Pioneer to end LaserDisc player production

[Chris Blount]

Quite frankly I didn't know they were even still producing them. My laserdisc player is still in my cabinet just not hooked up. I think I still have about 10 laserdiscs left

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TOKYO, Jan 14, 2009 (Kyodo News International - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- PIO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Pioneer Corp. said Wednesday it will end production of its LaserDisc players by the end of March after producing another 3,000 units.

More (http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2125379/)

[dave29]

Quite frankly I didn't know they were even still producing them.

neither did I :)

[LarryFlowers]

I have a working Pioneer CLD 1010, a brand new one still in the box and around 900 movies... I have been hoping to find the time and software to move those films to a hard drive.

Larry

[Stuart Sweet]

Well, it's a shame, but it had an extraordinarily good run.

[roadrunner1782]

What's a laser disk?:lol: Just kidding, but where can you even buy one anymore with the exception of the internet?

[Tom Robertson]

What's a laser disk?:lol: Just kidding, but where can you even buy one anymore with the exception of the internet?

Would you want to buy one anywhere but the internet? :)

I thought they were only selling leftover stock. Hokie smokes.

[xIsamuTM]

Would someone living in the internet age want to by a laser disc player??

kidding.

[cdizzy]

I haven't seen a laser disc player since the mid to late 90's. The fact that they still make them boggles my mind! :bink:

[pfueri]

Quite frankly I didn't know they were even still producing them. My laserdisc player is still in my cabinet just not hooked up. I think I still have about 10 laserdiscs left

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TOKYO, Jan 14, 2009 (Kyodo News International - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- PIO | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Pioneer Corp. said Wednesday it will end production of its LaserDisc players by the end of March after producing another 3,000 units.

More (http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2125379/)I have a sony that I paid $1000 for in 1988 It just collects dust .

[LarryFlowers]

For all of you techno-infants out there... us old timers owned Laser Video Disc Players because they were the HD of their time. The picture was, in a time when we had no idea or vision about today's HD incredible in comparison to broadcast or video tape.

As a group we were much maligned and we had to endure many hardships... the program originally was run by... don't laugh yourself silly here... Magnavox DiscoVision. The original player had a top that opened... the very first of which would open while the disk was still spinning at like 1500 rpm... DUCK! They fixed that quickly.

Magnovox dropped the ball though and Pioneer grabbed it and ran with it. They did a fair job, their big problem was catalog as it is with Blu Ray today. Pioneer would run a few thoudand copies of a movie and then wait a year to run them again.

We also suffered through something called Laser Rot... the discs would grow mold under the plastic rendering them useless... this led to today's clean room standards in the DVD facilities.

So let's have a little respect for a venerable product and us old timers, without which you wouldn't being enjoying DVD and Blu Ray today.:D

Larry

[hdtvfan0001]

I'm shocked it has taken this long to tank the technology...despite how nice it was in its time...

[mhendrixsr]

Probably just as well that Pioneer is calling LD quits. According to the guy who upgraded my player, the new ones don't seem to be as good as some of the older units. I still have an upgraded DVL-909 and a couple of bookshelves full of LD's from the "old days". And, I have to admit that the DVL didn't get reconnected yet after the last equipment shuffle. I sometimes think about "clearing the space" but what is one to do? The DVL isn't worth much on eBay and the LD's don't seem to be worth what it would cost to ship them. I don't have the heart to "trash" any of them and the last two emails I've made to what's left of the "resellers" have gone unanswered. So, they remain in the A/V room... a good-sized memory of something that used to be.

[Greg Alsobrook]

Wow! Add me to the list that had no idea these were still being produced. My dad still has a Pioneer Laser Disc player. I even remember when we bought it. I'm pretty sure we had a total of two movies. Jurassic Park and Apollo 13. :)

[paulman182]

My Pioneer LD player is in the closet. Amazing that they were still being made.

Maybe there is some country in the world where they have been popular?

[WERA689]

I still have my Panasonic LD player, and about 50 or so movies. LD was so far ahead of VHS and Beta in picture quality, it had to be seen to be believed. My player needs servicing, as the auto-side-switching doesn't work right...I actually have to flip the disc over:(.
I agree with Larry; without LD, we might never have developed the market for the HD we love today! It's place in home video history is secure.

[tfederov]

Can someone compare the picture and sound quality of standard DVD and LaserDisc? I always believed that DVD was just the compacted version of LaserDisc. People wanted to go to DVD because they didn't have to flip them over in the middle of the movie.

