Star Wars: The Complete Saga (1977-2005)

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by thebard

Be honest... you really just wanted it for the collectible film cell!

Well, that was a nice bonus. And the art book too.

Ummm...crap...do I still have that film cell...?

[Blu-21]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

Which is why I was adamant about getting the widescreen VHS for The Phantom Menace back in the day.

If you had a Laserdisc player back in the day you could have imported the Laserdisc of The Phantom Menace which was also widescreen and had far far better picture quality then any of the VHS versions. In fact the Laserdisc of TPM is regarded as one of the best looking Laserdiscs ever made, it still looks fantastic to this day, even on modern HDTVs.



I own it..

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

If you had a Laserdisc player back in the day you could have imported the Laserdisc of The Phantom Menace which was also widescreen and had far far better picture quality then any of the VHS versions. In fact the Laserdisc of TPM is regarded as one of the best looking Laserdiscs ever made, it still looks fantastic to this day, even on modern HDTVs.

[Show spoiler]

I own it..

Are laser discs about the same size as a 78 or a 33 ⅓? It's hard to tell in the photo. Or are they some other size. And did you have to flip them, like a side A and side B? Also do you know if there is any place to buy "new" players, or would they all be used at this point? I'm assuming no one still makes them (you can still buy new VCRs today, as odd as that is)

[thebard]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

If you had a Laserdisc player back in the day you could have imported the Laserdisc of The Phantom Menace which was also widescreen and had far far better picture quality then any of the VHS versions. In fact the Laserdisc of TPM is regarded as one of the best looking Laserdiscs ever made, it still looks fantastic to this day, even on modern HDTVs.

[Show spoiler]

I own it..

I have that one as well. It's really the best way (only way?) to watch the theatrical cut.

It still sounds great, too.

Oh, and Scarface, LaserDiscs are about the same size as an LP (33). They need to be flipped at the end of the side, but some players automated this. Depending on how they were mastered, they either held 1/2 hr or one hr per side. The last discs were made in 2000/2001; the players were made for several years after. Everything at this point will be used.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

If you had a Laserdisc player back in the day you could have imported the Laserdisc of The Phantom Menace which was also widescreen and had far far better picture quality then any of the VHS versions. In fact the Laserdisc of TPM is regarded as one of the best looking Laserdiscs ever made, it still looks fantastic to this day, even on modern HDTVs.

[Show spoiler]

I own it..

Unfortunately, my parents dropped out of the LaserDisc scene by then. We had about 150 of them, but not TPM...or any Star Wars ones, really. Looks like a thing of beauty though.

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Are laser discs about the same size as a 78 or a 33 ⅓? It's hard to tell in the photo. Or are they some other size. And did you have to flip them, like a side A and side B? Also do you know if there is any place to buy "new" players, or would they all be used at this point? I'm assuming no one still makes them (you can still buy new VCRs today, as odd as that is)

As I recall, a LaserDisc would be the same size of a vinyl record (11.81 inches in diameter). They would normally hold 60 minutes on one side, so you did have to flip them halfway through the movie. Certain ones had only 30 minutes per side and had two discs that both had to be flipped (so there were like four sides).

To my knowledge, LD was always a pretty limited niche market, and I don't think new players or discs have been made in years. Used players and discs could probably be found, but I'm not sure what they'd go for.

I remember LDs looked miles better than VHS, and sounded insane. Most LDs sound quality would blow standard DVDs out of the water, and would be comparable to a good-quality Blu-Ray.

It was a great format for the 80s and 90s, but nowadays I'm not sure if I'd recommend it, since it's still an analogue format with limited resolution, and LDs are prone to laser rot. That's just me though; sounds like it's still holding up for most viewers (and it might be the best way to see the unaltered Star Wars ).

