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My first DVD was Apollo 13, which I bought at Fry's in Sunnyvale on my
first trip to California early 1997.

I didn't have a player at the time, but I knew that I wanted a
multi-region player, and this DVD is region 1, while Sweden is region
2.

A few months later I bought a used multi-region Pioneer DV-505
player. I later replaced that with a Pioneer 525 to be able to play
S-VCD, but it was too noisy and I bought a new Pioneer 444 and had it
multiregion and macrovision hacked. My old Sony CRT projector can't
handle macrovision, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

I never was into LD, and I don't think LD ever was popular in Sweden.

The Apollo 13 DVD is now autographed by no other than Gene Kranz,
which I met in Denver in February

Thomas

Grand Inquisitor wrote:
> What were the first DVDs you early adopters bought? What made you an
> early adopter? Where did you first see the technology in action? Were
> you immediately won over or did you poo-poo it and declare "LD Forever!"
> For those of you who weren't early adopters, what release made you
> buckle down and say "all right, no more VHS, I'm gonna buy a DVD
> player"? For me it was the CC edition of The Third Man. I stopped
> buying VHS tapes when I saw that come out, and when I realized all my
> friends had DVD players (via their PS2s) I knew I was desperately out of
> touch with home theater technology.

Like some others that have posted on this thread, I was a laserdisc
fanatic and stuck with the format about a year and a half after dvds
were common in the marketplace. I had seen a few demos and bought an
early Toshiba player and a few dvds (True Lies, Starship Troopers 1st
issue, etc) but still held on to the LD format as I really didn't see a
huge difference image-wise and frankly, many of my LD titles, especially
the DTS encoded movies like Titanic sounded and in some cases looked far
superior to their dvd counterparts. Add to that I got a few titles that
had notoriously bad transfers (Highlander 1st issue) and the fact that
many titles at the time weren't yet available on dvd and I really wasn't
won over by the format.

That changed when I bought a Sony KV-40XBR700 40" monitor and the
enhanced reslotion over my old non-16:9 tv was stunning and really
revealed the difference (and chroma noise) on LDs.

T.B.

Thomas Bell wrote:

> ... Add to that I got a few titles that
> had notoriously bad transfers (Highlander 1st issue) and the fact that
> many titles at the time weren't yet available on dvd and I really wasn't
> won over by the format.
>
> That changed when I bought a Sony KV-40XBR700 40" monitor and the
> enhanced reslotion over my old non-16:9 tv was stunning and really
> revealed the difference (and chroma noise) on LDs.

There was amazing resistance to that very concept on
alt.video.laserdisc. Most couldn't see what the hoopla was about until
they got their first 16:9 capable display. Some still claim not to see a
difference.

Matthew

--
<http://www.mlmartin.com/bbq/>

Thermodynamics For Dummies: You can't win.
You can't break even.
You can't get out of the game.

Derek Janssen wrote on [Mon, 29 Sep 2003 15:02:03 -0400]:
> Define "early"--

Before DIVX death. Well before.

When the online stores were giving DVDs away. 3 for $1 at 800.com,
FREEDVD coupon codes at reel.com

"Grand Inquisitor" <> wrote in message
news:wd_db.38332$...
> What were the first DVDs you early adopters bought?

Dr. Strangelove. Blade Runner.

> What made you an
> early adopter?

'Cause I'm so bad.

> Where did you first see the technology in action? Were
> you immediately won over or did you poo-poo it and declare "LD Forever!"

Never cared for LD. Too big. Too Expensive. Multiple disks you had to flip
over in the middle of the movie. And unlike tape you couldn't record on it.
I always sensed there had to be something better coming.

> What were the first DVDs you early adopters bought? What made you an
> early adopter? Where did you first see the technology in action? Were
> you immediately won over or did you poo-poo it and declare "LD Forever!"




--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com
http://www.daily-reviews.com

Matthew L. Martin wrote:
> I had an opportunity to buy a 56" 16:9 RPTV with component inputs and a
> top of the line DVD player with component outputs for less than $3500,
> delivered. That was in April of 1997.
>

Holy cow. You should have paid ten grand more than that in those days.

--
"Get rid of the Range Rover. You are not responsible for patrolling
Australia's Dingo Barrier Fence, nor do you work the Savannah, capturing
and tagging wildebeests."
--Michael J. Nelson

Grand Inquisitor
http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=Oost

> What were the first DVDs you early adopters bought?

First DVD I paid for: Star Trek: Insurrection (never got it--
back then, buy.com was very unreliable)

First DVD I paid for and actually took home: Billy Madison.

>What made you an
> early adopter?

Just finishing high school, finally had some disposable income,
I was excited by a format that offered durable, inexpensive copies
of WS movies.

>Where did you first see the technology in action?

My friend's house. The first DVD I watched was Tomorrow Never Dies.

>Were
> you immediately won over or did you poo-poo it and declare "LD
> Forever!"

Oh, I was very skeptical of the idea of DVD. I loved LD so much, and
was very impressed by what it delivered. I remember looking at the
promises of DVD-- three versions of each movie on the same disc, and
each in four different languages, and thought it just wasn't possible.
No way. And if it was, it'd be so compressed that LD would easily blow
it away.

Then I watched TND, and became more familar with the design of the
format. It became clear: at its very worst, DVD would be *as good*
as LD. I instantly started doing research on which player I was going
to get. Not long afterward, I got an RCA 5220p, which is still serving
me well today.

Great idea for a thread, BTW!




--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com
http://www.daily-reviews.com

Derek Janssen wrote:
> If you'd never collected anime from the VHS fansub days, you will never
> understand why We anime fans were the technology's backbone supporters
> underneath the Rest of You during the early days...You OWE us.
>
> Derek Janssen
>

I thank all early adopters for adopting early. You guys all have your
different motivations and all claim to be the driving force behind the
success of the format. Porno fans have told me that it was porn that
made DVD a success, technophiles with money have told me that without
them it championing it it would never have succeeded, LD fans say that
if it weren't for LD there never would have been DVD. On and on and on.
Can't we all be friends?

--
"Get rid of the Range Rover. You are not responsible for patrolling
Australia's Dingo Barrier Fence, nor do you work the Savannah, capturing
and tagging wildebeests."
--Michael J. Nelson

Grand Inquisitor
http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=Oost

César N. Díaz wrote:

> "Grand Inquisitor" <> wrote in message
> news:wd_db.38332$...
>
>
>>What were the first DVDs you early adopters bought?
>
>
> The very first DVD that I bought was the first release of "The Wizard of Oz"
> and then got a $399 Sony DVP-3000 (a floor sample) from a NJ "Nobody Beats
> The Wiz" ( no pun intended). I went home, hooked it up and compared to my
> THX laserdisc copy of TWOZ and never looked back.
>

Was that the same as the Criterion LD?

> You mean after I saw DVD hooked up on my home system? Nope. My only concern,
> and the concern of early DVD adopters was the threat of Circuit City and
> some studios (Disney) with DVIX. You all remember those, don't you?
>

I was a late adopter. Late 2001. I'm so ashamed. But it was out of
ignorance; I still blindly assumed budget DVD players were in the
$300-$400 range. I've since then learned to pay avid attention to the
prices of everything.

> I don't remember which was my first Laser, I just got there late, almost at
> the end.

LD's heyday had to have been the early to mid-90s, right? It peaked in 93.

--
"Get rid of the Range Rover. You are not responsible for patrolling
Australia's Dingo Barrier Fence, nor do you work the Savannah, capturing
and tagging wildebeests."
--Michael J. Nelson

Grand Inquisitor
http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollection.asp?alias=Oost