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muzer
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Post subject: Is PDO UK actually worse than DADC USA? Posted: 16 Jan 2016, 05:59 |
Serious fan |
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Joined: 02 Sep 2015, 00:03 Posts: 173 Location: United Kingdom Has thanked: 3 times Been thanked: 24 times
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After going through my whole collection over the past few days to procrastinate instead of revising for exams better catalogue the condition of the discs and more generally check for rot (though obviously I might have missed some issues, since I haven't watched every single film; just the starts and ends of each side), I've noticed that, by my calculations, all but one of my (significant) PDO UK collection has at least some degree of rot; three sides have rotted so badly that they'll only play in test mode. Many of the remainder have significant distortion to the picture and sound (thank heavens for the small mercy that most PDO UK titles were produced in the days of analogue only sound for the PAL region, so it's not as destructive as glitches in the digital sound would be). That the remaining one title doesn't have rot is likely only because it comes from a different collection, where the people likely cared enough to replace a rotted copy, based on the good condition of the rest of the discs I got from them.
Now, I know that Sony DADC USA has a bad reputation, but not being exposed to too many American discs, I'm not sure — were they really THIS bad, or is the feeling that Sony DADC USA are the worst just based on the fact that most collectors on English-speaking sites are from America and so were more exposed to these titles? Based on the small sample that I have, it seems that a significant proportion (perhaps the majority) of LaserDisc releases in the UK from the 80s were made by PDO UK, so I suspect any collectors trying to get a complete and fully working collection of UK releases will have gone insane long ago!
It would be interesting, I feel, to see what happens if you divide the rot reports by the number of titles owned...
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laserdisc_fan
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Post subject: Re: Is PDO UK actually worse than DADC USA? Posted: 16 Jan 2016, 13:49 |
Jedi Candidate |
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Joined: 29 Jan 2006, 20:05 Posts: 2266 Location: United Kingdom Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 25 times
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Some of my earliest laserdisc acquisitions were music laserdiscs produced by either PDO UK or DADC USA. Needless to say I was hugely disappointed and it very nearly put me off the format for life. I did however give it one last chance and started buying some Japanese music LDs and have never looked back since. I found there are good and bad pressings from virtually every country in the world but you start to really spot the trends in detail when you have bought 9000+ laserdiscs. Don't expect to be able to avoid the rotters completely though - if you own that many you can expect to have a pile of hundreds of rotters gathered along the way. It seems some sellers still like selling them on to the next guy!
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Guest
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Post subject: Re: Is PDO UK actually worse than DADC USA? Posted: 01 Jan 2022, 12:58 |
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I don't own any PDO UK laserdiscs right now, but they are actually even worse than DADC USA! I think that only very few people own a rot-free PDO UK laserdisc.
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ketchumstudios
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Post subject: Re: Is PDO UK actually worse than DADC USA? Posted: 06 Aug 2022, 19:18 |
Knows how to post |
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Joined: 04 Aug 2022, 20:44 Posts: 10 Location: Canada Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 0 time
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je280 wrote: Both plants had a very poor reputation & for good reason, so many bad pressings with many titles from the aforementioned plants now lost on the LD format.
Sony DADC US look as though they did not care as long as the plant machinery was running & the product went out the door.
PDO UK had real issues (among many others) apparently understanding clean-room procedures till late '89 but even when they got that sorted (if they ever really did) it do not help much, very poor indeed & it was not just the LD production that was a problem at PDO Blackburn as almost all (perhaps all) the formats they worked on had issues at some time or other often manifesting years later.
One other manufacturer that had a poor reputation was Technidisc. Pressings were also problematic & the plant apparently retooled twice during their operating lifetime (closed Aug or Sept '96?) though it did continue to have problems until it finally stopped LD production. I do have a few discs pressed by them that play with no issues but they did have a high fail rate reported.
As for who was worse PDO UK or Sony DADC US that is a hard one to answer I think, both producers of many nightmare pressings. What surprises me is that their problems were ongoing for years & many discs went out to retailers faulty from new, customers appear to really have been taken for granted & it must surely have been rather frustrating for customers back in the day.
Most of the DADC US titles released are findable on other formats but PDO UK pressed quite a few titles (mostly music one) that have never been issued on any other format & finding good ones in some cases is now nigh on impossible. For that reason PDO UK tops the list for me. PDO UK is probably worse than DADC US. We own some PDO UK discs in our collection, and almost all of them have some form of rot. With DADC USA, we do actually have some pressings that are perfectly free of rot (though sometimes containing drop-outs as well). Mostly avoid the releases who have mint markings above LDxx-1800 (and even more so above LDxx-1800).
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cessnaace
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Post subject: Re: Is PDO UK actually worse than DADC USA? Posted: 12 Aug 2022, 05:09 |
True fan |
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Joined: 06 Dec 2009, 23:56 Posts: 451 Location: United States Has thanked: 1 time Been thanked: 6 times
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laserdisc_fan wrote: Some of my earliest laserdisc acquisitions were music laserdiscs produced by either PDO UK or DADC USA. Needless to say I was hugely disappointed and it very nearly put me off the format for life. I did however give it one last chance and started buying some Japanese music LDs and have never looked back since. I found there are good and bad pressings from virtually every country in the world but you start to really spot the trends in detail when you have bought 9000+ laserdiscs. Don't expect to be able to avoid the rotters completely though - if you own that many you can expect to have a pile of hundreds of rotters gathered along the way. It seems some sellers still like selling them on to the next guy! I just recently bought a copy of "The Day After" released by Embassy Home Entertainment and pressed by Pioneer USA. The disc has rot plainly visible on the outer edges, and a few dark spots further in. I will show it in my next YouTube video, then will destroy it. I destroy ALL defective discs for that very reason. I don't want someone else to end up paying good money for one. Mark
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lonerangerface
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Post subject: Re: Is PDO UK actually worse than DADC USA? Posted: 12 Aug 2022, 15:14 |
Honest fan |
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Joined: 23 Dec 2019, 20:45 Posts: 90 Location: United States Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 11 times
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cessnaace wrote: laserdisc_fan wrote: Some of my earliest laserdisc acquisitions were music laserdiscs produced by either PDO UK or DADC USA. Needless to say I was hugely disappointed and it very nearly put me off the format for life. I did however give it one last chance and started buying some Japanese music LDs and have never looked back since. I found there are good and bad pressings from virtually every country in the world but you start to really spot the trends in detail when you have bought 9000+ laserdiscs. Don't expect to be able to avoid the rotters completely though - if you own that many you can expect to have a pile of hundreds of rotters gathered along the way. It seems some sellers still like selling them on to the next guy! I just recently bought a copy of "The Day After" released by Embassy Home Entertainment and pressed by Pioneer USA. The disc has rot plainly visible on the outer edges, and a few dark spots further in. I will show it in my next YouTube video, then will destroy it. I destroy ALL defective discs for that very reason. I don't want someone else to end up paying good money for one. Mark YOU WOULDN'T! Wouldn't you rather keep them as they go up in value?
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