VHS vs LaserDisc: Star Wars

Comparing and contrasting the original Star Wars on the VHS and LaserDisc home video formats. Enjoy!

All rights go to Lucasfilm and Disney. I OWN NOTHING.

[MrTruth]

Why o why is this more important than my exam in two days??

[dpTheFallen]

This video works well as a Full-screen vs. Widescreen comparison as well!

[justanotheryoutubechannel]

Oh wow, Laserdisc’s resolution is clearly superior.

[Beltzer]

Before the Despecialized Edition or 4K77, THIS was the way to watch Star Wars unaltered in anything remotely close to High Definition.

[ContinueinFaithofGod]

Laserdisc tho a smaller screen had more definition than the VHS ever did ! I wish I could have owned one at the time it came out but I wasn't born yet haha

[RetroFan]

I have the Special Edition Trilogy on VHS and Laserdisc. While the LD version is better, the VHS really isn't a slouch. It looks great for the format and sounds great too. I watch both on my 4K tv and despite being analog, they look fine. A VHS in good quality and recorded in SP mode looks decent. It also helps to keep your vcr heads clean. So I open mine once in a while and clean them with a cloth and alcohol.

[ofb-jqlc]

It appears that the VHS version used for this demonstration is from the Post-1995 remastered releases. Prior VHS releases framed the right side of the widescreen frame so that the moon on frame left was cropped out.

[roseboi]

When ur pro laser disc Bc of regular show 😂

[kirk]

everyone talking about the resolution is missing the big picture, and by that i mean the laserdisc is in its proper aspect ratio. no pan and scan

[Director_S]

I actually love the VHS version it’s what I grew up on

[mannbrand]

The sound of laserdisc is incomparable, even on dvd or bluray!

[kingcrimson]

Even with reduced vertical resolution due to letterboxing, Laserdisc is clearly sharper. It's a shame that more anamorphic 16:9 LD's weren't produced, but LD's sunset coincided with HDTV's (and so widescreen's) dawn so it is what it is.

[broodypie]

Laserdisc made vhs look like a bootleg

[its_life]

i didn't grow up on any of these formats. but laserdisc looks better imo

[kingcrimson]

You shouldn't use the S-Video connector on the LaserDisc. The signal on the disc is composite. The player will just run it through a comb filter when outputting on S-Video.

[DMX-PAT]

That laserdisc is so crisp!!! You need to do a Blade runner comparison...

[JesusChrist-emiz]

Isn't there a widescreen vhs release of this movie? It would be interesting to compare the widescreen vhs vs the laserdisc version. Obviously i'd imagine laserdisc would look better. Also, I'm pretty sure it's harder to see differences through videos like this. I can say as a laserdisc player owner that laserdisc destroys vhs. Laserdisc is a weird in-between vhs and dvd quality. In my opinion it's a bit better than vhs but dvds typically beat laserdisc by a decent margin depending on the movie.

[blasterman]

High quality, CAV laserdisc sets cost up to $100, although they had perfect mastering. The most notable one was "The Abyss" set where James Cameron made pretty nasty comments about VHS in the liner notes. It also was the only version with something like 30minutes of extra footage. I felt the video quality to first gen DVD from CAV was actually inferior due to excessive compression in early mastering of DVDs. Why videophiles always had copies of Fifth Element to show off their sets.

[ESLTeacherTom]

Both are nice, but I'd prefer the laserdisc here!

[MAL-Collector]

The video is definitely better on laserdisc and in real life the sound is better also. I have a huge LD collection and love it. Normal dvd and Blu-ray are better quality picture. But there's a charm to LD. And the sound is unique on these. Compared to any other dvd or Blu-ray. Analog video and sound. Compared to digital. It's just cool 😎👍