[captainkremmen]

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1

When we where at the presentation that Philips did , it was quite clear then that they ultimatley saw the 5" disc as the future standard. Laserdisc players where expensive because of the gas lasers they used to read the discs & the discs where expensive to make given the way they where made, but then thats Philips , its not until Pioneer got involved & started to push the technology, with surround sound etc , players that could read both sides of the disc & getting Sonys plant in Austria to make the discs to a better standard than what they could at Blackburn did the format start get going. The whole way it was marketed was clumsy & the British obsession for it being able to record was another blow. You could argue that they should have waited with Laserdisc a few more years before launching it. Philips where fighting a lone battle & then they had the competition from that player that played RCA discs (that seemed a strange format - wonder if anyone's still got one?)

I dont think Laserdisc would ever have took off here like it did in the USA or Japan , because here we only care about cost, not quality. Hence the old story of betamax & Video 2000 vs VHS. DVD only took off here once the players got down to about £400 & then as the costs plummeted to £150 - £35 then it became a no brianer as the manufactuers realised that they could do to VHS what they did to vinyl & get people to buy their collections over again. Blu Ray would have gone the same way had they not got the advantage of the Sony PS3 & the ability to get player costs to sensible levels for the masses & getting the film makers on board.

Laserdisc could be viewed as a obsolete format, but without it would DVD have come along? I find the format like vinyl has a charm all of its own. Again its the interaction with the machinery , having to get up, & turn the side over & then sit down & watch the rest of it.

Very true. The launch of DVD in most of the World coincided with the launch of the PS2, which of course was capable of playing DVDs and is credited with massively pushing the DVD format to be the success it was.

The PS3 undoubtedly did much the same for BluRay, although not on the same scale but it certainly was the final nail in the coffin of HD-DVD. In fact for a year or so the PS3 was one of the cheapest ways of playing BluRay discs until the dedicated players fell below the price of the PS3.

[Kodaz]

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1

When we where at the presentation that Philips did , it was quite clear then that they ultimatley saw the 5" disc as the future standard. Laserdisc players where expensive because of the gas lasers they used to read the discs & the discs where expensive to make given the way they where made,

Yes, but question is... would it have been possible to replace that gas laser with a cheaper technology later on (possibly one that wasn't available or mature enough at the time, or one that needed more experience to get to work, or was lower cost, but only for mass-market quantities, etc.)

After all, the discs were simply reflective spirals of pits and flats, similar to a CD (albeit not digital), I wonder if they *could* have used a similar head.

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1

the British obsession for it being able to record was another blow [..]. here we only care about cost, not quality. Hence the old story of betamax & Video 2000 vs VHS. [unlike the US or Japan]

Remember that VHS succeeded over Betamax in the US and Japan too. And from what I've read, isn't Betamax's superior quality overstated, particularly in a modern context?

I suspect that, shown alongside various other formats, Betamax would still look a lot closer to VHS than it would to even Laserdisc, let alone DVD or Blu-Ray.

So while it may have been marginally better than VHS, I'm going to risk being labelled a philistine, and say that I think getting a lot more recording on a tape *may* have been a worthwhile tradeoff for a small difference in quality for Joe Average. Especially as video recorders were damned expensive back then.

(Which makes wanting a device you spend hundreds of quid on to record (if possible) less of a philistine move too!)

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1

Philips where fighting a lone battle & then they had the competition from that player that played RCA discs (that seemed a strange format - wonder if anyone's still got one?)

Capacitance Electronic Disc, apparently. I only found out about that a few years back- did they even release it in PAL?

I suspect it sold so poorly it wasn't much of a rival per se. Any damage was more likely due to confusing consumers with a similar-looking but different format (different price point, fundamentally different techology that was stylus-based).

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1

Blu Ray would have gone the same way had they not got the advantage of the Sony PS3 & the ability to get player costs to sensible levels for the masses & getting the film makers on board.

Yeah, but Blu-Ray *still* hasn't taken off to the same extent that DVD did. (See below)

Originally Posted by captainkremmen

Very true. The launch of DVD in most of the World coincided with the launch of the PS2, which of course was capable of playing DVDs and is credited with massively pushing the DVD format to be the success it was.

DVD first came out in 1997. (I remember swithering about going for a DVD reader when I got a PC in early 1998). The PS2 didn't come out until late 2000 in most of the world... but you're right that this *was* around the point it started really taking off. (My flatmates got one in mid-2001, and IIRC that was also the point generic DVD players started getting much cheaper).

Originally Posted by SheepdogNo1

The PS3 undoubtedly did much the same for BluRay, although not on the same scale [my emphasis] but it certainly was the final nail in the coffin of HD-DVD. In fact for a year or so the PS3 was one of the cheapest ways of playing BluRay discs until the dedicated players fell below the price of the PS3.

Yep- though as you say, it still hasn't pushed Blu-Ray into DVD levels of success yet. Actually, Blu-Ray players are pretty cheap now, but it still hasn't quite overtaken DVD in penetration and public consciousness. Maybe the discs are still too expensive?

[oscar1]

Slightly off topic --- I have 2 x Phillips VLP 700 machines going begging after an attic clearout.
Anyone interested?

Regards

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Kodaz

Capacitance Electronic Disc, apparently. I only found out about that a few years back- did they even release it in PAL?

I suspect it sold so poorly it wasn't much of a rival per se. Any damage was more likely due to confusing consumers with a similar-looking but different format (different price point, fundamentally different techology that was stylus-based).

Bit of an old post ti reply to, but I didn't see it originally.

CED was released in PAL, but flopped - about the same as Laserdisc did really, as that was never a success either - Laserdisc was released about three times, and never managed to produce any worthwhile sales figures.

Best thing about Laserdisc was that it spawned CD

[captainkremmen]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Bit of an old post ti reply to, but I didn't see it originally.

CED was released in PAL, but flopped - about the same as Laserdisc did really, as that was never a success either - Laserdisc was released about three times, and never managed to produce any worthwhile sales figures.

Best thing about Laserdisc was that it spawned CD

Laserdisc was a moderate success when relaunched in the 90s in the UK, pretty much every film enthusiast I knew had a player and discs were very widely available in mainstream stores like HMV. Even my local Blockbuster had a section for laserdiscs for three or four years. But it did take off quite well in the US for a few years.