Press Release Wired Press Release: Blu-rays are back; Streaming Isn’t Everything (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

I don't think that's an apt comparison, though. Aside from packaging, and arguably sound quality, laserdisc had no advantages over DVD. Pretty much everyone who bought or rented laserdiscs was perfectly happy to switch to DVD instead.

You can't say the same about streaming. Even some of those who would like to shift away from discs and towards streaming can't do so because the availability of high-speed internet is limited.

Not only that, but laserdisc was always a small niche market item while the DVD ushered in an era in which physical discs became mass market items that were even located near grocery store cashier lanes just before checking out.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I don't think it's dying, but it is shifting away from the mainstream into much more of a niche market. Same as laserdisc was.

That's similar to my opinion.. Not quite like laserdisc ever was, but becoming more niche. An interesting comment from our Kino Insider in his thread.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/posts/4701576/

 

[Randy Korstick]

How long after the debut of DVD did laserdiscs hang on at stores, meaning you could readily buy them at several local stores? (since there was no Amazon or similar at the time to order from of course..)

As previously stated not a fair comparison but to answer the question 3 and 1/2 years. DVD debuted in February, 1997. New releases for Laserdisc continued through 1999 and you could still buy Laserdisc in stores well into 2000.
Streaming was never meant to be a replacement for disc sales. It was meant to replace cable/satellite and movie rentals which it is doing. Digital sales are meant to replace buying discs but they are not currently any higher than disc sales.

 

[Worth]

...if physical media is dead then tell me why 11 or more catalog titles up for pre-order on the first page, it's a great time to be a fan,

The cynical answer is that they're rushing to get them out now because it's dying.

 

[The Drifter]

Not only that, but laserdisc was always a small niche market item while the DVD ushered in an era in which physical discs became mass market items that were even located near grocery store cashier lanes just before checking out.

Agree 100%. LD's were always only a niche home video format, and never caught on for various reasons:

-Way too expensive; each LD was roughly $70 each, and I'm sure the players were expensive as well.
- Awkward; the LD typically had to be flipped over half-way throughout a film.
-Took up too much space; they were the size of a Vinyl record, and to me that's too large of a format if you want to collect a lot of these.

I remember having some friends who liked LD's back in the '90's, but the format was way too expensive & awkward for me (and I'm sure many others) to buy into.

Conversely, DVD's (and to a lesser extent, the superior Blu's) had mass market appeal. Small, compact, and light - these had typically great PQ (or at least better than VHS) and were relatively inexpensive - especially as time went on. Also, as they get more sophisticated they had TRUE Anamorphic Widescreen prints, whereas LD's - while supposedly "Widescreen" - still ended up having a cropped picture in many cases.

I really wish DVD's had come out first, and that LD's had never existed.

 

[TJPC]

Don’t get me started! I think I still have a picture somewhere of my large Beta library!

 

[Worth]

...Way too expensive; each LD was roughly $70 each, and I'm sure the players were expensive as well.

They were expensive, but not quite that expensive. I'd say the average price was in the $30-40 range, with some of the deluxe box sets going for well over $100. You were lucky to find a title priced under $25. By the early 90s, I think the players started around $400 and went upwards of $1500 for the high-end models.

 

[JQuintana]

I only knew one person in my circle of friends and family that owned LD and he was a bitter kitty when DVD hit town. He kept swearing up and down that LD was "way better" than DVD. Yeah that mentality lasted for maybe a year or so after DVD was full steam ahead at which point he boxed up his LD stuff and switch to DVD.

 

[TJPC]

My school had a LD player, which I used to borrow, and rent discs for at a local video store. It was much clearer than VHS, but what a pain in the ass! We rented and watched “Lawrence of Arabia”. It had I don’t know how many discs, but they had to be changed or flipped every 20 minutes!

 

[Tino]

, and that LD's had never existed.

What a bizarre statement. Why?

There were many that collected LD’s. Myself included. At the time they offered the best picture and sound quality. Why the hate?

 

[The Drifter]

What a bizarre statement. Why? There were many that collected LD’s. Myself included. At the time they offered the best picture and sound quality. Why the hate?

I stated all of the reasons I didn't like LD's in my previous post. DVD's were/are a far superior format from every stand-point.

 

[Tino]

I stated all of the reasons I didn't like LD's in my previous post. DVD's were/are a far superior format from every stand-point.

Yeah. I get that. I don’t get the wishing LD’s never existed. That’s the bizarre statement.

 

[Tino]

Also during Laser Disc’s heyday, they were the premier format to watch a film at home.

Better resolution, sound, extras, and films in their correct aspect ratio. Sure they were a bit cumbersome and expensive but they were miles better than VHS.

For over 10 years they were the BEST way to watch films at home. All subsequent video formats owe a debt to LD’s which led the way for home theater enthusiasts today.

 

[Matt Hough]

I had a friend who was VERY into movies and who had a BIG VHS tape collection. I was raving to him one day at lunch about the greatness of laserdisc, and he challenged me to put a laserdisc up against a tape of his choice. I took him on, and he chose North by Northwest as he considered it his best looking VHS transfer (it was also his favorite movie). When he came over, I synched up the Eva Marie/Cary meeting on the train sequence on both VHS and laserdisc, and then let him come into the room. I played them simultaneously but had the tape on first as he beamed in delight, and then I switched inputs to the laserdisc, and his face went gray: it was like a heavy veil had been lifted off the picture, and he had to admit that laserdisc was far, far superior in visual quality. I'll never forget that moment.

 

[Bob_S.]

