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In Reply to: RE: Laserdisc's competitor was DVD, which thoroughly kicked its butt once introduced posted by Jazz Inmate on August 31, 2007 at 13:00:08
LD had been a niche product since the mid-80's even after the demise of CED (remember the RCA video disc format that employed a saphire stylis?). It never took off because it was too expensive and cumbersome, and the 425 line maximum resolution not a significant 'enough' gain over tape based formats to grab the general public attention.
Yes, laser disc did achieve niche market status after the first format war with CED and initial curiosity wore off. It also pointed the way for a future format (helped in large part to the overwhelming success of that 'other' 5" disc format for music), but DVD was never an issue in LD niche status.
Times have changed and I don't see this as a battle that will end with a niche market. There is only one real direction that this can move and that has pretty much been government mandated: digital, with higher definition WS progressive scan televisions being the norm to replace older sets. What that means is a ready made market to fill with higher definition video products (at the same time minimizing the pain some folks feel toward being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century).
IMO, "niche market" is an inexact term where high definition is concerned. Looking into my virtual crystal ball I predict that a high definition format will achieve wide public acceptance in time, perhaps not as rapidly as the entertainment industry would like, but in an easily collectible disc format since that's a proven winner. Whether it's HD-DVD or Blu-ray remains to be seen, but I suspect that both will gain ground due in part to backwards compatibility and the arrival of multi-format players.
Folks who already have accumulated large DVD collections aren't going to give them up easily, and with many titles standard definition may be good enough. When you factor in backwards compatibility with discounted prices of new hardware (including multi-format players) & software with nice film transfers and bonus features, the liklihood of high definition being accepted by the masses will increase.
The only unpredictable factor I envision is the one that no one can control: the economy.
AuPh
Follow Ups:
Let's just take the "DVD was never an issue in LD niche status". Patently false. DVD killed Laserdisc's niche. Period. End of story. Collectors clung to laserdiscs for years afterward; but no laserdiscs were in production. You make it sound like vinyl vs CD. It wasn't like that at all.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
> > > "Let's just take the 'DVD was never an issue in LD niche status'. Patently false." < < <
Baloney. In order for DVD to have been a factor in laser disc's niche status it would've had to have been around and competing against it's larger cousin from 1985 onward. Let me make this perfectly clear: by 1985 LD was a niche product.
By the mid-80's LD was considered a high-end specialty product mostly purchased by film collectors. Single films often retailed at $39.95 or $49.95 (double disc sets); TV episode two-fers for $29.95. Boxed sets and Criterion titles frequently topped $100. That is NOT a mass market product.
FYI, I recall being pitched LD in late 1978 or early 1979 in a Dallas department store, complete with nifty demos that included some salesman using a brillo-pad to scratch the surface of a demonstration disc to promote the 12" disc's ability to withstand abuse and continue to play perfectly. Even then I cringed.
The promotion of LD went on for several years, but VHS won wider public approval because of it's recordability in addition to being a movie collecting medium, even supplanting it's nearest rival Betamax. So you see, LD was in direct competition with VHS & Beta initially.
Of course there was RCA's CED system which tried to compete directly with LD and muddied the waters even more (that format was a blatant attempt to low-ball consumers into collecting movies with a cheaper stylis read device), but CED never caught on and disappeared after a few years. VHS continued to marginalize LD into it's niche status.
> > > "Period. End of story." < < <
Not quite. You realize Jazz, that I should be charging you for this history lesson, but because it's late and I still have a little ale left, I'll be generous! ;0)
You seem to suffer from long term memory loss, dude, or maybe you're just too young to remember. You keep refering to events no more than 7 or 8 years past, and you're stuck on the idea that the advent of DVD somehow created LD niche status, but that's impossible. Let me repeat: LD was a niche product well over 10 years before the advent of DVDs; you can't rewrite history.
> > > "Collectors clung to laserdiscs for years afterward; but no laserdiscs were in production." < < <
Heck, I still have laser discs in my collection and a Pioneer unit capable of playing them! I was buying Japanese import LDs back in the late 80's because many titles I sought weren't issued here. Even back then it was clear that some newer technology, probably similar to CDs and using a laser would replace LD, but that isn't the reason folks shied away from the format.
Most folks saw the convenience of recordable tapes satisfactory and the 12" disc cumbersome and space consuming. Then the laser rot issue reared it's ugly head and drove LD enthusiasm even further underground. Again, all this occurred long before Toshiba's Super Density Disc was a sparkle in the DVD Consortium's eye.
Nighty nite, Jazz! :o)
Cheers,
AuPh
> > In order for DVD to have been a factor in laser disc's niche status it would've had to have been around and competing against it's larger cousin from 1985 onward. < <
Bullshit. CD was being marketed very successfully. The promise of a smaller optical video disc had arrived. The writing was on the wall. To supplant VHS, the industry needed something compact with the potential of recording. Laserdisc wasn't going to do the trick.
> > Let me make this perfectly clear: by 1985 LD was a niche product. < <
Yes, and the reason was that the industry didn't get behind it to develop it and market it the way it would have needed to target the mass consumer. Why do YOU think that is?
> > So you see, LD was in direct competition with VHS & Beta initially. < <
Bullshit. No consumer interested in VHS or beta ever said, "maybe I should get Laserdisc instead.
> > You realize Jazz, that I should be charging you for this history lesson, but because it's late and I still have a little ale left, I'll be generous! ;0) < <
You're like a bad wiki narrator.
> > You seem to suffer from long term memory loss, dude, or maybe you're just too young to remember. You keep refering to events no more than 7 or 8 years past, and you're stuck on the idea that the advent of DVD somehow created LD niche status, but that's impossible. Let me repeat: LD was a niche product well over 10 years before the advent of DVDs; you can't rewrite history. < <
I know you and racerguy would like to erect strawmen and knock them over, but the fact is that my position is that the promise of a more elegant optical format, DVD, made it silly for the industry to get behind Laserdisc in any way that would make it anything but a niche product. Is that clear enough for you?
> > Heck, I still have laser discs in my collection and a Pioneer unit capable of playing them! < <
Yeah, you also have photos of yourself with long hair and leather pants 30 yrs after it went out of style.
> > I was buying Japanese import LDs back in the late 80's because many titles I sought weren't issued here. Even back then it was clear that some newer technology, probably similar to CDs and using a laser would replace LD, but that isn't the reason folks shied away from the format. < <
What can I say, auph. You had a great deal of disposable income, as most of us here do. But the overwhelming majority couldn't afford Laserdisc if they wanted to and the only way it was going to come down in price or beecome the studios' format of choice is if the electronics manufacturers really wanted to develop and push it. They didn't. Why? Because they needed a more elegant technology and they knew it was coming. Compact disc was taking over the audio market and the promise of a more compact optical video disc was here.
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
Grade: F
Come back when you're less argumentative and more open to learning the facts.
Regards,
AuPh
-------------"I have found that if you love life, life will love you back." -Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982)
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