Blast from the Past

I own a laserdisc player. I bought it from a friend in the early nineties because the video and audio quality were far superior to VHS. I bought a few dozen laserdiscs and was very happy with it. Alas, once DVD launched, my friend and I switched rather quickly as the format offered even better video and audio and came in a much more convenient size.

I still have my player and my laserdiscs. I've been thinking of posting them for sale on Craig's List but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm sure there are still people out there looking for laserdisc equipment and discs.

To my utter shock, I just found out that only in January of this year did Pioneer finally stop making laserdisc players! Holy cow.

Pioneer had continued to build players long after the format had been declared dead, largely because of the large LD collections that many Japanese customers had built during the years that the format's popularity soared (comparitively) in that country. Enthusiasts make this story plausible, but the fact that the LD is dead, long live DVD! stories stopped showing up by the year 2000 and the fact that you can still buy a brand-new LD/DVD/CD player on Amazon for about $1000 make it a bit surreal, too.

From Gizmodo.