Did You Own Laserdisc? - Page 8

This arrived today

Mind if I ask where you purchased from.

I like to know because there are some laserdisc sites I am not sure I trust.

Laserdisc Vault seems good and Da Da Don's is excellent.

Just off Ebay UK £7.70 with shipping

Some great information here.

I just got into laserdisc in the last few months. I've got about 15-16 now, mostly anime and hong kong action films. I've got a Marantz LV-520 that I found on ebay, so far it has worked very well. I originally bought laserdisc as somewhat of a joke, but I've really begun to like the format. Quality degradation is very unique and doesn't bother me in the way that pixelation does. I also think hand drawn anime just has a much more natural look on laserdisc, rather than the oversaturated highly compressed transfers that often make it to dvd. I also enjoy the rarity of the format, it's somewhat of a hunt finding my favorite movies.

I'm 18, so I had minimal experience with the format until recently. The first time I ever saw a laserdisc was in high school, because my french teacher still used laserdiscs for many of the visual exercises in class. I was intrigued by it and decided to look up more info.

Thats great about Laserdisc. I am happy you got into them, I think they are so much more fun than a DVD. Also knowing that I am the only one with LD's in my area is cool as well. I have over 700 of them and have begun selling my DVDs when I discover that I have doubles.

My LDs look awful on any of my digital displays--much worse than I recall their looking on my old 3-gun rear projector which died years ago. I want/need to get my 25XBR (Trinitron crt) working again and I expect my lds will look acceptable on them.

Are you watching yours on a CRT, or are they looking good somehow on a digital display?

Mine look weak on LCD screens, but they look very good on my LCD PJ. I have a completely light controlled room for the HT and I use the composite--not S-video--output. I have a Mitsubishi M-V7057 player hooked directly to a Mitsubishi PJ, so there's no receiver, pre/pro, or scaler in between. The PJ gets the cleanest composite signal possible, and it handles it well.

Of course the audio goes to my pre/pro or to an AC-3 decoder as the case may be.

Wow, that's quite a collection! I'm trying not to buy repeat copies of movies I already own on other formats, so I'm pretty much using LD for older anime or obscure films. I do however make exceptions for ones with unique special features and particularly nice boxes/covers.


I use 3 different displays. A 13in 4:3 crt, a 30in 16:9 HD CRT, and a 40in samsung lcd.
Laserdiscs look amazing on the 13in, but that's to be expected. Overall picture quality just degrades as the picture gets bigger. I haven't noticed a huge difference on most Laserdiscs, but ones with sub par transfers definitely look rough on the LCD. The LCD also tends to make the picture a bit bright for my taste, but I've made a custom preset just for laserdisc which helps a great deal. Animation looks great on any display in my opinion, but anything live action definitely looks dated on a newer set. As far as I know, the inputs on the LCD have no scaling or comb filters, so S-Video makes a huge improvement in picture quality. I'm thinking of getting a DVDO iscanHD or something similar to help improve picture quality when I get a newer set for my bedroom(that's where the 13in currently sits).

My pj is the Mits HC4900, and you're right it looks quite good--*if* I zoom it down quite a bit. Problem is the if I zoom it smaller until I find the PQ acceptable, it looks sorta wimpy on my 10ft wide 'scope screen.

Bought my CLD-S201 in like '94 for $350 and it was a floor model! Have about 40 or so movies. Once paid over $100 for Criterion's The Killer by John Woo. Have a bunch of Hong Kong movies and some Hollywood hits. Player is still hooked up in my bedroom but rarely use it due to pq dropping when having to zoom in on my DLP in there...

My Pioneer Elite CLD-97 looks pretty good on my 50" Kuro, I have it hooked directly to my Elite VSX-23TXH AVR which has pretty descent scaling. From my understanding it takes a pretty good LD player to look good on any digital display

Yeah; I hate you!

Mine's a CLD-3080.

By your own admission the CLD-3080 is NOT in the same CLD-97 league

Dunno what you mean. No, my CLD-3080 is not in the same league as the CLD-97.

I had a chance to buy a CLD-97 a few years ago locally and wish now I had not passed it up.

