Subj : Movie formats
To   : Dumas Walker
From : Bob Worm
Date : Tue May 20 2025 10:31 pm

  Re: Movie formats
  By: Dumas Walker to NIGHTFOX on Tue May 20 2025 09:18:00

Hi, Dumas.

 > IIRC, those Laserdiscs, or their players, were relatively easy to damage.  A
 > couple of my relatives had them.  They didn't have them too long, like
 > before DVDs were even a thing they were gone.

A friend of mine bought a Laserdisc player in the 90s, it was pretty obscure by then and he was the only person I've ever known to own one. His still works and is in semi-regular use, though, so I'm not sure if it's inherently unreliable.

The video is analogue on Laserdisc, though, so I guess that would not cope well with scratches. OK for enthusiasts who put them back in their dust sleeves, not so great for people with kids :)

To be honest I think they were just a bit unwieldy compared to VHS and definitely DVD. Plus a lot of them were mastered in constant angular velocity, which only did 30 or 36 minutes per side, so you're into turning over and swapping discs multiple times to watch a film :\

BobW
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