I'll try and think of a new item each week and you can judge whether or not it deserves a place on the Old School Cool Wall.
First up: LaserDiscs
Until the DVD format was launched in 1997 (1998 in the UK), LDs were the final word in quality home cinema. DVD pretty much killed the format overnight. As people dumped their entire movie collections, I took the oportunity to build up my collection. I still own about 300 LDs and a flagship Pioneer deck to play them on. I love my collection. I'll probably keep most of it even after my player kicks the bucket.
Much like Vinyl LPs, the discs themselves are a big part of the attraction. Many have gatefold covers, booklets, slip cases or other design features that make them worthy of admiration on a purely aesthetic level. A LaserDisc player in operation is quite a machine to behold. They're very mechanical devices, with genuinely smart engineering including: autoturn a feature that plays both sides of a disc without having to remove it from the player, and an additional pop-out mini loading tray for loading audio CDs.
At the weekend, I was reading about the imminent Blu-ray release of the Star Wars films, and the distress being caused by Lucas making even more CGI changes to the original films. Thankfully, I own both the Special Edition LD boxed set and the Definitive Edition Boxed set on LaserDisc. Which, along with my copy of The Star Wars Vault, is all I need to experience 1977 all over again.
