Mar 2018, 22:05
|
|
|
| I think I’d like to add Macross Dynamite 7 to this list. An incredible looking series. This would have been shot digitally so the master is as good/flawless as possible. It also has that “please don’t stop buying LD!” kinda of packaging that Bandai was doing towards the end. Also, a man free dives in space to sing with intergalactic whales which is just awesome times infinity. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 06 Mar 2018, 22:21
|
|
|
For some reason I’ve still never watched this. I now have parts 1 and 3 so I just need 2.
I watched part one last night, wasn’t exactly blown away. Obari can be great sometimes, same with Kitazume, but mainly it’s the music that draws me to this show. A friend of mine played the OST in his car for me ages ago, a soundtrack I could never find a copy of until recently and the price is not low. Susumu Hirasawa is really awesome and the soundtrack to episode 2 was my introduction to him yet I’ve still not seen it. Weird.
Also, I’m interested in JP versions eventually. Does anyone have a good understanding of the way these were reprinted? It looks like they probably reprinted each older ep when the new ones came out. Are they noticeably different? |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 08 Mar 2018, 04:44
|
|
|
Oh well, that’s the extent of my knowledge on this issue!  |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 13 Mar 2018, 21:52
|
|
|
I posted some pictures in in another thread. So far I have yet to find a problem with it. I’ve mostly been watching anime on it but last night I watched Brazil (CAV Criterion) on it to test it out with more subtle tones. Frankly, I’m really impressed. I’m pretty sure I’m going to unify the two home theaters into one because this new screen does so well with LD. The player is a CLD-604, not even my 99.
I’m sure other people will have complaints but I’m failing to find much issue with it. I imagine they don’t sell this exact display in Oz though and I can’t recomend any other TV since my experience is limited. One would assume the larger Bravias in the same series would all do is well but you never know. I would say 2017 4K HDR Bravia is the safest bet of all...but again, no promises.
FYI: it also handles all normal ratios well with options. I know that’s an issue with some cheap Korean sets that sometimes don’t stretch or zoom in as many ways as they need to to make LDs good. This will handle 4:3, letterboxed, or squeeze. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 16 Mar 2018, 22:25
|
|
|
| If you watch all old movies on LD and only new ones on BR you’re missing out on a LOT. The fact that you even make that distinction on purpose makes me feel you put too much thought into this kind of thing. If you aren’t enjoying LD then please sell your stuff to someone local and move on. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 27 Mar 2018, 00:29
|
|
|
If you’re watching a DIVX rip and the copy you own just sits on a shelf...35mm all the way. Even a “rare” Laserdisc is still 1000x more common than any original theatrical print. It’s also older, so more OG for that too. I would love to own an LD and the 35mm print they used to make it, if that was in any way verifiable. That would be better than owning Mickey’s XMas Carol on CED, LP, LD, DVD, for example (it just so happens this is me).
If you actually watch the stuff and you don’t have Laserbite’s weird home theater then it’s completeiy unworkable to go 35mm.
Recently I’ve been getting into Tamiya Mini 4WD and the variety in price is crazy. Oh, here’s a Lunchbox Jr for $90 and here it is for $12. I know where $12 came from, pretty close to original price, but $90? And the thing is, if you have more money than brains or patience then you’ll just believe it’s worth $90 and buy that one. If you’re some tool that thinks his collection is for getting rich off some day then the last thing you want to see is low prices. Buy high and sell higher. Bargains are for haters not players. :) “I’m going to double my money, so what I really want are the most expensive LDs I can find.” is what they think reality is. They think it’s like gold or oil where you just invest as heavily as possible because it’s all going to sell for more. You can see Christine on LD for $0.50 but I can’t retire on a dollar, so I better buy the $600 version of it.
The world has a lot of a holes in it, is what I’m saying. Some people just roll with it but others are like...”Man, if I worked hard, *I* could be the a hole!” |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 27 Mar 2018, 22:28
|
|
|
IMO the new Bravias are extremely close. They’ll never be exactly the same as Kuro (I have a XBR 960 and IMO Kuro is at least as good) because they will of course be dealing with totally different stuff but I think we’re finally there or at least very close. I’ve decided to merge my SD and HD home theaters* because of the 2017 4K Bravia, which is not something I do lightly. I didn’t buy the TV for this reason. I didn’t even hook and LD player to it for the first few months after I got it. I did it on a lark and was very surprised.
I had long theorized that having more pixels to deal with would help with SD up conversion. This doesn’t prove it, but it doesn’t disprove it either. Even though you have to use a 8mm adaptor to physically plug it in, SD still matters to some people at Sony.
If the LD itself has that “filmic” vibe (ie: the best pre-digital mastering days stuff like Criterion CAV Robin Hood or early Star Wars pressings) then this TV will not destroy it, even though it has all sorts of high tech shenanigans going on.
I would love for someone else with experience with new Bravias to give their opinion on this. I’m not as good at noticing some of the upconversion problems that other people are.
