LaserDisc, what to do?

**Acreo Aeneas** · 12-08-2007, 07:08 PM

Seeing how the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD thread has taken to some popularity here, I thought I'd post about a tech that eventually spawned the Compact Disc (CD for you newer kiddies): the LaserDisc.

For the life of me, I remember that my dad had gone out to Sears (not too sure about this) and had brought home a LaserDisc player along with several movies on LD (this was about '89-'91). I remember my dad trying to set the thing up and we ended up watching part of a movie on the TV back then. My first impression was "Wow, this movie looks so much better than it does on VHS!". From there, my dad didn't seem to take much of a liking to it due to the expensive price for the player and movie disks (and we already had a large movie collection on VHS and some on Betamans). I honestly don't remember if my dad returned the player for a refund or not, but I do remember seeing him put away a few LDs we still had when he moved his vinyl collection into the basement about 14-15 years back (ironically, he also bought a CD player by Sony at this time which we still have).

So my question is this: If we still have the darn player and if my dad didn't toss out his LDs, how much is it worth now and should we keep it or auction it for some green?

P.S. I also thought those LDs were massively huge.

**MagnaCentipede** · 12-08-2007, 07:10 PM

If you have one of the rare collector's item disks, you have money. If you don't, you have frisbee.

**IanTheRed** · 12-08-2007, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

Seeing how the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD thread has taken to some popularity here, I thought I'd post about a tech that eventually spawned the Compact Disc (CD for you newer kiddies): the LaserDisc.

For the life of me, I remember that my dad had gone out to Sears (not too sure about this) and had brought home a LaserDisc player along with several movies on LD (this was about '89-'91). I remember my dad trying to set the thing up and we ended up watching part of a movie on the TV back then. My first impression was "Wow, this movie looks so much better than it does on VHS!". From there, my dad didn't seem to take much of a liking to it due to the expensive price for the player and movie disks (and we already had a large movie collection on VHS and some on Betamans). I honestly don't remember if my dad returned the player for a refund or not, but I do remember seeing him put away a few LDs we still had when he moved his vinyl collection into the basement about 14-15 years back (ironically, he also bought a CD player by Sony at this time which we still have).

So my question is this: If we still have the darn player and if my dad didn't toss out his LDs, how much is it worth now and should we keep it or auction it for some green?

P.S. I also thought those LDs were massively huge.

LD's make great Frisbees!

**Acreo Aeneas** · 12-08-2007, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by MagnaCentipede

If you have one of the rare collector's item disks, you have money. If you don't, you have frisbee.

What is "rare collector's item"? I mean: should I be looking for a specific movie title or what?

**MagnaCentipede** · 12-08-2007, 08:26 PM

Use the power of Googles and check out the titles you dig out of the closet. You might have a winner. Some Laserdisk titles had additional content or weren't censored as much as later releases. Research the fun history of the various releases of Who Framed Roger Rabbit as an example. I would speculate that the Star Wars releases would probably fetch some cash knowing how every release was slightly different and has its own controversy around it, and since there's always a chubby who needs to complete his collection.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 12-08-2007, 09:46 PM

Gawd. I just learned that my dad did eventually return the player and the movies he bought on LD. Bummer.

**MagnaCentipede** · 12-08-2007, 10:02 PM

Saves you a lot of time and trouble. The space to store it that long is probably worth more than any return you would've gotten from it.

**Squinty** · 12-08-2007, 10:16 PM

I saw a Laser Disk player with 40-50 action movies go for about 100 bucks on ebay a while back. You can find many LD movies and players up for auction there.
You'll also see CED Discs as well, I hadn't heard of this type of disc before so I had looked it up.
"The Capacitance Electronic Disc (or CED) was a video playback system developed by RCA, in which video and audio could be played back on a TV using a special analog needle and high-density groove system similar to phonograph records. The format was commonly known as "videodisc", leading to much confusion with Laserdisc format, which is mutually incompatible with this format."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacit...lectronic_Disc

**Acreo Aeneas** · 12-08-2007, 10:33 PM

Oh wow...$100. I guess Magna does have a point about the possible return from the sale of a LD player and some LD disks.

**Apophis** · 12-09-2007, 08:33 AM

I just recently sold my Pioneer LaserDisc player along with a whole bunch of discs on EBay.

I think I had 52 movies and IIRC, the whole package sold for about $550.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 12-09-2007, 11:47 AM

Oh well, my dad never kept the thing so I can't even play around with it now.

**Atomic Dog** · 12-09-2007, 12:02 PM

My buddy and I used to watch Easy Rider over and over again on LaserDisc...good times!

**ScratchMonkey** · 12-09-2007, 06:06 PM

LD was higher quality than DVD, but it lost much like Beta lost to VHS. DVD used more lossy compression, but it's much more convenient in size. (Imagine lugging an LD in the van to keep the kids amused on long drives!)

**Tonk** · 12-09-2007, 08:38 PM

heh, laserdisc, i remember my school had a few of those, and in some classes we would watch very cheezy films on them, they were spendy in their day, but no real use imho outside of commercial atmospheres