Laserdisc recorder with Blank LDs

[mazinz]

Not sure if this post belongs here or in off topic, but it was actually nice to see one of these for sale on ebay, though the recorder itself does not seem to work properly and no it is not my auction.


Figured some of us would have an appreciation for it (like me). Had I known that these really did exist back then and not believed the rumors of "no such device was ever made", I would have figured out some way to get a hold of one


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-LVR-3000N-Laserdisc-Recorder-and-20-blank-laserdiscs-Reco...item3f457872f6

[JoeS99]

I wasn't aware that such a device existed. I guess it's a blessing because I would have bought one. $$

[orsetto]

They turn up on eBay every now and then, leading to amazed inquiries here.

Recordable LD was wildly impractical for consumers, and cost-prohibitive for most pro purposes unless you had a specific niche task that only they could solve.

Pioneer made one for around $40,000 using cartridge-housed media functionally similar to early DVD-RAM. The Pioneer LD-RAM blanks cost around $1,200 apiece and had very limited recording capacity. Sony went with write-once recorders and media similar to DVD-R. It was cheaper than the Pioneer system, but still way beyond consumer pricing (at least $10,000 for the recorder, with blanks a couple hundred $ apiece). Neither format was actually compatible with consumer LaserDisc.

For those who like to maintain their own personal hardware museums, an LD recorder could be a fun (if useless) acquisition. Certainly rare- its highly unlikely you'll ever meet another owner. But blanks are virtually impossible to find, when you do they're still extremely expensive. If you've got money to throw away, it could be a blast to record a disc or two just to see the contraption work.

In terms of PQ, they probably wouldn't be any better than a consumer SVHS deck at recording consumer sources. The attraction for professional users in those pre-digital days wasn't PQ but the novelty of removable, random-access, chase-play, disc-based recording media that didn't physically wear out under heavy-duty loop playback or slo-mo/freeze frame. LD recorders weren't meant to replace pro videotape formats: they were more an evolution/upgrade of the original "instant replay" machines made for sports broadcasting. Basically a huge, analog dvd-ram.

[JoeS99]

Yes, too expensive- $10,000 for the Sony? Yikes! I thought it would be a couple grand.
It would be interesting to record a disc and see how the quality stacks up.

[Cornucopia]

As orsetto was saying: it doesn't stack up well. You'd do better with a simple, consumer DVD-recorder (compression & all).

This was a boon to editing suites in the '80s for very short clip random access FX editing (including the aforementioned instant replay) which at the time wasn't otherwise available at reasonable cost (even to pros), but it's just a museum curiosity now, since anybody with a DVD-recorder (or DVR/PVR, or digital camcorder) can load their data into a PC and perform infinitely more advanced tricks on the material than that machine ever could. About the only thing going for it is the fact that it will quickly do a simple reverse play (which takes a bit of computation with digital Interframe material), and a jog/shuttle wheel (which many users don't have).


Scott

[vhelp]

for nastalgia...i remember seeing the first demonstrations of Laserdisc movie playback, they were demoing Jarasic Park, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars, on it at a Service Merchandise store in Hartsdale, NY, back around 1985/86, i think, was the first introduction period for the player. i don't recall the brand/model.

[AVMiii]

Ahh, I had both laserdisc and S-VHS--Hmm still have them in the basement, and I disagree with the comment on equal quality, as I seem to remember laser disc having the edge. Not likely to get out my copy of Blazing Saddles to record from Laser disc to S-VHS, but I guess that I could.

[orsetto]

for nastalgia...i remember seeing the first demonstrations of Laserdisc movie playback, they were demoing Jarasic Park, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars, on it at a Service Merchandise store in Hartsdale, NY, back around 1985/86, i think, was the first introduction period for the player. i don't recall the brand/model.

That would have been roughly when Pioneer was really ramping up promotion of the format and releasing multiple player models at different price points. I still remember the first demos at the Statler Hilton ballroom in NYC during the late 70s / early 80s. Us teen geeks would attend the HiFi Electronics Expo there every year: eventually they incorporated vcrs and laser. Philips was still the primary marketer of LaserDisc in conjunction with MCA/Universal. Only back then it was still called DiscOvision (the LaserDisc branding didn't take hold until the Philips/MCA initiative tanked and Pioneer seized the reigns completely). The first Philips player looked like something out of The Jetsons, so it really grabbed attention at the Expo. They would play Jaws over and over: the booth staff must have gotten so sick of that movie. The actual video quality wasn't all that impressive at the time: MCA had atrocious quality control and mfrg problems, so the discs were riddled with defects that the original Philips player had great difficulty handling. It was the idea of the trippy player and huge mirror discs that captured geek imaginations, more than the execution (it took a good 4 or 5 years before LaserDisc became truly viable with consistent disc quality and less finicky players).

Ahh, I had both laserdisc and S-VHS--Hmm still have them in the basement, and I disagree with the comment on equal quality, as I seem to remember laser disc having the edge.

This was true playing pre-recorded movie discs in a consumer setting. But these specialty "LaserDisc recorders" were a whole other animal: the recordable discs weren't even compatible with consumer players- they only worked in the Sony or Pioneer recorders. Capacity was 32 mins single-sided, and as an analog format it maxed out at approx the same specs as SVHS. Connected to a studio or broadcast video camera, it did very well for its intended purpose (near-instant real-time editing/manipulation of short sports or event sequences). But if you used one of these clunkers to record from a cable box or dub a VHS tape, don't expect miracles. You'd get the same middling results if you tried this with BetaCam SP: compromised consumer-grade standard-def signal in, comes right back out.

[mazinz]

I had no idea about the lack of compatibility with normal consumer decks. Still if i had known, the thought of preserving some of my old video shot recordings is what I wanted something like this for, since I knew it would not wear out like tape would.

Technically I have the money for this one on ebay now but since the deck does not really work the $300 plus is a bit steep for a "kind of cool to own" piece. Yet as stated here and in the auction, blanks for this are seemingly impossible to find and that kind of makes up for the huge price difference.