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

[Francois Caron]

Unfortunately, the Laserdiscs were almost unplayable from the time of purchase! I've yet to encounter laser rot issues with any of the my current titles although there are a few image problems with the second disc on my copy of Men In Black. Surprisingly, none of the used Laserdiscs I've purchased over the years ever game me any aggravation.

But another problem with a 12" disc is that I couldn't bring a few discs with me to the audio/video store where I hang out like I do now. I'm not talking about bringing just a couple of reference titles here. I'm talking about viewing samples from a dozen or so titles in one sitting! 5" discs are light and easy to carry in a CD pouch. 12" discs are heavy and cumbersome.

 

[Lars Vermundsberget]

I bought quite a few LDs from about 1995-1999 and bad discs was never a big problem in my experience. However, it's a well known historical fact that there were made a lot of bad LDs in the (early) 80s. I'm sure that had a lot more to do with the conditions under which the discs were manufactured than their size...

 

[Dave Anderson]

...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.

Ummm, no. First, only CAV laserdiscs were 30 minutes in length. The majority of laserdiscs were CLV, which can hold up to 60 minutes per side. So you would only have to get up every 60 minutes to change the disc, and that's only if you didn't want to invest in one of the many players that were capable of switching sides automatically. If you had a player that could switch sides automatically - and they've been available for a while - you would have to get up after 1.5-2 hours of viewing.

Personally, I think the whole "don't want to get up to change a disc" argument is extremely weak. And it seems to be made mostly by people who never got into laserdisc, just those that need an excuse.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well, my first real LD player was an auto-flip, and I still found it annoying when it would cut to black and take about 20 seconds to start the next side- older discs have annoying "End Side 1" and "Start Side 2" intros too. My newer LD/DVD combo player can flip sides in less than 10 seconds, but shows a spinning-disc graphic onscreen during that time that you can't turn off, so it's still an interruption that makes me go "Aw, no!" when side 1 ends. Any movie requiring 2 discs (over 2 hours) is a real pain- there was a player that held 2 discs but I heard it was really slow.
Still, if they had applied DVD technology to the 12-inch disc there probably would have been enough room for even a 4-hour movie on one side. BTW, the dual-layer technology on DVDs was first considered for an early videodisc format- rather than turning the disc over, the laser would refocus and read the other side through the first side.

 

[Charlie Essmeier]

Actually, a 12" disc format to replace existing laserdisc technology would seem to have been the obvious way to go. The disk size is irrelevant; a lot of us already owned laserdiscs and phonograph records in the 12" form factor. Sony actually produced a HD laserdisc player for industrial use in the early 1990's.

It's a pity that the industry didn't pursue that, as we could have been watching HD films at home for several years now. Instead, we got DVD and now that it's successful, we'll have to wait for the public to get around to noticing that DVD isn't good enough, which it isn't. It took 20 years for the public to come to that conclusion with VHS, so we may have to endure DVD for quite a while yet.

Meanwhile, the industry laments the fact that the public isn't buying enough HD television sets...

Charlie

 

[Steven_J_H]

"What if DVD's were 12"? They WOULD be laserdiscs.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Then the old ones'd be called AVDs (A for Analog!) and the new ones'd be DVDs!

 

[Qui-Gon John]

If they were 12" I'd have to fold them to fit in my DVD Player.

 

[BrentPollard]

If they were 12" I'd have to fold them to fit in my DVD Player.
Jeeze imagine the picture quality then!

 

[Eugene Hsieh]

Personally, I think the whole "don't want to get up to change a disc" argument is extremely weak. And it seems to be made mostly by people who never got into laserdisc, just those that need an excuse.

Errr. Yes. I didn't get into laser disc partially because of the disk change argument. (That along with cost and format size.) ie. Many people hated it, and thus we have one reason why it didn't take off.

I used to check out LD movies at KTV theaters (in Taiwan) and at friends' places in North America. The disk changes annoyed me to no end.

