Laser disc players, anyone?
Posted by Ok_Kick6546@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 125 comments
I’m older Gen X and my father always had the latest technology in the neighborhood. We were the first to have a microwave, a Fuzz Buster, a VCR, and before the VCR was a laser disc player. Does anyone remember those things? My neighborhood didn’t get cable until around 1986 so I can’t count the number of times I watched The Godfather, Dirty Harry, Superman, The Ten Commandments, and Death Wish with my father. (An interesting viewing diet for a girl, lol.)
Independent-Pea5131@reddit
Your dad was probably my roommate at some point. We had the coolest shit on the block.
StockIndependent808@reddit
We had Dumbo and Flashdance.
RetiredPoPo10-8@reddit
Still have mine. I bought the director's special editions of T2 and Dances With Wolves, both were $129.99 if I remember correctly. I think Dances was spread out over 3 discs. My player can keep playing a disc without having to manually flip it over, but you would still need to get up 3 times during the movie to put in the next disc.
Randeth@reddit
Totally forgot I have T2 as well. 🙂
foodandhowtoeat@reddit
I remember the clunk clunk whirr sound when it switched over to side two.
Randeth@reddit
I so wanted to get one that flipped sides for you but the one we got on sale was barely within our budget as newly married college students. 🙂
ChuckYeagerWV@reddit
I want one to watch the OG Star Wars in its original state. One day....
Randeth@reddit
Yeah we have those on Laserdisc. After the special editions released we used to watch them a lot more. Now the player and 30 or so discs are filed away in the closet. Need a convertor to hook up to a newer TV since it only had analog outputs.
__Cmason__@reddit
Look up Harmy's Despecialized Edition
mstermind@reddit
I watched the extended version of Aliens for the first time on laserdisc.
Randeth@reddit
Our whole friend group had viewings of this very often. Looked and sounded awesome. 🙂
FunnyChampionship717@reddit
Still have mine. Sucks that it didn't take off. It's the beta of the disc world. Lol
TheHandsOfFate@reddit
Not sure it really had a chance against the cheaper "good enough" nature of VHS. And DVD was cheaper and better tech.
FunnyChampionship717@reddit
Yeah but laserdisc had really cool sleeves. 😂
Randeth@reddit
Yeah loved having the huge sleaves like an LP record but for a movie. 👍
Zaphod1620@reddit
The sound on Laserdisc was far superior to DVD. Laserdiscs were analog, like a record. Sound was uncompressed and had a huge dynamic range.
WrenchMonkey47@reddit
I had one in 1993. It played both sides of the disc so you didn't have to manually flip it mid-movie.
My first laserdisc was "Star Trek VI" and then "The Hunt for Red October." Both sounded awesome in surrounding sound.
Randeth@reddit
We joined the Columbia House Laser Disc club and one we got on accident ended up to be great for surround sound. Backdraft. Freaked us out with the sounds of fire coming from behind us. 🙂
Randeth@reddit
I still have my Laserdisc player and all my discs. The best ones were the Criterion Ghostbusters my friends all chipped in to get me for my birthday ($100 back in the day). Plus the first way to see the Aliens Special Edition. Also some great box sets from Disney. Tron, Toy Story, Fantasia.
Great times. 🙂
Awkward-Actuator-596@reddit
We had the lazer disk player those things were huge-
lol the only one they got me was Disney Sport Goofy. After that he gotta a beta and than VHS…
tampaforfun@reddit
I have one. Its nice because there are some movies that were better on laserdisc. I had one in 96 and replaced with DVD in 98 but bought one on ebay 10 years ago for retro purposes.
Most_Maintenance5549@reddit
Those were for rich people!
ONROSREPUS@reddit
My parents rented one, never owned one.
Alternative-Law4626@reddit
I remember them. Never had one. Like an LP sized CDRom disc.
Zaphod1620@reddit
Kind of, but they were analog like a record, not digital like a CD or DVD.
