Just read the post by Elvis,

While I agree that time is against the format,as all machines ultimately will eventually break/malfunction. I do not agree that all discs are destined to succumb to laser rot.
I choose to be a little more creative and little more optimistic here.....
Already posted to the negative regarding this thread query.
However, I will acknowledge that "new" collectors are catching the fever to collect this obsolete format at an ongoing pace. There is something about handling these shiny platters !!!
Heck, stores were already dumping their inventories when I started collecting in the late 90's.
Being smitten by the bug when this format was destined for oblivion I must say that conditions are even better for new collectors to find titles and players thanks to cyber space and the occasional used record / video store / pawn shop.
Not even talking an arm or a leg for decent titles in fair and better condition.
The fact that LD's are so prolific ten years after production ceased is a testament to their popularity with older adept collectors, more recent serious collectors over the past decade and new comers all around.
For the record:
Popular with some,disregarded and obscure to many..........

Actually, if a disc does not start with rot, there is a good chance it will never get it. The rot is there from the beginning because of crappy pressings.

Totally agree with comments from firehorse_44 and mikeystoyz.
I've never seen an LD getting any worse in terms of playback after I acquired it. If it was going to rot it would have happened a long time ago.
The lack of hardware is a factor but most people on this forum have a good supply of backup players and they are still very easy to get hold of even in 2011.
I also believe repairs will be available (albeit from only a handful of sources) for many years. That creates a nice little niche market for someone with the skills - I'd be happy to pay a premium for such a service for anyone listening!!

There is absolutely no way you could compare collecting streamed copied content with owning the original artifact.
I bet the devices used to store such content will be obsolete sooner than the actual laserdiscs!

Once digital all that is required is a hard drive. You can get alot of material on the 3 TB internal drives and keep back ups. Is a heck of alot more convenient to move around with. Can play over and over again without wear and tear. Can trade material or make DVD's quickly. Have an alphabetical library for easy catalogue. Again the key is always keep back ups safely put away for data storage.
Also I should add, that digital conversion of your laserdiscs makes playback by HDMI to a high end television much more fluid and simple. I get excellent picture in 1080i from my labtop or pc to my plasma tv.

As far as new collectors, the material I desired most was the pre-86 laserdiscs which have a tendency to rot. But my advice to new collectors, buy em and do a lossless transfer then dump em. It's worth the cost and most $$$ can be retrieved back on the open market with a bit of patience and timely buying/selling.

It was fun and rewarding for myself, in fact I made $$$ on my experience and walked away with some very nice material digitally stored. For myself I like to be mobile and could never imagine being bogged down with a laserdisc collection/player. In fact I do the same with all media, get it transferred (highest quality possible) to hard drive and dump it on the open market.

Thank you LDDB for your awesome referral and information. It sure saved me time and effort.

good luck all,
Elvis

Well I guess each to their own.
I have also digitised some content to make up some music compilations for myself but I still consider my laserdiscs the masters so I don't need to spend time making DVD or hard drive backups of anything.
As a collector I have very little interest in simply gathering files on a hard drive. There was always much more to laserdiscs than that. In fact I can think of no other format that I'd rather collect. I'm confident that whatever money I spent buying music LDs would be recouped many times over if I wanted to sell them all but I never got into the format to make money - it was for my love of music.

I wouldn't disagree with that, other than the money recouped many times over, doubt that, the longer you wait. It's a matter of preference, what is your priority, mine is the medium content, not the shiny discs, jacket artwork, or OBI's. I understand the love of a collection, physical or digital. Definitely would not do it for the money. Could never recoup the time put into it. It's for the love of the music.
Elvis

If your a bit of a handy person, some minor repairs on your LD player can be done by yourself providing you can still get the parts, which still seem to be available for most players. Or by a non working player to use for parts.

True, but that just verifies the inevitable dwindling of popularity due to the decreasing number of players and cost. As the lack of good working players go up in cost, the availablility of laserdiscs will increase and go down.
Notice on Ebay that many sellers are no longer selling for auction at start price of a buck because their not getting any or fewer bids. That tells me that demand is way down and that sellers need to hope for the right buyer at a set price.

I use buy it now on my LDs. I do reverse auctions. People ask me if I will take x for the disc and I say yes or no. Lol

One thing we all seem to be in agreement with is the quality of the content on laserdiscs was superb. Whether you want to watch it as it was intended via a LD player or dub it to a hard drive and enjoy in digital form you will not find better masters to convert than from laserdisc.

Since we don't have access to the masters and for the best available source material, nothing beats laserdisc in its time.

On another note for the positive for disc holders. Other digitizers such as myself are good for the market even though they are selling back into the market, help keep it liquid. Also, I think there may be an even more lucrative market in the future for the mint jackets that are appealing to memorabilia collectors, these could fetch far more than the discs themselves.

Many times the Laserdiscs are the Master

That I would doubt. Could be in some cases. But few if any. Unless the original master was lost. Usually this would be on tape. Someone please correct me if I am wrong here.
Elvis

I remember reading that too, that some DVD were actually were made off the laserdisc because that was the best master available. I can see that quite possible with older film releases. Older film can deteriorat and get brittle with age, and if the tape master gets damaged a LD might be your best choice.

HERE,HERE....
Kudos to laserdiscoking for summing it all up so eloquently !
"Now some people say I'm crazy....." LOL
Great scene pic.............
Thanks !!!

Laser Rot will generally surface, if it's going too, at most about 2 years after the disc was manfactured. Chances are if an LD hasn't developed Laser Rot yet, it won't. Unless, of course, it is stored in a high humidity environment. I've never had a disc that I bought before 1999 that was rot free develop it since.

STAY AWESOME!

I would statistically confirm that a disc either rots early on or stabilize over time after several years.

However humidity has nothing to do with laser rot, it's oxygen passing through porous glue that oxides the aluminum layer over time.

Hence, you should see stronger laser rot at the beginning and the end of a face and milder one in the middle.

However, I started noticing some laser rot on my Pioneer pressed "Phantom Menace AC3" or "Titanic AC3" that started developing a good 8 years after I bought them.

Julien

I started collecting them for the covers about a year or so ago. I was at the Princeton Record exchange in NJ and my girlfriend pointed out an Indiana Jones record... but it was no record, it was a LaserDisc! Now I have about 60 discs. With some awesome variations of Star Wars (Definitive, Faces, Special Edition, Re-Release Japan Collector's Edition). I have one good working player and a few others that half work or need work.

The store by me used to have a lot of the discs, then they disappeared, but now they have a good amount of them again. I think more people are learning about them. I don't know if they're really in demand, but they sure are still out there.

And the LaserDisc is used in the master sometimes (for better or worse...). For example the Original Un-edited Star Wars Trilogy DVDs released in 2006 were sourced directly from the LaserDisc masters.

Lucas misplaced the masters. I think he copied simpsons episodes over them or something.