At last! Laserdisc!

Well I got this a while back but I am posting this now. I've finally bought a Laserdisc player! As a film collector it a has long been my desire to buy one of these machines. Why? Well not only as a retro novelty but also because there are so many films that are still not available on DVD but were released on VHS and LD. Some examples; David Lynch's On The Air, Neil Young's Human Highway, Shohei Imamaura's Insect Woman etc... And also at times the LDs had extras not available on DVD, such as the Nightmare Before Christmas Boxset which featured an extended documentary and more short films (more on this later).

As for the visual quality: well going by the 14" TV screen I'm using the quality appears to be on par with DVD (though DVD still is higher) and is definitely better then both VHS and VCD. VCD I tend to find to be very flat and sometimes jerky due to the compression to mpeg.

For those who don't Laserdisc is a home video format introduced in the 80's and was successful in the US and Japan up till 1999 when DVD came in. LDs were released in the UK and many titles were available but it just didn't catch on in the general market. The discs themselves are 12" wide (the same as LPs) and are double sided holder 60 minutes per side in standard definition (CLV) and 30 in higher (CAV) meaner who would have to flip the disc or even change discs throughout the viewing, later machines could play both sides.

The machine itself cost initially 44 Pounds but unfortunately being second hand and over a decade old it seized up upon watching my first disc (the ever 'classic' Angel Enforcers), repairs at another 50 fixed the problems. I've bought a few titles so far, nothing too rare so far, discs seem to be around the 15 mark for semi rarities, fiver for the standard films and onwards and upwards for those in higher demand. So far i own: Angel 2, Angel Enforcers, My Crazy Life, Red Squirrel (I think these are all on DVD, i bought these just to test the machine), Talking Heads: Storytelling Giant and Nightmare Before Christmas Special Edition.