Alternative-Law4626@reddit
Oh cool, didn’t realize that!
bugabooandtwo@reddit
We had one...not sure if it was called a laser disk or record disc. After 59 minutes you had to insert the hard plastic sleeve, remover the record, flip it over and insert again to play the rest of the movie. And if you jumped or had an older record, it would skip in places (most of the ones my parents bought were used ones form the rental place).
I wish we still had it...Jaws, Psycho, tons of Alfred Hitchcock movies and movies form the 60 to early 80s...good times.
Zaphod1620@reddit
That wasn’t Laserdisc, that was SelectaVision. It got killed off by VHS and Laserdiscs.
keirmeister@reddit
My best bud got one. At the time, it was the best way to get anime.
anotherspaceguy100@reddit
You must be new to reddit (checks, oh you are). Look here: r/LaserDisc !
mauigirl48@reddit
My dad was on the project “DiscoVision”- a merge between IBM and Panasonic! I just bought the first pressing of Jaws as a framed disc- it was the one we watched over & over!
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
Amazing!!
defsentenz@reddit
In my undergrad, they had Laserdiscs and a player in the library (a northeastern US music conservatory). I took the last month of my senior year to watch Wagners complete Ring cycle on laserdisc with the scores. I felt so futuristic at the time...then dvds came out the following year.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
Was it Berkley?
defsentenz@reddit
No. Eastman.
ConsciousAnt6691@reddit
My dad had one. I think he still uses it.
MassCasualty@reddit
My friend's dad had a laser disc player. It was huge. Obviously they were the size of a record for one movie. I think they had like five movies we weren't allowed to watch any of them because why would kids be allowed to touch the laser disc player? We just headed to the basement and played the Atari.
JumpingJackFlashes@reddit
My teenage young lad picked one up recently.
amigammon@reddit
Had one until 2005
ButterflyOld8220@reddit
My dad borrowed a laser disc player from a coworker. I remember going to a rental store to rent discs. The first one I remember watching was"Rocky". And we watched it soooo many times. I know there were others but this was the one.
texan01@reddit
I was gifted one plus a mess of movies about 20 years ago, I watched them a for about 10 years and then moved the whole thing on to a coworker who was absolutely amazed by it.
imtoowhiteandnerdy@reddit
Ahh memories, I remember the ye olde microwave oven... oh wait, they're still around ;-)
I have friends who still make fun of me for my DVD collection.
Chad_Hooper@reddit
Same. That and some fighter-plane game in the same burger joint is the sum total of my experience with laser disk players.
whiporee123@reddit
My parents had one.
kobuta99@reddit
We had old VCRs (with the pop up cassette loader) before we had a laser disc player. We were a bit late in the game, and finally but the bullet because ours also doubled as a karaoke machine (lots of karaoke discs in our culture). But I loved laser discs because there were genuinely fabulous movie and series releases with unique special features.
Many of these were never released when dvds and even blu rays took over. Just bummed that my dad got rid of the player (and my discs!) a few years after I moved out.
ABeardHelps@reddit
They were very popular in the anime community back in the 90's as most anime imports were on laserdisc. The LD format was quite popular in Japan so anyone making fansubs usually started with an LD from Japan as the video master.
As DVDs rose in popularity, you could pick up old laserdiscs & players on the cheap.
orangeboy_on_reddit@reddit
I had a non-laser video disc player (TIL it was a "CED", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc ) and a stack of movies that I got from someone I worked with. I never used it because one of the rubber band like drive belt was broken. I'm pretty sure it all ended up in a landfill.
bugabooandtwo@reddit
Dude...all you had to do was open it up and replace it with a regular rubber band. I did that a few times growing up.
forgeblast@reddit
Never had one but it was part of my technology of teaching class...that and overhead projectors on top of other things ....
Motoman617@reddit
I still have two Pioneer Elite players and video processors. I never use them anymore. Both and all my discs are packed away in my spare room closet.
pagit@reddit
Pioneer Elite were pretty elite in it's day and are pretty good today.
Do you have an Elite Reciever?
