IMAX Enhanced

[Auditor55]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

And some were well over $100. I paid $125 for the CAV Box Set of Aliens.

But most of my purchases were $29.95 for a single CLV disc movie and $39.95 for a dual disc CLV movie.

That's what I remember.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

And some were well over $100. I paid $125 for the CAV Box Set of Aliens.

But most of my purchases were $29.95 for a single CLV disc movie and $39.95 for a dual disc CLV movie.

Keep inflation in mind. Even a $30 movie in 1993 would be $57 now.

I don't remember the cost of VHS tapes back then but I can't imagine they were $30-40 apiece.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by slimdude

Laserdisc was a niche market catered to only the rich and the wealthy folks who could afford to pay $90.00 for one movie 40 years ago. The average Joe Six Pack who've rented VHS tapes at video stores couldn't afford to adopt laserdisc. People who've invested into the laserdisc technology at the time had money. Laserdisc wasn't for the poor and the underprivileged population.

Ironically LaserDisc was cheaper to make than tapes as far as I recall.

But as others have said, purchasing movies was an expensive hobby back then regardless of format. It was tape rental the revolutionized everything, stores could offset those high prices and make money and as demand on popularity rose prices dropped and created a mass sell-through market alongside the rental one.

[ronboster]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

There is already a sub $1,400 pre-amp that does 13.1 (9.1.4 or 7.1.6) immersive processing, the ToneWinner AT-300. >7.1.4 immersive audio is getting cheaper.

Thanks for suggesting the ToneWinner AT-300. I have not been in the market (purposely stayed away from AVS, since there isn't a vaccine for upgraditis).

I may have to research the TW unit.

[Waboman]

Originally Posted by Auditor55

Yep. I still have my LD copy of Mimic with DTS sound, I keep it as nostalgia. Those LD's with DTS Sound back in those days would blow you away. BTW, I wasn't rich.

Agree. Those DTS LDs were something special. I got rid of most of mine. But still kept a few.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by chip75

Ironically LaserDisc was cheaper to make than tapes as far as I recall.

But as others have said, purchasing movies was an expensive hobby back then regardless of format. It was tape rental the revolutionized everything, stores could offset those high prices and make money and as demand on popularity rose prices dropped and created a mass sell-through market alongside the rental one.

I believe it was initially until high speed duping was possible. I’m not sure how fast duping could be done for video tape but initially a two-hour film took 2 hours to make a single copy requiring large banks of duplicating machines being feed from a single source. For discs once the stamper was created many discs could be created in a short period of time but with Laserdisc being a niche format it never really achieved economy of scale to make it the preferred way of delivering prerecorded content.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by Waboman

Agree. Those DTS LDs were something special. I got rid of most of mine. But still kept a few.

A big reason why LD failed to gain any real steam in the 90s when it seemed to have a slight resurgence was because of the confusing landscape of players/discs and other hardware related to competing sound formats. Not all players could deliver AC3 RF or dts audio and some processors had one or the other. Even with the early days of DVD I had a Denon that had Dolby Digital but it lacked dts so I had a Millenium 2.4.6 dts decoder. And even then if I wanted AC3 from my LD player I had to modify it to get the AC3 RF from the disc and still get an external demodulator to connect it to the standard coax/optical digital input on the Denon.

All of it could have been avoided if the LD makers would have just built the demodulation hardware into the players. The players would have easily been able to pass dts or AC3 to compatible processor that could handle both formats.

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by Tok

A big reason why LD failed to gain any real steam in the 90s when it seemed to have a slight resurgence was because of the confusing landscape of players/discs and other hardware related to competing sound formats. Not all players could deliver AC3 RF or dts audio and some processors had one or the other. Even with the early days of DVD I had a Denon that had Dolby Digital but it lacked dts so I had a Millenium 2.4.6 dts decoder. And even then if I wanted AC3 from my LD player I had to modify it to get the AC3 RF from the disc and still get an external demodulator to connect it to the standard coax/optical digital input on the Denon.

All of it could have been avoided if the LD makers would have just built the demodulation hardware into the players. The players would have easily been able to pass dts or AC3 to compatible processor that could handle both formats.

The biggest reason why was the price of laserdiscs themselves. The average person could not afford or didn't want to spend $30-$50 per new release let alone $200 for those specialty CC editions.

I got into LDs and it was great fun. I was also blessed to live in a city that had an LD rental store, so I could rent LDs regularly without having to buy them .

When DVD came out it appealed to the masses and the price was not an issue anymore.

[Geoff D]

LD was just too unwieldy for the average customer. It was the debut in the home of things we'd take for granted on DVD like multichannel 5.1 audio (and audio commentaries, for that matter) and chapter skipping, but it was just too clunky to catch on with Ma and Pa Averageperson. Having to change sides every hour or half hour and then have to change the disc for another one on longer movies was something that people didn't want to deal with, no matter how good it looked or sounded. But when DVD shrunk all that and more into a single 5" disc (albeit with some early flippers ) it became the most popular home video format of all time. Never underestimate the convenience factor.