Those CLD-97's are very difficult to find. I can't remember the last time one was ebay.

Is the cld-97 much of an upgrade over the cld-95 in regards to picture quality? I have a 95 but have a chance to buy a 97 in great condition for a fair price. I owned a 97 back in the mid 90's but sold it a year or so after dvd came out and have regretted it ever since.

Thanks,
Tom

It should be exactly the same for composite video. The 97's S-video is far better due to the 2-D comb filter. The 97 adds Legato Link audio, co-axe digital out, and a different remote with the Jog Wheel on the bottom rather than top. The 97 is simply a refinement of the 95 design.

Thanks Rachael

So should I buy the 97 and sell the 95

I was running composite into my Lumagen scaler all the months as I read that one needs one to get the best LD picture on a digital projector. For months I was going through the scaler because of it's gamut control but thought the pq sucked. A couple of days ago I decided to connect the composite out of my LD directly to my Pioneer Elite FP-J1 front projecter and I was SHOCKED at how much better the picture quality was. That Lumagen scalers comb filter blows big time. To pay for the 97 I will have to sell my 95 and most likely my like new mint LD-W1 with under 10 hours on it.

I'm still looking for a 20" crt to put in my rack for ld playback of poor quality ld's. Any suggestions? I decided to get a small screen due to the weight of these sets. Even a 13" would probably work for me as I just have 21" shelf width in my component tower. The smaller the screen the greater chance I can get one shipped to me off of ebay or craigslist. Nobody wants to ship the bigger sets.

Thanks again,
Tom

Unless you have reason to believe that your 95 is under-performing, getting the 97 and using it via composite isn't gonna gain you anything.

I should have just kept the 95 and forgot about the 97. I was boxing it up tonight and it slipped out of my hands. It landed on the front left wood panel on the bottom and crushed in the wood. It still plays fine I think but isn't worth much in this state. So much for the sweet modded 97 I had all lined up to buy. I had a 97in the mid 90's that I regret selling and was wanting to have it again in my setup. If I had to do it all over again I would not gotten back into laserdisc this again. It has just been a money pit from day one. From now on it's HD all the way baby.

Tom

Any idea where one might find a replacement rosewood side panel?

Thanks,
Tom

Ask Kurtis. He specializes in the 97 and I'd bet the 95 and 97 panels are identical. Another thought would be to have a woodworker make you a pair of custom side panels.

Kurtis doesn't have any spares. The 97 is taller than the 95 so they have different size panels. Buyers want original rosewood side panels so having some made is not an option. I'm s*** house out of luck I guess.

Tom

If you are still looking for a CRT TV or monitor, and you want a 4:3 NTSC display, the Sony XBR Pro sets have excellent picture quality, if you can find a good one. The 20" one was model PVM-2030, if I remember right. The one thing you would want to do is have its color temperature adjusted; they are bluish-white (9300 K) before adjustment.

Thank's Kris. I gave up looking for a CRT and purchased a 32" Sony Bravia LCD for my LD's. From 8' away LD's look very nice.

Tom

Do own. 4 working players (two set up, one for carrying around, & a Pioneer V8000 for experimenting with) and 500+ discs, almost all Japanese animation, largely Academy Ratio.

I have a Pioneer CLD-99 and have about 150 disks. Most recent is the original star wars definitive collection. I've always wanted this pre-modifications and still looks good on my 142" projection screen, running through my Pioneer SC-07.

I have Pioneer LD-838,CLD-79, CLD-97RF mod and LD-S9 and about 2000 discs. Loads of Japanese imports especially tv show boxsets. They looked great on the original 20" Sony xbr I had. Now I got a Sony PVM-2950 sitting idle. Currently using Sony 34xbr960. Haven't looked at discs in years but will rectify that soon.

I am current pairing a CLD-D701 with my Epson 8500UB on a 120" screen.
Good discs look good, even at that screen size though I am unable to stretch letterboxed films without significant loss of quality (so I am essentially watching on a 92" screen when watching LB content). I think the key is a good VP, outboard or otherwise.