Pattycakes1966@reddit
I think my husband still has one
Elegant-Particular49@reddit
My grandparents had one of those LD players that took the cartridge gimmicks and not just a disc, but I think they were the same thing just competing technology maybe? Either way I remember being a kid and watching Empire Strikes Back on one of those bigass wooden TVs that sat on the floor and thinking I’m living like a king!
Jazzlike_Grand_7227@reddit
Those were called VideoDisc players - I think the one RCA sold was called SelectaVision. They were encased in a cartridge because, like a record, they were formatted with grooves that got easily damaged, thus the cartridge (you slid the cartridge into the player, then took it back out which left the disc inside the player - the idea was that they should never be touched). They were not the same, quality wise, as laser discs.
Elegant-Particular49@reddit
This was definitely it! This was a memory from probably 40 years ago and for longest time I thought maybe I was crazy and this technology never existed and I had it confused with something else but it was definitely real, thank you for the help!
TheJokersChild@reddit
Not crazy - but the technology was. CED is what it was called. Weirdly ironic that it spent so much time in development and corporate limbo that LaserDisc got a 3-year lead on it. This was the nail in the coffin (needle in the groove?) that officially sank RCA and made it a ripe target for Jack Welch to acquire for GE.
TheJokersChild@reddit
Aspired to one from seeing them in Video Review all the time, finally got one like 20 years ago. Novelty wore off after I realized it was like having another album collection. I may have also been a little post-traumatic after working with them at my first TV station - did you know there were recordable ones?!
There's still a bunch of die-hards over on r/LaserDisc.
LazyOldCat@reddit
Watched Escape From New York on the rich neighbors one, quite the visual feast on that 24” CRT.
SWO6@reddit
I will keep my Laserdisc Star Wars definitive collection (the original theatrical cut before all the special edition nonsense.) until I will them to my children.
In this household, we know that Han shot first.
Sea_Part_1581@reddit
My first viewing of ANH was watching one of those!!
bobj33@reddit
/LaserDisc
There are people that are still fans
Colibri918@reddit
We had one. I had the Beauty and the Beast that included the work in progress. I thought that was so cool.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
That is cool!
youngkpepper@reddit
I didn't know laser discs predated VCRs. My 90s boyfriend had one in the middle of that decade along with a fairly extensive collection of discs. Yeah, they were huge.
My family had cable fairly early on, but the first VCR we had was an absolute joke. It was some cheap Korean brand and the "remote" had a cord. Everyone would jockey for a seat too far away for the cord to reach.
fastballcdm2019@reddit
I still have two players and about 12 LDs.
TeaMugPatina@reddit
But did you have a trash compactor?
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
No. But my father bought a new land yacht car every couple of years. Those back seats were incredibly comfortable when I borrowed the car…
FallenValkyrja@reddit
I’ve still have my LDs and a working player.
MrMilesRides@reddit
I have an uncle that, as far as I know, is still an avid collector.
When I used to dog sit for them back in the 90s, there was nothing better than hanging out in the couch, in my leather pants drinking a beer with my man Vinny, and watching The Wall on lazer disc. Absolute peak times. :)
No-Top-883@reddit
We had the MCA Discovision, my sis and I had our own ataris, I had a teen line. We got the Sony Betamax and the RCA Selectavision (we had a TV upstairs and downstairs) RCA tvs and a huge Amana microwave looking back at us now lol. Dad loved tech and new cars every 2 years.
Jazzlike_Grand_7227@reddit
Your childhood is a textbook case of You were rich if…
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
Are we siblings?
No-Top-883@reddit
LOL! Ya never know on the internet 😜
Tonto_HdG@reddit
A friend's parents had one. (We're talking the things the size of lp records?). I thought it was odd. Once VCRs came around and rental places were common, her mother spent all her free time in front of that tv. Only left to go to work and the movie rental.
GameArtHQ@reddit
Xennial. My dad rented one in 1980-1981. We watched the Japanese Little Mermaid on it (I cried for three days after - I was 4 at most).
MarkDavid04@reddit
We had karaoke LDs mostly. Then I got Ghost in the Shell on LD! Images and sound quality were peak!!
