What if DVD's were 12" (1 Viewer)

[Jack Briggs]

Size and cost are why LaserDisc never achieved mass-market penetration, among other things. Everybody likes a small optical disc.

 

[David Susilo]

--- What if DVD's were 12"

--- They will be 7" larger in diameter than the current DVD


12" DVD = Digital Vriggin-huge Disc


sorry, can't resist.

 

[Eugene Hsieh]

after all, the original size of the CD was arbitrarily set so that somebody's favourite symphony would just fit (at 74 mins) on one side. IIRC, that somebody was Akio Morita, Sony's late Chairman, but I could be wrong on this since Philips invented CD? maybe Sony collaborated? or was it Philips' chairman?

Still dunno if that Sony (not Philips) story is 100% true, but I do know that they wanted something (relatively) small, presumably for the reasons we've all mentioned here.

 

[David Susilo]

AFAIK, the original CD is 12" (at prototype level) and then brought down to 5" considering the suppsed longest playing time for an album (Beethoven's 9th Symphony).

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I still don't see what size has to do with anything. 8mm videotapes are the same size as audiocassettes and a lot smaller than VHS tapes, but they didn't end up replacing VHS for regular movie-viewing; the only area they're really used in now is camcorders where size is a consideration. The size of laserdiscs never bothered me, in fact I was nervous about DVD actually working because I honestly didn't think they'd be able to put that much information on such a small disc! I play my DVDs on a laserdisc combo-player anyway, so they could be anywhere from 3 to 12 inches for all I care!
The only thing I didn't like about laserdiscs was the PRICES!

 

[BrentPollard]

Don't get me wrong, I like the small size of DVD but again I was just wondering if we would get a better picture and sound. Also I understand the 5' format was adopted to allow for much more versatility to move between platforms but what is wrong with a movie only format .

 

[Craig W]

Jesse,

I agree with you on the high prices of laserdisc.

When I bought my player in 1989, some companies were lowering the MSRP on their discs. It creep back up very quickly after I took the plunge.

 

[Rachael B]

I'm with Jesse, I could care less about the size of the media. Results is what counts. The pricing of LD's was totally capricious. The cost to market a single disc LD was less than tape. Prices seldom refected this! To this day LD's are the most profitable thing Hollywood ever sold.

An 8" or 12" DVD would rule! I think the perfect DVD might be a 8" disc inside a pretective sheath like a MiniDisc. 12" wouldn't bother me either. 12" media never bothered LP buyers! Size had little to do with LD's lacklustre market performance outside the Asian rim. Marketing and prices had everything to do with it.

 

[Jason Seaver]

12" media never bothered LP buyers!

...both of them.

 

[Ted Lee]

My calculations yield a capacity of 52GB

we might be able to hit that soon using current 5" discs.
hopefully the blu-ray thing will take off. supposedly you'll be able to get about 50g on a double-sided blu-ray disc.
here's an article if you're curious about blu-ray:
http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/index.html - march 1, 2002 article

 

[Rachael B]

Jason, you're proably too young to remember when accetate & vinyl ruled the roast. 12" media ruled. The only other serious contender in those days was reel to reel tape, which never got beyond niche/tape club stuff. People hardly turned their nose up at 12" media. I stille buy a few records myself. That being said, societal expectations of size may have shrunk some...
But, how many audio-vidiots, you know the type who hang out here, wouldn't buy a better digital video disc player. One that had H-D pic capability, better sound, longer PT, ect. I certainly don't care if the discs are 4", 6 3/4", 5", or 30.5 cm. D-VHS is a poor excuse for what is possible with optical discs!:frowning: ! I watch Muse Laserdiscs and some of them look way better than DVD's.
The DVD standard wasn't set too particularly high. I think we all know why, just good enough to beat LD by some. Most of the studios had no intention of offering anamorphic DVD's either, in the beginning. That changed when a few did though. Some studios thought anamorphic was too good for the peasants!
Size, means nothing. It's the bite of the dog that counts not his size. Dat's what I think Jason.
Come on, who would turn down a better disc system over size? Show me a better disc system and I'm there! From petite to grande, I'm there....

