I still have more than 100 Laserdisc and watch one from time to time. So, on what projector would they look best? I am trying to decide between the Mitsubishi HC5000/6000 and the Panasonic AE1000/2000, but I am open to other suggestions below $4000. Thanks in advance for your help!

Hartwig Hanser

P.S.: I currently have a Panasonic AE300. When I watch letterbox NTSC LD, I cannot use the zoom mode, since the Projector squishes the picture a bit (as if it were anamorphic, but less) Does any of the current Projectors has this error?

What's a laserdisc? (Just kidding)

I would imagine it's not going to make much of a difference given the age of the technology.

I have a 1000 Title LD collection and replaced a perfectly fine HC5000 with an AE1000U because of how much better I felt it was over the HC5000 with this source material.

The Pearl was also very good with these sources.

Though I have no specific experience with current 1080p units displaying LD's, I can tell you just about anything you buy will be a great improvement over the Panny you have currently. The technologies have moved so fast lately.

PS: Both projectors properly zoom Letterbox LD..... No worries there.

I have an Elite LD connected to my Onkyo receiver. The receiver upconverts it to 480p - and outputs to the Mitsu. The pics on the LD (I sampled 1941) - is average. I had an older Epson that outputs 720p. I did not review the Mitsu input (I only connected it via HDMI) - to find out what it is receiving from my receiver - my guess is 480p.

The HQV chip tends to sharpen it a bit compared to the Epson - as far as I recall.

hanser-

Whenever I see a thread like this started I always have to ask: You wanna buy the 6 boxes of laserdiscs I have in my basement?:D

TA

Thank you for your replys. I mostly watch DVD today and do not buy LD any more (haven´t since 2000 or so). But I still watch one from time to time, since I have not replaced the majority with DVD.

I know that todays projectors are a vast improvment over my AE300, but I worry that they are specifically developped for component video (DVD or HD), and that analogue composite video will look bad, perhaps even worse than on my AE300, since this kind of input might be thought negligable by the developpers. So, I try to find a model that will produce watchable pictures from LD. On the other hand the majority of my watching in the future will be DVD and then more and more HD, so this is my first priority, not LD.

hanser-

Whenever I see a thread like this started I always have to ask: You wanna buy the 6 boxes of laserdiscs I have in my basement?:D

TA


If you or anybody else are going to ever throw your LD's out, I'll pay shipping for them if your in the U.S.

Media Mail makes this ecconomical.

I still have more than 100 Laserdisc and watch one from time to time. So, on what projector would they look best? I am trying to decide between the Mitsubishi HC5000/6000 and the Panasonic AE1000/2000, but I am open to other suggestions below $4000. Thanks in advance for your help!

Hartwig Hanser

P.S.: I currently have a Panasonic AE300. When I watch letterbox NTSC LD, I cannot use the zoom mode, since the Projector squishes the picture a bit (as if it were anamorphic, but less) Does any of the current Projectors has this error?

I wonder how many readers even know what a laserdisc is? Got any 45 rpm or 78 rpm records?

yeah.. I think production has now been officially stopped for a decade. :)

Still lots of stuff that never has hit DVD though.

Hello and good evening (well it is over here.)

You would be surprised by how many people in the UK / US and Japan, are still avid collector's of all things Laserdisc.

The best Laserdisc players are as follows Pioneer USA ELITE, REFERENCE LD S2 / CLD 79 / CLD 95 / CLD 97 / CLD 99 and the ELITE combi DVD & Laserdisc was the DVL 91 (which was as good as the CLD 79.) this ended the production of players in the USA. Avarage quality player that was in production until 2005 was DVL 919, you may be able to purchase existing 'last' stocks ''only a few left by all accounts'' these are totally reliable, also Pioneer have reassured customers that they will be servicing the players for some years to come.

The best players however came from Pioneer Japan, These had the third generation 3 line digital comb filters on board.
The first 2 are High def Muse capable players: HLD X0 (single side play and purest player ''36kg in weight and only 4.300 or so, hand produced ''Japan only'' HLD X9 (dual sided play side A & B.) Similar numbers produced, they only play NTSC Laserdisc's from Japan and the USA.
Japanese Combi top range player was the DVL H9. not sure how many produced (big player in size.)

Next one is a none Muse Laserdisc player : LD S9 (looks similar to the CLD 99.)
There are 2 or 3 others but these are the main best players.

The best Laserdisc players sold in the UK were CLD 2970 and CLD 925.
The UK combination DVD / Laserdisc players were DVL 909 and DVL 919E.

On the software side the Japanese laserdisc's and packaging are in general superior to the USA equivalent. (sold in loose wrap and better description on the cover, of contents.)
From 1995 onwards Pioneer produced three quarters of all the laserdisc's.

Sony pictures and columbia Tristar : some titles had problems with disc rot ''A snow effect when watching the film'' and some titles the rot was so bad that it affected the sound as well (completely no sound on some.)
These problems happened within 2 years of owning them.

This problem was 98% cured by 1995 onwards.

About thirty titles aprox were affected, but other pressings of these films produced in the USA and Japan were fine.

Production in the USA finished at the end of December 1999.
Production in the Japan finished at the end of September 2001.

The USA produced aprox 17,500 titles on Laserdisc.
Japan produced aprox 37.000 titles on Laserdisc.

The number of DTS Laserdisc titles produced was 158, about 10 titles were cancelled due to small orders and so on.

The number of AC-3 (Dolby Digital) Laserdisc titles produced was aprox 900 in the USA.

I personally would only purchase Pioneer players as they were the best.