* I’m pretty sure that I will be SD only for classic gaming forever. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 13 Apr 2018, 17:06
|
|
|
It’s almoat impossible to not get kicked from a FB group. Someone there, another member, who’s a complete tool will decide they don’t like you for whatever reason and then they will report your posts until the mod just kicks you to shut the other guy up. Zero ethics, quintessentially Facebook.
Being pro-Russian is terrible but so is being pro-American and they’d never kick you for that. Therefore I’m siding with The Russian even without seeing the evidence. If they had a rule that banned all patriotism whatsoever from Laserdisc discussion (not a bad idea) then that would be different. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 23 Apr 2018, 14:01
|
|
|
That LD group is awful. Just thousands of crap photos of common garbage and people getting exiting about prices. Torture.
We need some of the guys from LDDB to post some cool stuff. It will never be any different if no one contributes....
That makes no sense. That group sucks, why would you want to take energy away from this group and put it into Facebook where intelligent posts are instantly burried forever? It’ll just kill this place, as Facebook as killed so many forums. On a website that bans nudity but allows beheading videos, sells our info to companies so people can screw with what’s left of our political process and in the end lacks dozens of features than any decent forum like this one has had since the 90s? Why? For what purpose?
They don’t want need or deserve quality posts. Let them drown in a bathtub full of Red Octobers. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 10 May 2018, 14:35
|
|
|
Yep. That’s exactly what’s happening. It’s illegal for businesses to behave that way but people who make their money off Craigslist do it all day. What they have is basically old garbage nobody wants so they do everything in the book to drive up the price up. There are forum members who are big into this. When most people sell some 25 year old disc they just want to send it on to a good owner but with some people there’s always some angle being worked. Like buying as many copies as possible and then listing them with high prices. It is a MORAL IMPERATIVE that they sell this thing for more than they paid for it. In a small market it’s easy to manipulate the price and collectors these days worship high prices so they aren’t in the business of waiting for it to drop. The noobs are dying to get the thing at any price, and any price is fine because they “know” it will always sell for more.
Lucky they pressed a ton of these things and the current LD scene is small so it’s impossible to ruin LD like how the same people are ruining classic video games, but they are sure going to try. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 17 May 2018, 17:02
|
|
|
The far more likely scenario is that all those players worked from the day they were built 20+ years ago and they were broken in shipping after you bought them.
I’m not blaming you but essentially, you broke them, indirectly. You didn’t mention packing techniques and you posted no auction links so for all we know you bought the most red flag looking junk from the shiftiest sellers on eBay...and this tends to be a thing with “victim buyers” who get hosed over and over. There is no relationship between the buyers so the only thing linking the three broken players is you.
Buy locally whenever possible. Be patient. If that’s really not possible then consider ignoring LD. If that doesn’t work buy from a guy you can trust enough to talk on the phone about it first. An LD fan themselves can assure you the packing will be sufficient, for example, take pictures before shipping, etc
And no I don’t have any players to sell and even if I did I’m already too suspicious and protective of them to mail one out and find it arrived as the forth broken deck needing a refund. Sorry. :) |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 19 May 2018, 00:00
|
|
|
Off the top of my head I can’t think of any special features on the 504 that you can’t use with other decks. The D/A and L/R buttons may be the “new style” (ie: one button instead of two) or old but that’s the only potential issue I can think of.
The 504 is a nice machine. The video is just OK but from my experience it’s a tough machine and it has all the “must” features like Both Side Play and digital audio but without a high price. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 21 May 2018, 14:16
|
|
|
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 23 May 2018, 15:09
|
|
|
I have a few thoughts on this:
First and foremost I hope this isn’t any kind of complaint because you are the biggest power broker of (what you say are) expensive rare discs I know of. (I don’t get around much.) I’m trying to figure out how you’re not complaining about yourself. And don’t even think about denying it because you have TONS of posts, some of the best here to be honest, that detail every irrelevant variation of disc for acts NOBODY BUYS in the general record market anymore that you say trade hands for values that seem bonkers to me. The question you’re asking us...it’s the same one I have for you.
In addition to that, I don’t have much to add. The high roller LD world is your domain. When I got into it (1992) people just paid retail or less unless the title was especially rare and in demand, like Five Star Stories used to be. For the most part the whole “rich-ass big time collector guy” thing didn’t happen until the noobs jumped in, which was right around 2006 I’d speculate. I don’t collect what they collect so I have no clue what motivates them or why they are so obsessed with making sure LD is expensive forever. They are opportunist speculator noobs and there isn’t much lower in the mind of more long term stable fans in a scene. They ruined comic books in the 90s, moved into Beenie Babies and now seem to deal mostly in old video games.
Ask the people you buy and sell from, that would be the best bet for an answer. I’d wager you won’t get anywhere with that though. What you seem to indicate is problem isn’t even something these people will understand as a concept. This kind of weird behavior is really only observable by people who don’t display it. The affected think it’s perfectly sane to raise the price on everything every time you sell one because that’s the way it’s always been, even way way WAY back in 2006 (years after the format was dead btw).
