In a local charity shop I found the following laserdiscs.

Silver Dream Racer (David Essex film)
Young Frankenstein
The Rose (Bette Midler effort)
Several Fawlty Towers and 1 last of the summer wine.

Aside from being curious as to how these compare with dvds (I always thought this is where the commentary track thing came from) and amused to see how chunky they are I also wondered if there is an interest still in owning them. The net obviously has alot about them but does anyone on the forum have experience of these things? In general are these things of interest to anyone anywhere? I see on ebay they go for next to nothing to £12 but not sure if they have gone the way of VHS and no one wants them. Obviously with nothing to play them on couldn't vouch for their quality.

There's still a handful that haven't appeared on DVD (or have commentary/content that wasn't brought over to the DVD edition). I had a player back in the day (and still have a working Pioneer sitting under my couch just in case). You can find the resolution specs online somewhere. I think it's like 400 lines of resolution but I don't remember exactly. It was beautiful compared to crappy pan/scan VHS but isn't a patch on DVD. The big highlight was that it was the first format focused at cinephiles with letterboxing, commentary and liner notes as regular features.

I think Blu-ray has become the new laserdisc as it doesn't seem to be catching on with the general populace and most people are more excited about downloading and streaming content rather than accumulating a hi-def disk library.

I had a number of laserdisc resources bookmarked but they're all dead links now alas. Check the eBay sold records to see what's still collectible.

PostPosted: Sat May 01, 2010 11:05 am
In a local charity shop I found the following laserdiscs.

Hi,

As a "just joined" member of this forum must ask this question -

I spend a lot of time going round Charity Shops and if they keep LP Records I usually ask if they have seen any "LASERDISCS" which might have got mixed up with the LP's.

I then usually have to go into lengthy explanations of "WHAT A LASERDISC IS"

So I am very curious to know just where this particular Charity Shop is located ?

Regards,

John

A charity shop in the channel islands. The origin of the discs is not a mystery as they have the price tag of a local shop still on them that went out of business a few years ago.

Hi,

Thats unfortunately a bit out of my way for South London !

Did you buy them ? or what was the price if you didn't buy them ?

Some places think they are something special and try to charge lots for them where as the few shops that until recently traded second hand discs in London got rid of their last stocks for around a GBP each.

Regards,

John

£1 I think. They weren't filed seperately from the records so I assume they think they are vinyl.

Hi again,

I know it's a great cheek on my part - but would you consider getting them for me and posting to the UK ?

I would obviously go and look myself if they were more easy to reach but that just not practicable.

If you were prepared to do me this great favour I would ask you to look at the discs to see if they are in one piece - that is Not Cracked or the Two Halves Seperating and to see if the surface is clean and shiny and not Scuffed or Scratched from Poor Handling.

This is basically just the same as looking at an LP to see if it is damaged before buying it.

So far as "Goodness" goes - unfortunately it's just impossible to tell from looking at any LD if it will play OK or not - you really have to try to play it to see if its any good or not - so I would not complain or come back to you if they turned out to be "Rubbish" - it's just the chance you take with buying second hand Laserdiscs.

The great thing about the London Second Hand Dealers was that you could take a disc back if it was useless, but with Charity Shop it's the luck of the draw.

Most discs from the 1990's are pretty good although some duff pressing make it impossible to find good copies, early laserdiscs tend to have more problems with picture dropouts and will only have analogue sound tracks, later PAL discs have additional Digital sound tracks or Dolby ProLogic Surround while NTSC discs can also be AC-3 which is 5.1 Dolby Digital or 5.1 dts which is possibly the best surround sound that was available.

If you were able to do this for me I will of course repay you for your costs + postage + your time.

Let me know what think ?

Regards,

I have a stack of well preserved Laser Discs that I keep meaning to off load (sell etc). I had a ton of films on LD including; The Thing, Dawn of the Dead, Alien, Aliens, The Killer, Hard Boiled etc etc. If I remember rightly there is a mix of US and UK discs, the large gatefold packaging on some of them are gorgeous especially 1492 and Interview with the Vampire.

I'll have a look at what I have and may be interested in selling them for cheap prices and postage covered but it may take me a while to unpack them.

I used to love LDs (back in the late 80s early 90s), they felt truly special before the advent of DVD. I used to try and track down on HK films on LD which is why I have stuff like The Killer and Hard Boiled on LD.

Now I'm in love with Blurays.

Howl, I would defo be interested so leave a msg at the blog, if you decide to part with the lasers. (I tried to pm you last week to swap email addresses but it doesn't seem to function?!)

Hey Wes,

Yeah I checked the personal message function on this site but it seems to be turned off or not functioning, not sure what is going on there?

I will try and contact you through your blog site and get my email address to you without advertising my email in public and risk being spammed to buggery.

Cheers.

J

Thanks Howl.... I screen comments before they appear on the blog so feel free to leave yr email address....

I'm going past the shop today and I will have another look at them. From memory some discs had a bit of scuffing in.

I don't believe it! The shop has shut down. There are signs on the window saying everything must be sold and if it isn't they will be giving away anything that is left. But I assume that happened a few days ago as the shop looks half as full as it did a week ago. Doh! Nevermind.