Laserdiscs

[greg]

Curious, greg, if you don't mind, how much did you wind up paying for them? This is more about researching pricing at HARD OFF (which may have a ton of variants I am not taking into account now) than actually feeling compelled to buy Macross II.

Brace yourself: all these anime DVDs were only 100 yen each. (108 after tax.) I saw a couple of Patlabor LDs, one Ranma LD, A bunch of Gundam 0083s, a whole buttload of Tenchi Muyou (as can be expected), some El Hazard, some original Macross and Macross 7 (and some Macross 7 spinoff I can't remember the name of), and something called Pineapple Princes or something that turned out to be some lesbo hentai or something. There were more one-offs, but I cannot remember. I think I saw a Megazone 23 LD in there.

That Voltron LD was of the Lion Voltron. Something tells me that the Voltron series was never fully released on LD back in the day. We figured that some anime fan moved to Japan and ended up selling his LD collection to Hard Off. I think that Hard Off just distributes stuff around to different places, so who knows from where in Japan this Voltron LD was sold to Hard Off? The Hard off in Fuji where I live has only a very small LD collection for sale. Not much to be found at the Hard Offs in Shimizu or Shizuoka. It's just the one in Kofu that has so many.

Oh yeah, and they also had a Mazinger Z LD box set for sale. I don't know what the price of it was. My same friend had just brought me the Mazinger Z DVD box set from Discotek he'd bought for me off rightstuf.com, so I passed on it.

There was a crapload of regular movies and such too, such as Terminator, Aliens, Indiana Jones, Robocop, etc. I even saw a Twin Peaks LD in there. Fancy that!

Hey, does anyone here know about VHDs? This was my first time seeing these. Imagine something roughly the size of an LD, but in a plastic cartridge case, similar to a 3.5 floppy disk or more like a MiniDisc. I saw a Raiders of the Lost Ark VHD and it floored me. Apparently this wasn't a technology that really took off, at least in terms of movies. There was a plethora of karaoke VHDs at these stores, however.

[ServantOfPriss]

I saw scans of Gall Force VHDs once. Very nice covers.

[SteveH]

VHD was basically RCA's video disc, Selectavision if memory serves, a name they used for EVERYTHING involved in putting content on a TV. Seriously. I have the RCA Selectavision video game in all it's 4-bit glory. Atari wasn't quaking in their boots over it.

In order to placate the Studios, and hoping to copy the business model of the music industry, the VHD used a physical needle reading the data on the disc, hence the plastic carrier. Constant play would, naturally, wear out both the stylus and the discs, meaning you'd need to buy replacements just like with a record album.

Studios were more comfortable with self-destructing media. Didn't sell for crap. See also 'HD' discs and the DIVIX system from Circuit City. No, not the rip/encode thing. It was 'pay per view' with a physical DVD. Ahhhh, look it up.

[llj]

The anime show Bamboo Blade had a short history lesson on VHDs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDxSidSVTig

[Drew_Sutton]

Brace yourself: all these anime DVDs were only 100 yen each. (108 after tax.)

That's awesome; now if I could buy online ... you think they might have an amazon.co.jp or Rakuten store that will take my American dollars?

I remember the HARD OFF in Kurume I hit with my friend having quite a few anime LDs, nothing that jumped out at me except a full box set of Gundam ZZ - they wanted something like 37000 for it and since it wasn't 1985, I was not dropping that sort of cash. Let alone the added weight on the flights to both Tokyo and ATL.

Studios were more comfortable with self-destructing media.

Can't say I am surprised at all by any of that. Even now. This is why I am hesitant to devote anything more than a few minutes of my time watching ads for online-streaming-or-download models.

See also 'HD' discs and the DIVIX system from Circuit City. No, not the rip/encode thing. It was 'pay per view' with a physical DVD.

By HD Disks, do you mean HD-DVD?

I remember the DIVX system, though. I thought the encodes/rips came from the early pirated content of the system and the name stuck for all sorts of DVD-sourced, avi encoded files?

[labsenpai]

I have two import anime LDs still in my possession, since they have autographed inserts. One was an UTENA disc I showed in another thread, the other is the Rex Entertainment release of Satoshi Kon's PERFECT BLUE. The box has unique cover art and shipped with three posters. One poster went with me to OTAKON for eternal GoH Masao Maruyama to sign, if I remember correctly.
Other discs I bought back then included many HK wuxia movies (I couldn't find to rent).

[Drew_Sutton]

That Perfect Blue box looks great!

[greg]

I was searching for LDs on YAJ last night, looking to see if I could find the 2nd box set of Dancougar, thinking about getting Dougram or Mellowlink, etc. I came across an auction for all 10 BGC LDs (8 episodes plus 2 music LDs... no vacation in Bali LD) for a decent price. Of course, I already own the remastered DVDs and such, but man... it really is tempting just for the big artwork and such.

[Char Aznable]

New member here, so I'd thought I'd contribute something…

I'm a huge laserdisc collector. Without question, it's my favorite media format and I'll easily take them over Bluray, DVD, VHS, Betamax, any day. There's something about the picture of a laserdisc that gives a genuine "film" look which is lost in the heavily digitized world of high definition. This is more noticeable on live-action films, but still evident with anime as well. And, needless to say, the artwork on laserdiscs covers is often second-to-none.

To start off, thought I'd post pics of my Tenchi Muyo! collection laserdiscs. The first collection, titled "Book of Heaven" contains the initial 7 episodes. Pioneer released a number of fantastic laserdisc sets, and this is no exception. Sadly, the front cover is bland, but the back and inside make up for it. Since it's a two-disc set, the laserdisc has a gatefold cover, which opens to reveal some great artwork.







I'll post pics of the Tenchi "Book of Earth" LD collection soon.

[SteveH]

I still say that for TV series the LD was a perfect medium. Yes, it's heavy and bulky and man did you need strong shelves (Jerry's Star Trek/ST:TNG LD collection was painfully heavy, and it took special shelves to hold them all!) so hooray for DVD, but there was such beauty in those LD boxes and sleeves.

It's the same as the vinyl LP. I don't miss easy to scratch, worried about warping vinyl discs but I do miss those lovely covers.