Keep in mind that your very very impressive collection of music titles is completely worthless to the majority of planet earth because most major label music acts of the 80s and 90s are gone. Even the genres are unrecognizable. There is ZERO hair metal on American radio now and all the indie rock and underground dance and hip hop that shaped the current scene is almost totally unrepresented on LD since LD was mainly just for rich acts on huge labels. If you’re buying and selling $300 discs all day then you’re as embedded as it gets. Start doing interviews and find out if that weirdo who just dropped $700 on a Whitney Houston greatest hits discs with a weird barcode is maybe an alien in disguise or something. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 08 Jun 2018, 02:43
|
|
|
Long story short: there are more Laserdisc video games aimed at the home market than most people realize but they are all varying degrees of expensive, unreliable, and unfun.
I agree that it would be a good sort of thing to build into the site. Much more relevant that HDDVD, for example. It’s a murky world with few collectors and high prices on everything. I don’t think any of our regulars know more than I do and I don’t know enough to start filling in a database.
Regarding your Laseractive question: the modules pop out in seconds and they cost hundreds each so I would be more concerned with getting them than the pain of swapping them out. Fair warning though: the Laseractive sucks. I wish it didn’t, but it does. :( For the record I am a huge fan of this exact era of gaming and I own and love all four systems from the 16 bit era as well as Laserdisc but I still don’t think the system is worth the space it takes up let alone Neo Geo sized prices for every single terrible game. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 14 Jun 2018, 03:33
|
|
|
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 02 Jul 2018, 15:34
|
|
|
Thank you all so much. I am completely new to any kind of receiver/ surround sound stuff. Previously I've always just had a awai stereo running... Well, stereo....
I updated my receiver this morning and started digging in more looking for some of the stuff you guys mentioned... I found Neo:6 a DTS thing apparently and it defines it as extracting 7 point surround from a two channel input.... Mind blown. I had no idea that was a thing. This encoded audio stuff is a trip.
Not sure what matrix surround is, but it sounds like I'm getting closer.
Honestly at this point, it's no wonder these never took off for the average movie viewer. You guys wouldn't know it by my lack of comprehension on this topic, but I'm an enthusiastic a/v guy/ computer person, but have just never played with surround sound of any kind in my 34yrs on this Earth. Lots to catch up on.
So if you had my setup, would you run it on optical, coax, or l/r rca cables? I'm still just blown away that surround can be extrapolated from two channel analog.
Thank you for you patience with a noob
-chris
When home theater began in the 80s there was zero relationship to computer people, probably because computers were so bad back then they had no place in it. (A VCR beats a monochrome computer with 8k pretty handily). The computer people invaded in the 2000s, after DVD, when everything went digital, and they started to be attracked to things they found familiar like “megabytes” and how many bits of color information were being seen. By then everything was automatic so they never needed to put any logic into (ironically). And the prices dropped so much so fast no noobs would bother with old stuff. AV nerds mainly were audio nerds and expanded. They may be computer people (I have an uncle who left me some gear who was a computer programmer for the state) if they were left single too long. :)
There is a great deal of genius in analog electronic engineering. You should look into it. Surround Sound goes back at least to the late 40s.
As I sort of didn’t really plainly say, when using old sources they will be stereo until you switch to Pro Logic. Pro Logic is the only system really designed to be used with matrixed LD but you can also use Pro Logic II, Logic 7 or Neo 6. You’ll find the field more dynamic but there may be weird artifacts. If so, go back to regular Pro Logic. I use Neo 6 most of the time.
Neo 6 is just Sony’s branded ProLogic. It comes with many things that play DTS. Harmon Kardon invented Logic 7 I think. They do basically the same thing as the analog Dolby boxes did in the 70s but because they are digital there is more going on with steering different dynamics and of course converting it to more than four speakers. I usually use Neo 6.
As for what sounds, you’ll have to try them all and tell us. If one version of something was flat better the others in everyone’s opinion in every situation then there would just be an HDMI port and obviously that didn’t exist back then.
Also, while digital sound connections are better than analog ones overall, the DAC in you $800 player from back when people used analog sound and had huge stereos might be better than the one in your receiver that cost half as much. Probably not when the receiver is so much newer, but it happens. So sometimes analog out sounds best. You also have to hook up the analogs anyway because many discs have no digital sound and the player won’t send it over digital.
Most of us here have three audio paths to the receiver:
Analog outs: for main sound on old movies, for commentary isolated sound, etc on later discs. Also used when you like what the DAC is putting out more than the one in your receiver.
Digital outs (SPDIF or TOSLINK): for main sound on newer LDs and for DTS
AC-3 out: goes to demod, for Dolby Digital movies.
As for another question you had, if you have a digital out on this player and that receiver you can play DTS discs with no extra gear. When introduced DTS were very high end discs that needed special gear but Sony has done so well than their code is built into every receiver now. |
|
|
Jump to forum Jump to topic |
| signofzeta |
|
Posted: 24 Jul 2018, 02:16
|
|
|
| If you turn Surround off on most processors you’ll get your dual mono from L+R. I guess if you want to have hyper focused sound from what probably isn’t your best speaker you can have it that way but just because a movie is in mono doesn’t mean you’re limited to a single driver. |
|
|
|
Thanks list