Slipped Discs? : WHY LASERDISCS MAY NOT SWEEP THE PUBLIC TOO QUICKLY
One of these days everyone will have laserdiscs. At least that’s what we hear. But is it the right thing for the average person right now?
Before anyone runs out to buy an expensive laserdisc player or the much-heralded laserdisc combi (machines that play both CDs and laserdiscs), they should consider a few things:
First, the raves over laserdiscs aren’t hype. Watch a demonstration at an electronics store, and it’s clear that these discs are everything they’re supposed to be. The picture and audio quality are terrific. Audio-visually, laserdiscs put VHS cassettes to shame. That excellence clearly is the big selling point for laserdisc hardware.
But there are reasons having nothing to do with quality to board the laserdisc bandwagon with caution.
Right now, laserdisc mania isn’t sweeping the common folk. It’s still a high-end, upscale phenomenon, mostly popular in big cities.
The popular theory has been that people would buy the ballyhooed combi players because they cost just a bit more than the average CD player. That has not quite been the case.
Prices are dropping for the combi players, but they’re still not cheap. The Pioneer CLD1070 lists for $600 and the Magnavox CDV484 for $749. Even with discounts, that’s a big investment for the average family. That’s still hundreds of dollars more costly than the average CD player. And it’s possible to buy a decent CD player for much less, such as the Kenwood DP-48, which is being discounted down to $129.
Once you get the laserdisc player, there can be problems. First, anyone expecting to rent laserdiscs like they rent videos is in for a surprise. Lee Kasper, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Image Entertainment, which distributes laserdiscs, said 90% of the business is sales and only 10% rental. So finding rental discs isn’t that easy. That means laserdisc owners who want to watch a movie at home will have to buy them at $25-$35 a disc.
Even finding laserdiscs for sale may be difficult for some people. Small video stores that aren’t part of chains usually don’t carry them. And they’re even hard to find outside metropolitan areas.
Don’t look for the laserdisc rental market to start growing any time soon. Companies like Image Entertainment don’t encourage laserdisc rentals because they don’t make money on rentals. Image, Kasper explained, gets paid a royalty for each disc it sells to stores. If the retailer rents one disc many times, Image’s royalty is still the same. Naturally, what Image would like to do is sell a disc to each one of those renters, multiplying its royalty.
Buying a laserdisc machine presents one more problem for some people. To take full advantage of the visual excellence of laserdiscs, you may have to purchase a new TV. If you are going to hook the laserdisc player up to a TV that’s more than five years old, the TV might not be equipped with video input devices, which are common on late-model TVs. Hooking up a laserdisc machine to an old TV means that you’ll get just 330 lines per screen resolution- somewhat less than laserdisc’s 400 line-per-screen capability. So much for increased quality.
The answer: buying a laserdisc machine and a new TV, which obviously adds to the cost.
On top of everything else, laserdiscs don’t offer the consumer a revolutionary new experience but merely an improved version of the VHS format. The reason VHS cassettes became so popular in the mid-’80s was that people were impressed by the novelty and convenience of renting recent movies and watching them at home-and on the same machine used to tape TV shows. Laserdiscs, however, don’t offer greater novelty and convenience-just better picture and sound.
Most consumer electronics prognosticators say that by the end of the decade, laserdisc will become the format of choice--even among the masses. That may be, but for the reasons just mentioned, many consumers may not board that laserdisc bandwagon as quickly as expected.