Yep, paid over $100 for my JAWS box set and just recently sold on ebay for $25.

 

[The Drifter]

The point I was trying to make (which may not have come across too clearly in my earlier post) was that I wished that DVD's had initially come out instead of LD's, due to their obvious superiority. That being said, it's possible the technology to make DVD's didn't exist in the late '70's (when LD's were first introduced).

There's no doubt that the PQ on LD's was superior to VHS tape (I hated the VHS format even more than LD's, for reasons that should be obvious - but that I don't need to go over here).

However, LD's were a lot less accessible that VHS tapes, for all the reasons I mentioned. I also resented the fact that LD's were so pricey - in order to invest in the format, you had to spent a lot of $ on not only the player, but each individual LD. And, IIRC you couldn't easily find these for rent at video rental stores, so if you wanted to see them you needed to buy them - unlike VHS tapes, which you could easily find to rent.

I always felt LD's were a niche format, and that the only people who could afford them had a lot of disposable income.

Note that I'm not the only one who never bought into the LD format - there were other people I talked to at the time (primarily in the '90's) who never invested in the format due to the price, bulkiness, etc.

That being said, I guess movie aficionados were really into these at the time - I pulled up these statistics from Wikipedia - these are direct quotes from the site:'

The first LaserDisc title marketed in North America was the MCA DiscoVision release of Jaws on December 15, 1978.[9] The last title released in North America was Paramount's Bringing Out the Dead on October 3, 2000.[10] A dozen or so more titles continued to be released in Japan until September 21, 2001, with the last Japanese released movie was the Hong Kong film Tokyo Raiders from Golden Harvest. Production of LaserDisc players continued until January 14, 2009, when Pioneer stopped making them.[11][12][13]

It was estimated that in 1998, LaserDisc players were in approximately 2% of U.S. households (roughly two million).[14] By comparison, in 1999, players were in 10% of Japanese households.[15] LaserDisc was released on June 10, 1981 in Japan[clarification needed], and a total of 3.6 million LaserDisc players were sold there.[16] A total of 16.8 million LaserDisc players were sold worldwide, of which 9.5 million were sold by Pioneer.[11][12][13]

 

[Rob_Ray]

A couple of points:

1. While DVD is overall a vastly superior format for picture quality, size and lack of side breaks, my 2000 laserdiscs which I still have, take up LESS space than my DVDs because the packaging is so much thinner than DVDs. My laserdiscs are contained in a single floor to ceiling shelving unit. My DVD collection is all over the house. I need to repackage them and toss the original cases to more effectively store them. That day is nearly here.

2. Laserdiscs' uncompressed sound was noticeably superior to the compressed sound on DVDs on many titles.

 

[TJPC]

I admired the LD format, but it had one great drawback at the time for me: it was not recordable. I had amassed a huge library of Beta tapes and later VHS tapes.

At the beginning of home video, commercially recorded tapes were basically not available. All of my library was either of things I recorded off the air, or copied from rental tapes using two machines. The reduction in quality was of course terrible, but really the only way to get most movies. I also sometimes borrowed an LD machine and made a tape from that (Forbidden Planet).

For example, when we finally got “into” VHS, in the late 1980s or early 1990s, I asked my parents, to buy us a copy of “Airplane” in the format for Christmas. We did not get it because the cheapest they could find it was over $100! The video stores were surprised I’d ever want to buy a pre-recorded movie and would have had to special order it.

 

[The Drifter]

A couple of points:

1. While DVD is overall a vastly superior format for picture quality, size and lack of side breaks, my 2000 laserdiscs which I still have, take up LESS space than my DVDs because the packaging is so much thinner than DVDs. My laserdiscs are contained in a single floor to ceiling shelving unit. My DVD collection is all over the house. I need to repackage them and toss the original cases to more effectively store them. That day is nearly here.

2. Laserdiscs' uncompressed sound was noticeably superior to the compressed sound on DVDs on many titles.

Points taken, and interesting conversation about the differences between LD's & DVD's.

To address #1 above, while I agree the regular DVD containers are thicker than LD packaging, if you take the DVD's out of their somewhat bulky containers, discard the packaging, & put them in thin CD cases (which I've done with some of mine) then they will take up less space than LD's - as you mentioned.

Going along with this, LD packaging (which is identical or at least similar to Vinyl record packaging) is taller than a DVD "box", so you would need a higher cabinet/shelf space/area to store these in. Conversely, DVD packaging is much smaller & more compact.

Also going along with this, DVD & Blu packaging is becoming more compact as the years go by. I remember getting TV shows on DVD back in the 200X's, and the packaging was very bulky in many cases. If you get these same (revised) boxed sets today, the packaging has visibly become less bulky. Also, Blu-ray packaging is considerably smaller/thinner/shorter than DVD packaging to begin with, so if you upgrade to Blu you'll already be ahead re: this taking up less room.

As someone who doesn't want to have their DVD's/Blu's/CD's take up a lot of valuable space, I pay a lot of attention to ways I can reduce the room these take up in my residence.

Re: #2 above, I had not idea this was the case - given that I never got into LD's. The last one I saw was an LD of Star Wars: A New Hope back in the mid-90's - on someone else's player.

 

[Worth]

Laserdisc didn't really take off until the late-80s. There were a lot of problems with early pressings, and for the first several years, they used the same pan-and-scan masters as videotape, with marginally better picture and sound quality. Sometimes they were worse, because they'd use time compression to fit movies slightly over two hours on a single disc.

Towards the end of the decade, they started releasing newer, letterboxed transfers with digital sound that really showed off what the format was capable of.