SignificantTransient@reddit
Nah, we were too not middle class for that shit.
Ok-Opportunity2280@reddit
I remember going to rent both the laser disc and the player from a local store! I was pretty young but I'll guess it was mid 80s.
GboyFlex@reddit
I have a Pioneer Elite LD player and around 60 laser discs. Bought them over a few years time back in 05 through like 09 ish. I really need to get them out and watch Time Bandits and Yellow Beard :)
No-Hospital559@reddit
I still have my Marantz LD player. I think I also have about 60 discs.
GboyFlex@reddit
Oh nice. I would always be chasing the Criterion Collection LD's but they were super pricey. No idea what they're worth now, afraid to look in case I lost my behind 0.o
No-Hospital559@reddit
I don't have any of the criterion disks either but I have the original star wars trilogy unmolested.
atclew@reddit
was that the one that also had a 5-disc CD player?
GboyFlex@reddit
Yes!! I got into a bidding war on an "old new stock" unit still sealed in the box. Looking back I was out of my mind lol
atclew@reddit
Those things were the BEST!
I had my Dad stand in line at the local music store the day Forrest Gump was released on Laser Disc because I was stationed in Germany and the PX wasn't going to get it for about 6-8 weeks. It cost me $100 with the Fedex shipping costs!
GboyFlex@reddit
Ouch! I paid $150 for the Akira LD.. in the 80's I'd send care boxes to my older brother in Germany, he was stationed at Bitburg AFB as a flight line EMT/Fire rescue.
atclew@reddit
Nice! Bitburg closed while I was stationed there, in Ansbach at the time.
HildaTheChickenGirl@reddit
Now I must find time bandits 😂 haven't seen that in forever
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
Excellent choices!
Queeby@reddit
My friend's parents had one. I can't remember the first movie we watched together on it but it was great.
They also had a Telefunken stereo.
Dr_StrangeloveGA@reddit
Some of the neighbors had them but people in my circle were buying VHS recorders by the mid-80s. We never had a laser disc player as a family.
paintingdusk13@reddit
My buddy's dad was an early adopter of new tech/stuff. He had a laserdisc player attached to a projection screen tv. Also had a betamax player.
run_squid_run@reddit
I still have mine. We watch the original Star Wars trilogy where Han shoots first and there isn’t the bs cgi slop that was added to it
Pinkbeans1@reddit
I worked in a laser disc warehouse. Couldn’t afford a player. Sent out many a cracked disc because we’d run out of boxes and they’d tell us to cram them in.
mom2artists@reddit
My cousins fam got Laser Disk but we had a vcr like in 79 or 80 I guess? Or whenever they first came out! Two vhs movies we watched so many times- Superman and The Wiz
SergeantChic@reddit
I used to work in the back office of a thrift store in the early 2000s and a laser disc player and a bunch of LDs came in one day. I snagged the player for about $30, and they thought the discs were records, so they were all priced at $1 each, so I got some gems. Two copies of Blade Runner on Criterion Collection laser disc (my favorite movie of all time), Dr. Strangelove, The Fisher King, Excalibur, about a dozen discs overall. That player weighed as much as a refrigerator, I swear.
ThinkChallenge127@reddit
We had one in Kansa 1984. The only movie disc we had was “ Herbie” watched it a thousand times. I can’t ever watch it again.
I pulled the disc out. It was cool.
r4d4r_3n5@reddit
I've got a LaserDisc player. 🤷♂️
dogdayediting@reddit
Had a Pioneer LD player. Collected a few movies. $100 a pop made it tough but I worked at a store that only sold CDs and Laserdiscs (quite rebellious at a time when cassettes still reigned supreme), so took advantage of my employee discount.
Great picture quality (compared to vhs). Having to flip the disc part way through a movie, not so great.
I wish I still had it.
BmanGorilla@reddit
I had a pioneer that auto flipped the disc, that was hot stuff
dogdayediting@reddit
Luxury!
pcbuilderboy55@reddit
I have the Pioneer LD player with the playback head that swivels to play the second side without having to flip the disc. Still interrupted playback for 20 seconds, so the only real advantage was not having to get up off the couch.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
PS: I think ours was a Pioneer as well.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
We owned several but a rentals place opened a couple of towns over and we took full advantage of it.
