In the last video, we took a look at the early
history of Laserdisc. If you haven’t seen that, you can find a
link down below or up there. In short, Laserdisc was the first optical
storage format, storing analog video on 12 inch reflective discs, and it was released
at the end of the 1970’s. Featuring many of the noteworthy features
of DVD, it may seem surprising that it didn’t become that popular. It’s market adoption barely reached 2 percent
of videocassette recorder sales in North America, and was even worse in Europe. Its most successful market was in Asia, but
even that wasn’t fantastic. Only 10% of Japanese households had a laserdisc
player, and Japan was considered the healthiest market. In this video, we’ll find out why Laserdisc
just sorta stayed in the background its entire life. Let me begin by saying that the problem is
more nuanced than simply, they cost too much. Because initially, laserdiscs were far cheaper
than videocassettes. And it’s also more nuanced than laserdisc’s
inability to record. I began the previous video with --A product
with an unknown purpose that was both a few years too late and way too far ahead of its
time-- Those statements are interrelated, but let’s
start with the first one - an unknown purpose. To understand that, you need to put yourself
in the mindset of a consumer in the mid 1970s. At that time, there were essentially two types
of media you could purchase to consume at home. Print media--that’s books, newspapers, etc,--and
music. For nearly a century you could purchase music
to play on a phonograph, and indeed this was the first way we could listen to music at
home. (Static, buzzing, and tuning sounds) (through
the radio) Radio came later, providing a source of free, nearly continuous programming. But radio was a fleeting thing, and unless
you had the patience to record a broadcast with a tape recorder, go back and find the
songs you actually want, dub them onto another tape (which requires a second tape recorder),
and then finally enjoy music uninterrupted, you would just buy the album from your favorite
artist on disc to play at home. Indeed radio was pretty much how new artists
were discovered and albums were sold. Some of that still happens today, but we all
seem to use streaming services or other, ehem, means of getting our music on-demand. Anyway, due to the short nature of musical
radio content--generally only three minutes or so for a song--the programming on a radio
station wasn’t usually organized beyond an hour of such-and-such music. Maybe you’d have a host for the
afternoon drive, but the content being broadcast would repeat multiple times during the day,
as after all what’s popular is popular. This created little incentive for a radio
listener to record the broadcast, which again made the sale of music in record stores a
logical, convenient thing. This was especially true for less popular
genres of music, where it would be rare to hear it on the radio anyway. For all these reasons, the consumer of 1975
was used to buying record albums to play at home, and indeed wanted to. Now if someone wanted to watch moving pictures,
and I’m being deliberately vague here, they had two options. For long-form content, you would go to the
the-a-ter to watch the newest releases. Movies were obviously not a new thing in 1975,
and the way you watched them had been the same for many years. A film was a thing you went to go see once,
maybe twice, and wasn’t something you would expect to see at home over and over again. Only the wealthy and eccentric would shell
out the cash necessary to purchase a 16 millimeter film projector and prints to go with it, with
a true 35 millimeter projector and films being the unobtanium of home entertainment. Television was another story, though. By 1975, more than 70 percent of households
in the US had a color television. But unlike music, which could be heard for
free through the radio or as desired when purchased on disc or tape, television was
only a broadcast technology. The viewer of a television had no control
over what was being shown. All you could control was what channel to
tune into. Movies were often broadcast on TV too, with
a generous amount of commercial breaks peppered in, but you still had no direct control over
what to watch. You were limited to what was offered. But that was about to change. By 1975, the public had been teased many times
about a videodisc system which would revolutionize the television experience. RCA had been developing their videodisc since
1964, and Phillips had demonstrated an early laserdisc prototype in 1969. These companies along with others were trying
to adapt the familiar concept of a record player into a video player. And they weren’t shy about it. You’ll be able to buy video records, with
movies, cooking classes, and all sorts of new programming. Imagine, television when you want it! Keyword: Imagine. While this certainly was a neat idea, it likely
didn’t resonate with many people. To compel a consumer to purchase a videodisc
player required you to convince them to buy into a new kind of media. It’s not as simple as a new format, we’re
talking about something foreign. It’s an entirely different kind of content,
all together! (In unison) It’s an entirely
different kind of content. No one had yet experienced what would come
