BBC 1 Globe laserdisc for sale on ebay

Just noticed this - there's only half an hour left so be quick!

ebay link

Well it's no bloody good now. Anyway, I'm glad I missed it - saves me putting a deeper hole in my wallet.

Same here, that's £50's I would have spent and then realise I owe more.

True, even if it was a bit of a late find!

The reserve wasn't met so expect it to probably be relisted...

It probably had some rediculous reserve on it that's a couple of hundred. It'll probably have the same when it's relisted too.

ISTR the same happened when a COW generator was on eBay a while back - that never met the reserve either.

A note of caution. By the time we closed analogue presentation we had a large pile of these machines, all broken. If you spend a large amount of money on this (should it be relisted) be warned that if it breaks down it's unlikely you'll be able to find anyone able to repair it.

That's certainly one way to get hold of some excellent quality idents! Who needs DVD when you've got the original discs?!

Yes; surely there is no need for people to repair such machines anymore?

a) they presumably aren't being used in broadcast anymore, and

b) it's not a mainstream format player like DVD or Video Cassette.

Question is, if the machine works, is there any way to record the contents of the discs it plays to a newer format? Then you'd have yourself a playable backup copy. If not, it'd be a fat lot of good with no-one to fix it when it inevitably conks out.

Also, with it being broadcast quality, the chances are the outputs are in broadcast format, such as component video and audio by XLR, so you could need a few converters to view them at home.

IIRC those Laserdisc machines originated the main ident graphics, but there was then a separate box which added the BBC logo and other components such as the Stereo and 888 captions, and the regional identities. So presumably if this machine did work it would play you the idents clean.