[Deciazulado]

One of then advantages touted for CDs was that they could hold a whole symphony like Beethoven's 9 in one disc and not interrupt playback (and that has movements, so it has built in "pauses".) For movies the desire for that uninterruption would been greater, specially when you had tape that could hold more than 2 hours. I guess for many people it felt worse than TV commercial interruptions, since you had to go change sides/discs yourself instead of waiting for the ads to pass. But even with that, that Snyder Cut CAV Laserdisc was a great edition.

[Auditor55]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

The biggest reason why was the price of laserdiscs themselves. The average person could not afford or didn't want to spend $30-$50 per new release let alone $200 for those specialty CC editions.

I got into LDs and it was great fun. I was also blessed to live in a city that had an LD rental store, so I could rent LDs regularly without having to buy them .

When DVD came out it appealed to the masses and the price was not an issue anymore.

I had Jurassic Park and Casper DTS LD's, they were awesome. I didn't mind changing sides to get that awesome sound. To hear my subwoofer pound T-Rex stomps in those days was something else.

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by Auditor55

I had Jurassic Park and Casper DTS LD's, they were awesome. I didn't mind changing sides to get that awesome sound. To hear my subwoofer pound T-Rex stomps in those days was something else.

to this day I've never heard anything as awesome as laserdisc releases!!

[HDMan72]

Jurassic Park & Casper DTS laserdiscs were always spinning on demo at my no longer opened hi-fi retailer back in the day. I did own both of those on laserdisc and yes, the sound was amazing, another notable laserdisc with incredible sound was the Japanese release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the Dolby Digital track was thunderous. Man I love those days.

[Christian Muth]

Originally Posted by slimdude

Laserdisc was a niche market catered to only the rich and the wealthy folks who could afford to pay $90.00 for one movie 40 years ago. The average Joe Six Pack who've rented VHS tapes at video stores couldn't afford to adopt laserdisc. People who've invested into the laserdisc technology at the time had money. Laserdisc wasn't for the poor and the underprivileged population.

I bought my first Laserdisc player and started collecting when I was 16 with money I saved up from my summer job washing dishes at a local restaurant. I lived in a lower middle-class neighborhood in NJ. While the huge special edition box-sets and Criterions did go for big bucks, the average LD release was sell-through priced, usually list priced between 25-40 dollars while their VHS counterparts were "priced for rental" at 90-100.

Chris

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by HDMan72

Jurassic Park & Casper DTS laserdiscs were always spinning on demo at my no longer opened hi-fi retailer back in the day. I did own both of those on laserdisc and yes, the sound was amazing, another notable laserdisc with incredible sound was the Japanese release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the Dolby Digital track was thunderous. Man I love those days.

I think JP DTS is full bandwidth compared to DTS-X on the UHD which has neutered LFE.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by lgans316

I think JP DTS is full bandwidth compared to DTS-X on the UHD which has neutered LFE.

"Full bandwidth"?

It's 10dB TOO HIGH in the LFE (100x power) and 3dB too high in the surrounds (10x power).

It's not "neutered". It's CORRECT on the BD.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

"Full bandwidth"?

It's 10dB TOO HIGH in the LFE (100x power) and 3dB too high in the surrounds (10x power).

It's not "neutered". It's CORRECT on the BD.

Why can’t people just use their ears to determine whether something sounds good or otherwise.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Why can’t people just use their ears to determine whether something sounds good or otherwise.

Same reason you don't set your picture to VIVID or watch movies in pan & scan because they "fill the screen"

[KMFDMvsEnya]

The LD DTS mix of JP sounds like overcooked bloated steamy dino dung.
The DVD DTS mix sounds great and potentially closer to the original theatrical mix.
Original BR DTSMA mix is hot, clipped, and sounds like dino dung.
DTS-X is ok but like the original BR DTSMA it has some reduced dynamic range but it is better than the latter.
I personally prefer the 3D remix, otherwise the DVD DTS mix is my next preferred version, due to featuring overall better dynamic range with some actual transients and sounds lovely and exciting cranked up.

John Williams & Vienna Philharmonic – Williams: Theme from “Jurassic Park� - YouTube

[Auditor55]

Originally Posted by KMFDMvsEnya

The LD DTS mix of JP sounds like overcooked bloated steamy dino dung.
The DVD DTS mix sounds great and potentially closer to the original theatrical mix.
Original BR DTSMA mix is hot, clipped, and sounds like dino dung.
DTS-X is ok but like the original BR DTSMA it has some reduced dynamic range but it is better than the latter.
I personally prefer the 3D remix, otherwise the DVD DTS mix is my next preferred version, due to featuring overall better dynamic range with some actual transients and sounds lovely and exciting cranked up.

John Williams & Vienna Philharmonic – Williams: Theme from “Jurassic Park� - YouTube

What we were getting on the DTS LD's was the theatrical mix, which the surrounds were hot in comparison to the home mix. All one needed to do is adjust the surrounds in the prepro or AVR.

The initial release of the DTS DVD version of JP was messed, actually the bass was neutered and they had to re-release a second version with the correct LFE setting.

I loved the theatrical mixes on DTS LD's. Remember, we were getting this in the home when the vast majority were watching analog VHS. Remember the DTS intro on the LD before the movie came started.

DTS 5.1 - The Digital Experience - Intro (HD 1080p) - YouTube