to be called home video. It simply wasn’t a thing. The videodisc was a classic case of a solution
in search of a problem. Which brings us to the second issue. It was too late. Though the concept had been around for more
than a decade, it took until 1978 for it to be introduced, and it wasn’t available nationwide
for a couple of years. But three years before Discovision came onto
the scene, we got our hands on a different technology which actually had a problem to
solve. Unlike radio programming, television shows
took up a large chunk of your time, and were far more immersive. They were also scheduled, occurring on a known
channel at a known time. Generally, these shows were broadcast once
a week, with over a dozen episodes produced in a year. The continuity, character development, and
other serial aspects of the shows compelled the viewer to watch every week, and missing
your favorite television program was a severe disappointment. If only there were a device that could keep
that from happening… Enter the videocassette recorder. In 1975, Sony released the Betamax system,
and JVC followed with VHS a year later. I’m not going to cover the format war between
those two formats because I have already in previous videos, but at this stage in the
timeline, the format war was irrelevant. And yes, there were earlier, unsuccessful
systems, and I know about Video 2000, but the existence of a VCR of any kind is what
matters. These machines promised to change how we watch
TV. If you were gone, you could tape your favorite
shows using a built-in timer. And if there were two shows you liked that
were on at the same time, you could tape one and watch the other. The videocassette recorder had a problem to
solve. And it was perfect for the way television
programming worked. You knew when your show would be on thanks
to the TV Guide, and there was an incentive to not miss any episode of your favorite shows. It sounds silly because TV is after all unimportant
in the grand scheme of things, but the VCR was seen by many people as a potential way to free up
their schedule. The act of recording a show to be watched
later was called timeshifting, and that was what sold VCRs. If you had a VCR, it took the limitations
of a format you were used to, that’s television, and removed them. It solved a problem. Now, here’s where many discussions on the
failure of Laserdisc get hung up, I’m looking at you Simon Whistler. When you look back to the beginning of the
two formats, you’ll see that they were meant to be used completely differently. Take a look at early advertisements for these
machines, and you’ll see that Laserdisc wasn’t really ever competing with VHS or
Betamax. This ad for this machine describes it as a
turntable. A VIDEO turntable. And an excellent one at that, making pictures
better than TV itself! But you have to buy your video records, and
the ad from 1981 shows that there are a whopping 120 to choose from! Ah, that’s so many! Look at an ad for any VCR in the late 70s
or early 80s, and you’ll see it takes a different approach. This add for the RCA machine’s 4-hour brother
talks about television shows you want to put on tape, and touts how easy it is to program it
so you won’t miss a thing. You don’t find anything about pre recorded
tapes you can buy. That’s because the VCRs of this time period
essentially predated modern home video. The videocassette recorder wasn’t being
marketed as a device to play a pre-recorded tape. Content distribution of that kind wasn’t
a thing yet, in large part due to the high cost of producing video cassettes. That’s right, here’s another thing in
the saga on Laserdisc that gets overlooked. The idea behind videodiscs in general was
that they could be mass-produced quickly and cheaply. Since they are stamped like vinyl records,
with RCA’s ill-fated CED system literally being a vinyl record, the discs could be made
pretty easily. From an ad linked in the description, the
original cost of Discovision titles was intended to be $5.95 or $9.95 for half-hour and hour
long titles, respectively, with new feature films priced at $15.95. Adjusted for inflation that may seem pricey,
but considering the price chart from Popular Mechanics shows the cheapest one-hour BLANK
VHS tape --that’s blank, with nothing on it-- going for $16.95, you get a sense of why
the disc was considered better for content distribution. The tape used in videocassettes was a brand
new, very specialized fine particle tape. It was expensive to produce well over 200
meters of the stuff for each cassette. And to mass produce pre-recorded video tapes
in a meaningful quantity would require hundreds of separate videocassette recorders, each
spending the entire runtime of the program being recorded to actually produce a duplicate
tape. One machine could make dozens of laserdiscs
per hour, whereas one video tape duplicator would take more than an hour per tape. And the laserdisc players were cheaper, too! That same chart shows the cheapest VCR costing
$995. This magnavision player started at $699. And it doesn’t seem as though that cost
was subsidized by potential profit from selling discs, as Philips/Magnavox and Discovision
were separate entities. So then, say you’re a consumer in 1980 deciding
between these two machines. The Magnavision is touted as having stereo