Other manufacturers ie: THETA and Macintosh and EAD produced Laserdisc players in limited numbers, but ''the guts of these players were Pioneer''

The good thing is that people {serious collectors have a number of backup players and these occasionally come up for sale on ebay.)

I am currently in the process of purchasing a Pioneer HLD X9 from a seller and friend in the UK, and a new unused pioneer ELITE CLD 97 from a seller in the USA.

The best RF AC-3 Demodulators to connect to your av amp are from Meridian and Lexicon.

Yamaha / Sony and Pioneer also produced them and they are good enough.

I am also purchasing a number of Laserdisc's from Japan which are reserved for me with 2 sellers and in 2008 i should be purchasing 1 x serviced HLD X0 from one of these sellers.

I also love DVD / HD DVD and BLU-RAY.

My view to all things AV is enjoy the journey and your hobby no matter what equipment you have.

So far i have been into Home Cinema for more than 9 years, do not purchase with finance and work within my means.

I have an average Job and enjoy waiting for things.

You guys take good care and look after yourselves.

If you would like to ask any other questions then please ask'

Genuine and kindest regards

P.S love reading all of the threads (a lot of good points and views.)

Mark :):D:):D

yeah.. I think production has now been officially stopped for a decade. :)

The last movies released on laserdisc in North America were Sleepy Hollow and Bringing Out the Dead in 2000. The last (English-language) movies released on laserdisc in Japan were The Sixth Day and The Cell in 2001.

I still have a strong sentimental attachment to my LD collection, but it's hard to watch them these days. They don't scale well at all to a high-resolution display, and the 3D comb filter in my HLD-X9 that produced such beautiful colors on an analog CRT set plays havoc with horrendous checkerboarding artifacts on a fixed-pixel DLP.

Anyone serious about preserving the best quality they can from their LD collection would be advised to use a video processor in the chain between LD player and display to massage the signal as much as possible.

I had a Pioneer Elite laserdisc player, and I do have a sentimental fondness for the format, but what I did was sell mine last year and used the money towards an HD-DVD player, and I get A LOT more use and enjoyment out of it. I don't think large screens and laserdisc mix very well, even if you have the most expensive scaler money can buy, it looks pretty bad.

I can't believe there's some people that thought laserdisc was better than DVD. They must be remembering with rose-colored glasses, because a modern $30 DVD player would blow the most expensive laserdisc player made out of the water.

There are very few titles that haven't been brought out on DVD, only the most obscure (usually foreign) titles are not available on DVD, and they will surely look a whole lot better on DVD.

If you're a collector, I can understand hanging on to it, but purely from a performance standpoint, I'd categorize it with VHS and cassettes, a dead technology that has been vastly surpassed.

$30 modern DVD blowing the most expensive LD player away?

The most expensive LD players play real HD, so I would not say this is accurate at all.

I can't believe there's some people that thought laserdisc was better than DVD. They must be remembering with rose-colored glasses, because a modern $30 DVD player would blow the most expensive laserdisc player made out of the water.

At the time DVD premiered in 1997 and 1998, a great many discs recycled non-anamorphic laserdisc masters and had terrible compression quality. In many cases, the laserdisc was superior.

Things are different these days, of course.

$30 modern DVD blowing the most expensive LD player away?

The most expensive LD players play real HD, so I would not say this is accurate at all.

I think it's fairly obvious I was referring to the same type of laserdisc player the OP and everyone else in this thread was referring to, not some rare, Japanese Muse model that nobody actually owns and only has a small handful of special disks that could play the format, each costing several hundred dollars a piece.

I'd think LD lends itself to CRT projection.

Well being big into LD's at one time and still using my collection a lot on my 1080p projetcor, I must say I know quite a few people that have these MUSE players so it was not fairly obvious to me.

I still find the best laserdiscs to be better than the worst DVD's, so the content convolutes this some as well. It's still a good enough source that I am surprised more owners don't have their players hooked up to their modern HDTV's.

So many say they have a box or even boxes full of them they never use. but I have yet to have somebody take me up on my offer to send them to me on my dime. It must just be hard to let go of them. What I really say is hook your player back up!! :)

Well being big into LD's at one time and still using my collection a lot on my 1080p projetcor, I must say I know quite a few people that have these MUSE players so it was not fairly obvious to me.

I still find the best laserdiscs to be better than the worst DVD's, so the content convolutes this some as well. It's still a good enough source that I am surprised more owners don't have their players hooked up to their modern HDTV's.

So many say they have a box or even boxes full of them they never use. but I have yet to have somebody take me up on my offer to send them to me on my dime. It must just be hard to let go of them. What I really say is hook your player back up!! :)



Comparing the best laserdisc to the worst DVD is hardly an apples to apples comparison. An average DVD blows away the best laser disc, there's just more lines of resolution. I've seen the best laserdiscs on the best Pioneer players, and a cheap DVD player wins, hands down. Laserdisc players looked amazing on direct-view tube televisions with small screens, but blow one up on a modern big screen or projector, and they really show their inferiority.

"Muse" laserdiscs were more of a prototype product to showcase a company's technology than anything, they're not even in the same category as laser disc. If you can lump Muse players with laser disc players, you can categorize HD-DVD with standard DVD players. Then there really is no comparison.

I still use mine regularly in my theater. CLD-99.
I expect I'll have a MUSE player some day, some way.

I have to admit, they looked really poor on my 1st 1080p projector, I changed and now they hold up OK enough. I mean of course I run all sorts of real HD content in their too as well as SD-DVD.