prior to ordering Bullitt recently, i browsed a 2nd hand store to see if the disc was there on the off chance. they didn't have it, but they did have some laserdiscs going for all of R20 each!! as my dear friend The Colonel has at least one armed and fully operational Laserdisc player, they were a practical investment, and at R20 a go, well, if nothing else they are worth having on the shelf to just look impressive.sadly, there was only 5 or so, and the majority of the titles were probably not worth having. that said, the two i got, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, are indeed well worthy of anyone's collection!
the guy in the store tried to stop me buying them, as they were "laserdiscs and not lp's". i pointed out that i knew exactly what they were, and indicated that Apocalypse Now did feature the word "laserdisc" in rather large letters across the cover!
as for the Laserdisc format itself, well, it was more widespread in terms of availability before VCR's took off. as you could only play the discs (there was never an LD recorder), and the discs are the size of a 12" record, they never really took off on a wide scale, i guess. a shame, as in most instances the playback from a Laserdisc surpasses what you get on a DVD. They also took the trouble to format the films on a Laserdisc properly - to date, only the Laserdisc version of 2001 : A Space Odyssey features the exact aspect ratio in which Kubrick filmed it, for example. ho hum, as DVD is cheaper to make and easier for the consumer to store, i doubt there is much chance of an LD revival as such. a nice find for the collection for me and The Colonel to mess around with, even if neither film features Steve McQueen bombing around in a Mustang!!
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