VIDEODISCS TRYING TO GET BACK ON THE BEAM

While the home-entertainment industry is booming, Chicken Littles among electronics experts are always crying that the sky is falling because of one thing or another. One favorite target of doom is the videodisc.

It’s easy to see why the format’s future has been in doubt. Just go to almost any video store and ask for the videodisc section. There won’t be one, unless you happen to hit one of the few places that do carry them, such as Tower Video or Ken Crane’s. And even there you can’t rent them. Only about 250,000 U.S. consumers have invested in videodisc players, while last year alone about 12 million VCRs were sold in the United States.

Introduced with a lot of hoopla in the late ‘70s, the videodisc machine never caught on. Right now in the United States, only one of the incompatible videodisc systems remains--Pioneer’s LaserVision. Its chief competitor, RCA’s CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) bowed out in early 1984, having made a poor choice of weapons by using a phonograph-like stylus instead of a laser. (RCA still produces software for CED-player owners.)

There is talk of another system crawling into the ring. VHD (Video High Density) has been around since 1980--only not around here . VHD did, however, become established in Japan and England. Now JVC may introduce VHD players to America sometime in 1986.

If so, it’ll be because JVC hopes to take advantage of a LaserVision flaw. The laser disc can be made in two modes: CAV and CLV. CAV allows the laser to do its cutest tricks--undistorted frame-by-frame effects, random accessing and interactivity. But most laser discs come out in CLV, which allows twice as much information on each disc while sacrificing some effects. VHD discs have the same length as CLV laser discs without sacrificing their capabilities.

One video-magazine writer has dubbed it “VHDud.” VHD involves physical contact between a flat metal sensor and the disc rather than the wear-less laser method. And it has lower horizontal resolution than LaserVision, which translates as a slightly poorer picture.

Don’t count videodiscs out yet, though.

Videodisc prospects are rosier than they’ve been in years. Two factors are responsible: the introduction of the combined compact disc/LaserVision player and the growing chance that in a few years we’ll be able to buy videodisc players that will record (and erase).

Both the compact-disc player and the laser-disc player use the same laser-pickup process. Now, as more consumers consider the purchase of a compact-disc player, some will also decide in favor of the combined audio/video laser wonder.

If such developments can keep the videodisc alive for a few more years--long enough for practical recordable discs to be marketed--the disc/tape battle may turn completely around. In the meantime, here are some things you should consider before adding a videodisc player to your home gear.

ADVANTAGES

Picture quality: Laser videodisc players offer better reproduction of a picture source than videotape machines. All of the little imperfections that annoy VCR owners--fuzzy images, snow around borders, tape “dropouts” and “noise”--are lessened or eliminated on videodisc. LaserVision produces almost one hundred more lines of horizontal resolution than videotape, a plus for anyone with one of the newer high-resolution TV monitors.

Sound quality: Only with the recent introduction of hi-fi machines have VCRs been able to approximate the clarity of videodisc sound, which is being improved even further with the approach of digital CD/LV combos.

Special effects/Interactivity: LaserVision has search capabilities (“random accessing”) that enable the viewer to move through material much as a reader can flip through a book. Discs can be viewed in “chapters,” which makes “interactive video” possible--enabling such applications as the murder mysteries of Vidmax’s “MysteryDiscs”--where (shades of the movie “Clue”) you can follow a story to several different solutions. There are laser-disc versions of “King Kong” and “Citizen Kane” that have two sound tracks--one with the original track and the other with a discussion of the film as it goes along.

Also, the LaserVision freeze frame is more efficient than that of tape machines--no visual static, no tape-head wear. There are a few book-like discs containing thousands of a museum’s paintings or photographs of Earth from space.

The bad news is that not every LaserVision model has all of the above functions, and the special effects apply only to discs released in the CAV mode, a minority.

However, there’s another advantage: With an interface module, some videodisc players can interact with computers, enabling you to alternate between computer and video images.

Durability. With LaserVision there’s no physical contact between the pickup and the disc, and the laser focuses on information within the disc rather than on its surface. As compact disc owners have found, scratches and dirt can cause a little distortion but “wear” as in phonograph-record terms is practically eliminated. And there are no heads to clean or wear out, either, as there are on a VCR.

Software. Some material on videodiscs (Pioneer estimates about 100 titles) can’t be found on tape--especially classical-music programming.

DISADVANTAGES

You can’t record: The day may come when we can do so, but this is currently videodisc’s biggest limitation. But when videodisc recording is possible, tape formats are going to be in big trouble if they haven’t vastly improved their pictures by then--and that includes the much-heralded new 8-millimeter system.

Limited software: Yes, a few titles are videodisc-only. But far, far more are videotape-only. Thousands of tapes are unduplicated in disc form. Other problems: many movies come out on videotape a month or more earlier than on disc, and videodisc rental is rare or nonexistent.

A final note on something that used to be a videodisc advantage: cost. VCR prices have come down so much that the videodisc player’s economical edge has largely disappeared. And while the average cost of a videodisc may still be less than that of a videotape, this difference, too, has largely evaporated. So now videodisc’s biggest selling point is quality.

Something else: if you want to go to an electronics store to compare VCRs with videodisc players, be sure the place carries both. Few stores do. Even though things are looking brighter for the laser-disc format, it’s still a question whether enough consumers and retailers are going to get on the beam.