[Richard King]

I used to work for a company that provided "Video Walls" for in store displays, museums, visitor centers, etc. The vast majority of their program material was produced to custom pressed laser discs. The nice thing about the laser discs was that the player that they used could be computer controlled and have instant access to any point on the disc. The computer could control the player and control the programming of the various monitors that made up the wall. It was really quite a nice system for the time period (early '80's - '90's). They used to have to send the video material out to have the discs pressed, but eventually bought a burner to do their own.

I had a Toshiba "Cinema Series" player that broke down so often that I eventually tossed it. :( Thankfully, I didn't have a large collection of discs.

[erosroadie]

I still have my Panasonic LD player, and about 50 or so movies. LD was so far ahead of VHS and Beta in picture quality, it had to be seen to be believed. My player needs servicing, as the auto-side-switching doesn't work right...I actually have to flip the disc over:(.
I agree with Larry; without LD, we might never have developed the market for the HD we love today! It's place in home video history is secure.

I still have my Dad's Pioneer LD (open disc access on top with a huge, box-like remote) and about 30 discs in the storage closet. I recall that the only connection in the back is coax to the TV (?) While the LD picture by not comparable (in my opinion) to today's DVD standards, I do have one disc that I still enjoy: "The Dream Is Alive" about one of the first Space Shuttle flights originally shot in IMAX. The fact that my dad purchased this before the Challenger disaster (in 1986?), and it has footage of one of the fallen astronauts, is still very chilling...

[barryb]

I was just going through my LD collection last week... they seem to have got themselves mixed up in my vinyl collection.

[Lee L]

Can someone compare the picture and sound quality of standard DVD and LaserDisc? I always believed that DVD was just the compacted version of LaserDisc. People wanted to go to DVD because they didn't have to flip them over in the middle of the movie.

Picture-wise, DVD was definitely better than Laser. Well, at least most were. You could find some badly mastered DVDs that looked worse, but no standard Laser pressing could ever touch a good DVD. There was an HD Laserdisc system that sold in Japan I think, but I donlt know much about them.

Sound-wise, The AC-3/Dolby Digital and the DTS encoded discs sound as good as any DVD I have ever heard.

I used to love Laserdisc. We had a local chain of video stores that would rent them in the early to mid 90s. THey had their own section and had a decent number of titles too. People always looked at use strangely when we brough one up with us in line. Plus, due to not as much demnd, you could almost always get a new release right away while all the tapes were rented.

Another cool thing is that back in the days of VHS being released as priced for rental ($100 plus tapes) for weeks or months before they came out for the normal $20, Laserdisc was always available at teh same price from the beginning, so we could buy movies way before many of our freinds could. Of Course, the discs were always $30 or more.

Also, back when almost all VHS were pan and scan (or more accurately, scammed ;) ), nearly every laser release was available in Widescreen. Some were even widescreen only releases.

[Sirshagg]

Yet another to add to the list surprised they were still making these - WOW!

About a year and a half ago I Ebay'd my player which was never unpacked after going in for service and the last of my discs.

[machavez00]

I have the Warriors on LD. A friends husband thought he was buying the CED version and gave it to me.

Check this out!
http://www.mindspring.com/~laserdisc-forever/phantommenace_jacketfront.jpg

[spartanstew]

As weird as this may be, I don't think I've ever actually seen a laser disc player (in person). Never knew anyone that had one and don't remember ever seeing one on display anywhere.

[Sirshagg]

As weird as this may be, I don't think I've ever actually seen a laser disc player (in person). Never knew anyone that had one and don't remember ever seeing one on display anywhere.

Not surprising. One really did need to go out of their way to find them as they were always a niche item.

[nKeith]

My Pioneer CLD-D701 LD player --- along with a fairly large collection of operas (many not yet on DVD) --- has remained useless since moving to HDTV (Samsung LN-T5265F) 4 years ago!

Is there any hope that a (simple!) analog to digital converter could allow viewing the LDs?

Or... is there (again, simple!) means of burning DVD copies of selected LDs such that they could be accepted/played on my OPPO BDP-83 (soon to be BDP-93 or -95)?

[machavez00]

Ahhhhh
http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/9/18/128977911808905285.jpg

[Stuart Sweet]

Well, much like laserdiscs themselves, this thread has lasted longer than anyone expected. And like laserdiscs, it is now out of production.

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