Hell, even the 1 second layer change pause on DVD annoys me.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

It would have been an "elite" or high-end format for the enthusiast.

exactly.
I don't know about the rest of you out there who were LD collectors like myself, but I really enjoy only having to pay $20 for these little 16x9 480P component-video 5" movies on DVD. Most LDs of titles I wanted seemed to hover between $30 and $50...with some SE sets more like $100 or $150 (Brazil).
Why are the prices so cheap for 5" DVD? Bcs it's a mass consumer medium. If it was another esoteric niche-product like laserdisc...which it would be if it was a 12" platter regardless quality...we'd be back to niche-prices (just like with HD-DVHS).
I'll wait until they can fit all the bits and bandwidth of a 12" platter on a 5" disc. Then it will only cost me $20 a movie.
-dave

 

[Aaron Reynolds]

Two things:

1) my good-to-bad LD ratio: I have just broken the 300 disc barrier. Since 1991, I have only had three bad discs, all of them defective at the time of purchase. The original pan & scan Brazil from MCA, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Fargo. Both Frankenstein and Fargo were replaced immediately by my local shop, and the replacement copies are fine.

2) Computers with DVD drives as standard equipment or low-cost add-ons helped to fuel the quick adoption of the DVD.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I'm finally experiencing the wonder of Sony DADC laser rot- Matilda and the THX-certified Heavy Metal both looked perfect when I first got them, but now have the famous colored snow on the picture now. It was suspected Sony was doing this to their LDs on purpose to get people to give up on the LD format and buy DVD instead.

 

[Brian-W]

Sony actually produced a HD laserdisc player for industrial use in the early 1990's.

That was the analog HDVS system. Unfortunately, it was for studio use only, expensive, and a CLV disc held only 17 minutes of HD video per side, or 7 minutes in CAV mode.

The consumer version of HD Laser was released in Japan, an failed for a number of reasons, but cost was the biggest one. That was compressed video (ala MPEG-2, but using the MUSE standard).

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

In the days just before CD penetrated the mass market (the first half of the 80s) pre-recorded cassettes were starting to dominate LP sales because people were becoming enamored of the portability and convenient size of them. (The relatively low quality of most commercial vinyl pressings at the time was not helping LPs much either).

As for DVD, while it seems strange that the convenience of portability for a mass-market video medium would be all that important to anyone, it does seem to be a factor when coupled with the "convergence" buzz word between home theater/audio and home computing.

Regards,

 

[Jason Seaver]

while it seems strange that the convenience of portability for a mass-market video medium would be all that important to anyone

Strange to us, with our big systems and walls covered in movies and weekly purchase of new releases. To someone who's mostly going to be renting, or occasionally watching at places other than their own living room, it's a consideration. Not just because hauling an LD-sized case around is inconvenient, but because the amount of shelf space they take up could just be the difference between a video store stocking the format and not - and if the local video store isn't stocking it, the format's suddenly not so appealing.

 

[alan halvorson]

A number of people have pointed out high cost as a factor in not getting into LD. I would like to point out to everyone - again, although I haven't said this for quite a while - that in the beginning, laser disc (and CED) was promoted as a lower cost (I didn't say low cost) alternative to tape. In the beginning, there was only tape rental. The tape sell-through market came later, starting with Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I was royally pissed seeing "Batman Forever" selling for $20 on VHS but the laserdisc was $40!!

 

[BrentPollard]

But the LD is twice as good.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

To someone who's mostly going to be renting, or occasionally watching at places other than their own living room, it's a consideration. Not just because hauling an LD-sized case around is inconvenient, but because the amount of shelf space they take up could just be the difference between a video store stocking the format and not - and if the local video store isn't stocking it, the format's suddenly not so appealing.

The stores I went to that rented LDs could fit a lot more movies in less space than VHS. The limitation that was unappealing to retailers was the difficulty in displaying them with the covers visible, but they managed to address this issue with LPs for 3 or 4 decades, so I imagine its not insurmountable. A 12" aluminum disc would definitely put a crimp in Netflix's business model, though.
Regards,