 

[Eugene Hsieh]

But, how many audio-vidiots, you know the type who hang out here, wouldn't buy a better digital video disc player. One that had H-D pic capability, better sound, longer PT, ect. I certainly don't care if the discs are 4", 6 3/4", 5", or 30.5 cm.

I for one wouldn't buy a setup like that 30.5 cm one, and I have put a fair amount of dough into hardware in the last few years. And I know a lot of people that would be like me.

Size matters to some of us, and the companies know that. Plus they like smaller size anyway, because it's simpler and cheaper for them.

We would just wait for the next generation of hardware, like Blu-Ray or whatever, rather than invest in expensive, unwieldy niche-only equipment.

Even when LPs reigned, I disliked them to a certain extent. I longed for something simpler.

 

[Richard Harvey]

I believe the DVD format size is a HUGE reason for it's early adoption, not so much by HT enthusiasts, but by retailers. It's quite obvious that DVD was a major boom for retailers such as Best Buy, who could take a risk on the format without having to dedicate large amounts of floor space to it. Same with Blockbuster. Once DVD started getting hot, it was then easier to justify breaking down VHS space in favor of DVD because of the savings in store floor space.

Nope, 12" DVD would have been a retail disaster. Let's simply let companies like IBM continue to advance storage media and you'll still get your HD-DVD with massive storage for extras still on a CD-sized disc.

Rich

 

[David Lambert]

My only comment here is:
What if DVD's were 12"...
...could you imagine what the keepcases and snappers would be like?

 

[Chris Bardon]

One advantage that a 12" disc might have had though is avoiding the whole DeCSS issue by making it impossible to fit the discs in a PC. Basically, it could have worked with multiple sized discs. The PC DVD standard could be on the standard size discs, along with some movies. The hi-def stuff could be on a 12" disc, and set top players could have the ability to play both (just multiple indentations in the tray).

Also, I don't think that the size of the LDs was what stopped them from getting big-for me it was the cost and not wanting to flip discs every half hour. I would have bought into DVD if the discs had been 12" though-as someone pointed out-nobody had problems with LPs being that size. Besides, then players could have been disigned to play laserdiscs as well...

 

[Rachael B]

How many people would turn down DVD if it was on a 12" disc? Not me! If that had been the standard that had been laid down, I'm sure DVD would be quite popular. Who would then prefer VHS? Just because of size?

 

[Jason Seaver]

Rachael, it's always good for us to remember, we (you) are not a representative sample of the population. Members of a Home Theater Forum will of course be more likely to pick up a new format that delivers better picture and sound.

But let's be honest - LaserDisc never became a popular consumer item for a reason. 12" DVD would likely have solved the worst oness - side changes and expense to manufacture - but the 5" disc is so much more inviting to retailers and consumers. They're easy impulse purchases, they fit on existing fixtures, it's easier to upgrade CD facilities to handle them, and they just feel like a familiar technology. 12" DVD wouldn't have been a disaster, but there's also a good chance that the studios wouldn't have found it worth the investment, either.

 

[Francois Caron]

If DVD was on a 12" format, I'd be depressed. In the days when I used to purchase and rent plenty of Laserdiscs, I had quite a few problems with bad discs. Ever since I went to DVDs, I've rarely had any severe problems with any of the discs I've purchased aside from the occasional glitch on my computer's DVD drive. Even when you add up all the defects I've encountered over the years, that's still much less than the problems I've constantly encountered with Laserdiscs.

With Laserdiscs, about one disc in ten ended up being bad. With DVDs, I've had a possible total of ten physically defective discs in a collection that spanned 400 titles from various companies.

 

[Rachael B]

Francois, I don't know how you encountered so many bad LD's. The return rate for LD's was less than 2%, which mirrors my own experience. It wouldn't suprise me if a future video disc format was bigger than 5" specifically to keep it out of computer drives. Best wishes!

 

[David Susilo]

There must be some kind of storage issue if you have that many bad LD. I used to own about 400+ LDs (and still own about 100 of them and now owning about 500+ DVDs.

Only TWO of my LDs (some are 10 years old) were unplayable. Howerver, there are already more than 5 DVDs that's unplayable.

2 out of 400 vs 5 out of 500. I'm no mathematician, but considering the age, handling (in the past 10 years I've moved around my LDs from countries to countries more than 5 times) and ratio. The above means that LD is much more durable by 100% better than DVDs.