[Blu-21]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Are laser discs about the same size as a 78 or a 33 ⅓? It's hard to tell in the photo. Or are they some other size. And did you have to flip them, like a side A and side B? Also do you know if there is any place to buy "new" players, or would they all be used at this point? I'm assuming no one still makes them (you can still buy new VCRs today, as odd as that is)

The general standard size of a typical Laserdisc was 11.81 (30 cm)

Heres a picture comparing the size to a DVD:





CLV discs could store about 60 minutes of content on each side while CAV discs could only include half that with 30 minutes per side, but CAV discs did have trick play features. You do have to flip the disc from side A to side B, although most players from about the mid 90's onward could automatically flip from side A to side B for you so you didn't have to get up and manually do it yourself, you only had to wait momentarily 5 or 10 seconds for the player to flip the laser.

Of course for movies spanning over 120 minutes and included 2 or more actual discs, regardless if you had a player with the auto flipping capability, you did have to get up at least once to change the disc, although there is a couple of rare players that had 2 LD disc treys for longer films which would transfer from one drive to the other negating the need to EVER get up and flip or change the disc, but these are ultra rare and expensive.


No you cannot buy any new players anymore. Pioneer did continue support for Laserdisc in the form of standalone players as well as Laserdisc/DVD combo players until 2009, but that's as late as it goes.

So unless you can track down unopened players still in their orignal packaging which would be a slim chance at best, most players you can buy now online and in 2nd hand stores are obviously second hand, but they can play perfectly if they were treated right. I have a couple of players myself.

Wiki has a fantastic entry covering the technology, you should really give it a read for more in depth info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc#Design

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

VHS came in widescreen versions?

How is it I never knew about this. My childhood was ruined by cropped movies. I didn't know such a beautiful thing existed!

I still have the Indiana Jones Trilogy, Blade Runner, Devil's Advocate (which has a disclaimer saying that the VHS tape will work on normal TVs and not that the movie is terrible!), Gladiator, The Matrix and a Star Trek movies box set on widescreen.

For some reason letterboxing fascinated me when I was younger.

[Poya]

Originally Posted by thebard

Be honest... you really just wanted it for the collectible film cell!

Probably to use as toilet paper.

[BillieCassin]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

It was a great format for the 80s and 90s, but nowadays I'm not sure if I'd recommend it, since it's still an analogue format with limited resolution, and LDs are prone to laser rot. That's just me though; sounds like it's still holding up for most viewers (and it might be the best way to see the unaltered Star Wars ).

Yeah, the laser rot is the biggest issue with LD collecting today. It's extremely widespread. It seems like more titles have it than don't at this point. It's also difficult to tell unless you play the entire disc through - some of them have visual cues (fogginess under the disc surface) but a lot of them are invisible. It gets worse over time, some believe for just about all existing lasers it's just a matter of when not if.

The glue used is what I believe has become known as the culprit - I also know that the severity and the percentages of discs affected are also largely associated with various plants that produced them (some plants have much larger incidences than others). The large Star Wars set (Definitive Collecton?) is pretty badly affected universally.

The other issue is that yes, it did have better than VHS resolution, but - as some detractors at the time pointed out, not entirely inaccurately - because the letterboxing was actually burned in as part of the analog frame, a lot of that resolution was used up just projecting black. In some cases, depending on the ratio, the film image itself may have actually had less resolution than a VHS, because so much of the resolution was unused for actual film image. This is unlike DVD, where your DVD player generates the letterboxing, so it doesn't take up resolution space on the DVD. Most of us thought that having it in OAR outweighed this, making LD still preferable to VHS.

Originally Posted by Scarface32

VHS came in widescreen versions?

How is it I never knew about this. My childhood was ruined by cropped movies. I didn't know such a beautiful thing existed!

It actually came out in Widescreen as early as 1992. There was a box set that had the VHS letterboxed - it actually was the first time I owned the films. They looked really nice, for VHS. It was an amazing experience at the time.

[Gold Ranger]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

If you had a Laserdisc player back in the day you could have imported the Laserdisc of The Phantom Menace which was also widescreen and had far far better picture quality then any of the VHS versions. In fact the Laserdisc of TPM is regarded as one of the best looking Laserdiscs ever made, it still looks fantastic to this day, even on modern HDTVs.



