Hello from Texas!
I recently re-entered the world of LD for the first time since the early 90s. Back then, as a college student, I picked up an oddball Zenith player and took advantage of the Columbia House offers, plus lots of rentals (renting Aliens SE to watch with my nerd friends stands out as a memory of LD "Elite-ness" from that time
). My early experience with LD shaped my preference for OAR viewing and above-average picture quality, which I carried with me into the DVD era and beyond. I parted with the Zenith and LD when it broke around 1998.In recent years I've collected a few CRT TVs and even a (free!) VPH1270 Sony CRT projector. This led to lots of retro gaming and finally back to Laserdisc.
I picked up a modest player (V2200) for almost nothing recently and a few discs. I am mainly interested in genre and oddball LD releases.
After 22 years I was surprised at how well LD held up compared to my fears. Yes, there is a lot of noise in most dark black or red scenes, but side by side my DVD and LD of "Excalibur" were absolutely comparable, especially considering the DVD was connected via component video. Also (deep cut here) my LD of "Tombs of the Blind Dead" looks fantastic - it's the least "noisy" disc in my modest collection, which is surprising considering it is a Grade-Z movie.
Anyway, glad to be back in the game and am working on collecting a few personally-important titles. Not going to take the plunge into AC3 madness unless an FPGA alternative appears (which I see someone much smarter than me is already working on!). I definitely need a second, more capable player regardless.
I watch my LDs on my Sony KV34XBR910 34" CRT. Once I learned that set offers vertical height adjustment in its "Wide Zoom" mode, I was able to dial in most 2.35:1 movies pretty close to correct to my eyes!
Final thought: I connected the V2200 to my CRT projector (via an Extron 204) and was impressed with the results! My setup is not in a dedicated space (the CRT projector is just a toy I fiddle with) but even then I can see how people with the means for LD+CRT FP in the 80s/90s enjoyed a pretty amazing experience!