Haecede@reddit
Me and my sister used to fight about who's turn it was to turn over the disk halfway through the movie
itgoesineasy@reddit
Back in the 80’s I worked as an EMT for a small county ambulance district. I worked occasionally at the crappiest station in the district. There was a disk player in the station with 2 movies. I don’t recall what they were but apparently someone on the other shift had brought it in and left it when they got a VHS at home.
properwaffles@reddit
I was the first kid I knew that had an Atari 2600. Dad bought it right when it came out, which is surprising because he didn't like spending money and was kind of a dick.
He also installed a hot tub in the deck he had built in the back of our house. I used to LIVE in that thing. Sometimes my mom would bring me lunch and let me eat while I was sitting in it. Plus, it had a huge clear plastic dome type of cover that you could put on and hang out while it was raining/snowing, which was super fun and it was kind of like a sauna.
TXtogo@reddit
Nope never owned one. I had a dvd player for a couple of years- today I don’t own anything other than a stereo receiver that is basically just a giant surround sound system
SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit
Was in one of the "thrift" store in Jefferson TX a couple of months ago and they had stacks of LD's a day probably 25-30 players. Was really tempted to get a player and some discs but the wife said it would be terrible if I fell on a kitchen knife, so yeah I figured no need to be unduly clumsy
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
Women vacuum the fun out of everything.
Source: Am woman.
SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit
Safety first.
swizzir@reddit
Grew up with Laserdisc players. I recall my dad getting one in 1982. Probably around 93 there was a two disc player in the house that had automatic side changing. Very fancy.
My first porn viewing was on Laserdisc. Dad had a copy of Deep Throat. Got ahold of it and had some friends over to watch. Good times.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
LMFAO!!!
ZombieNightmares@reddit
I have a fully functional laser disc player. I don't have many movies, just Star Wars episodes 4-6. They're the last versions mostly untouched by George Lucas's revisionism. I have a ton of the CED discs but no player. Those players are expensive and finicky. New needles are difficult to find and run for hundreds of dollars just for the needles.
ShizHeadSoup@reddit
I had those Star Wars did discs as well. One of my kids has them now because they love the artwork. Want to frame them.
I’m hoping with the announcement of the theatrical rerelease of the OG Star Wars in theaters in 2027 for the 50th anniversary(!), that Disney will release HD versions of the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy. The LDs (and the non-anamorphic dvds released in one of the box sets…same transfer) are unwatchable on modern displays. At least to me.
Oh-THAT-dude@reddit
I still own one. It’s useless at the moment, since the discs I have for it are in storage somewhere.
lmpcpedz@reddit
I remember my grandpa having one, it was a big deal because I'd never seen a shiny silver LP record before ( that's what it looked like to me at the time) and the first movie I watched on Laser Disc that night was Christine.
Stonerkittylady420@reddit
My dad worked on training videos for the military. Back in the early 80’s, that training was on laser disk.
ShizHeadSoup@reddit
I had about 75 films. Left them and the player behind in the divorce. The video was great pre Eve and hd displays. Unwatchable now. But the sound! Nothing better than an AC-3 or DTS soundtrack on an LD.
Deer-in-Motion@reddit
A friend's family had one and a 40" TV. Got to know the Back to the Future movies literally backwards and forwards.
He also bought imported anime LDs. No English subtitles or anything. Watched Tenchi Muyo that way and had zero idea what was happening.
yupjustarandomranger@reddit
My spouse still has his discs and a player that have moved with us 7 times already. Actually brought them up during our Swedish Death Cleaning conversation.
BmanGorilla@reddit
I still have probably 200 laserdiscs… not sure what to make of that.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
HOLY SHIT, DUDE! 😱
SeismicFrog@reddit
I had 100 up until \~2014.
Ok_Kick6546@reddit (OP)
DAMN!!