I own it..

Is it Pink like the DVD?

[thebard]

Originally Posted by BillieCassin

Yeah, the laser rot is the biggest issue with LD collecting today. It's extremely widespread. It seems like more titles have it than don't at this point.

Less than 1% of all titles, actually.
http://www.lddb.com/laserrot.php

Originally Posted by BillieCassin

The other issue is that yes, it did have better than VHS resolution, but - as some detractors at the time pointed out, not entirely inaccurately - because the letterboxing was actually burned in as part of the analog frame, a lot of that resolution was used up just projecting black. In some cases, depending on the ratio, the film image itself may have actually had less resolution than a VHS, because so much of the resolution was unused for actual film image. This is unlike DVD, where your DVD player generates the letterboxing, so it doesn't take up resolution space on the DVD. Most of us thought that having it in OAR outweighed this, making LD still preferable to VHS.

Anamorphic widescreen actually came to LaserDisc in 1996, but did not catch on due to the expense of widescreen TVs and the inability of the player to adjust the AR for standard TVs (image would appear stretched on a 4:3 display).

http://www.mindspring.com/~laserguru/squeeze.html

The real drawbacks of LD were:
- As stated earlier, it was an analog format, and composite, so the picture was subject to artifacts like blooming, aliasing and dot crawl.
- Even with a player that automated the side flip, many movies required a disc change at some point.
- The large disc size was unwieldy compared to vhs (and dvd).
- No ability for the consumer to record content.
- Cost of the product compared to other consumer formats.

The main reason for collecting these days I content: there are still some titles which are not available on dvd, let alone Blu-ray.

[thebard]

Originally Posted by KaineKinetic

Is it Pink like the DVD?

LD vs DVD:
http://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?t=1591&p=28256

DVD vs Blu (focuses on content rather than PQ):
http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=123195

[Kryptonic]

Originally Posted by chip75

I still have the Indiana Jones Trilogy, Blade Runner, Devil's Advocate (which has a disclaimer saying that the VHS tape will work on normal TVs and not that the movie is terrible!), Gladiator, The Matrix and a Star Trek movies box set on widescreen.

For some reason letterboxing fascinated me when I was younger.

I had over 100 letterbox VHS tapes back in the mid to late 90's. I loved it. First one I ever bought was Jaws and it was like seeing it for the first time, especially after years of watching it on TNT and TBS hacked to hell. I still have this set as well, mostly for the nice box and Special Edition art book. Haven't had a VCR in years!

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chip75

I still have the Indiana Jones Trilogy, Blade Runner, Devil's Advocate (which has a disclaimer saying that the VHS tape will work on normal TVs and not that the movie is terrible!), Gladiator, The Matrix and a Star Trek movies box set on widescreen.

For some reason letterboxing fascinated me when I was younger.

I've still got several VHS sets too, including various editions of the Star Wars trilogy, plus the Star Trek movies, Die Hard trilogy and BTTF trilogy.

[OneBuckFilms]

Does anyone think we'll get a good $50-60 price for the Complete Saga Blu-rays any time soon?

[Shagadelic]

Originally Posted by OneBuckFilms

Does anyone think we'll get a good $50-60 price for the Complete Saga Blu-rays any time soon?

For one of the greatest movie franchises in history?
not likely, & now that Disney wrangles the reins.

[HeavyHitter]

Anyone care to speculate when we'll see new transfers of the original trilogy even if they are the same (special edition) versions as the Blus?

[stvn1974]

Why would they bother to do new transfers? You people have bought millions of copies of these horrible versions already and they will sell millions more.

[brian9229]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Anyone care to speculate when we'll see new transfers of the original trilogy even if they are the same (special edition) versions as the Blus?

Yes they'll be out around 2077 in time for the 100th anniversary.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by stvn1974

Why would they bother to do new transfers? You people have bought millions of copies of these horrible versions already and they will sell millions more.

Then why are you even in this thread?