sound and an incredible picture, and there are exciting interactive possibilities to
go along with it. But there’s not a lot of content you can
watch. You’d save a few hundred dollars buying
it, but once you’ve purchased 20 or so movies, you’ll have spent all that anyway. The long-term cost of ownership doesn’t
really add up. The VCR, though, is a somewhat mature technology. You know people who use them, and they love
them! And while this machine is more expensive,
and so are the tapes, you can’t see yourself needing more than one tape. You still aren’t sure you need to save a
TV program after you’ve seen it, after all that’s not been possible before, so after
you’ve watched the shows you missed that week, you can re-use the same tape. Who cares if it’s more expensive so long
as it’s reusable? If you buy the Magnavision machine, how often
will you really use it? You’d have to be buying a disc every day
to get serious use out of it, and that’ll get expensive fast. Sure the frame-by-frame and slow-motion features
are a neat gimmick, and the possibilitiy of an art encyclopedia is kinda cool, but
that will only occupy a few hours of time. You’re pretty sure you’d get bored with
it, and need to buy another disc. You know you’d use the VCR at least once
a week; M*A*S*H and Mork and Mindy are on at the same time, and you’ve always wanted
to watch both. Plus, you can never stay up late enough to
watch Johnny Carson. Maybe you’ll use it daily. Sure it’s kinda ugly and clunky, but who
cares if it does its job? Do you really need the better picture of this
machine? You only have a 19 inch television at home,
who knows if you could even see the difference? And who really needs stereo sound for TV? Nothing on TV’s in stereo anyway. And I doubt you’ll rearrange the living
room just to have this machine play through your hi-fi. See the problem? A Laserdisc player was a technological marvel
with some neat tricks up its sleeves, but its lengthy development time caused it to
be released after videocassette recorders. If Laserdisc had been available, say, in 1970,
I don’t think it would have struggled like it did. Without the existence of a videocassette recorder,
the idea of buying content to watch on your schedule might be more appealing. After all, you’ve been doing the same thing
with music for decades, and there would be nothing else to allow you that sort of flexibility
on your TV. But with the VCR already on the market, suddenly
the Laserdisc has to convince buyers to forgo timeshifting capabilities for cheap-to-own
movies. Which again, was an odd proposition to many
consumers of the time, having never been able to own a movie before. The idea of owning movies was also a foreign
idea to movie studios. They had never before needed to think about
how to sell their content for mass home consumption. Laserdisc was trying to start an entirely
new market category: that of home video. With MCA backing the Discovision format, their
catalogue of content could easily be licensed. But Discovision would face challenges when
trying to license other content. Movie studios were understandably reluctant
to sell their catalogues of movies to a company like Discovision. Before home video, it wasn’t uncommon for
older movies to be released in theaters again. The movie studios were used to charging essentially
per-view, and a home video solution goes entirely against that. The issue of licensing was further complicated
in the disc realm by competing standards and confusing branding. With the development of their CED system,
RCA was hard at work convincing movie studios that they should license their content to
RCA. This might have limited the content available
to Discovision if any exclusivity clauses were added to the contracts signed. It was also frustrating to consumers, as they
didn’t know which disc system would be better supported with content down the road. And even among Laserdisc players, Magnavox
continued to refer to this as Magnavision, even though the discs you could buy were called Discovision and the format had been christened Laservision by this time. This fear and confusion probably kept a good
number of videodisc players on store shelves. Thus began a chicken-and-egg problem. Buying a laserdisc player in the early years
meant buying into a system with limited content. This kept sales low. Which meant there weren’t a lot of people
with players. Which meant the movie studios couldn’t make
much money selling discs. Which meant there wasn’t much content, which
kept the sales of players low, and the cycle continued. But videocassette recorders didn’t have
that problem in the slightest. Going back to our ad, you’ll remember that
pre-recorded content isn’t mentioned at all. That’s because, this wasn’t their primary
purpose. Time-shifting was what you did with a VCR. It didn’t have anything to do with buying
a movie to watch over and over again. Who would want that? But plenty of people would want to record
their TV shows while they weren’t at home. That was an idea you could get behind. As more and more people purchased a VCR, suddenly
there was a large installed base of devices that could play a pre-recorded tape. And now there was a place for home video. Tapes needed to get cheaper to manufacture,
and duplication facilities needed to mature. But once those things happened, it became
easier for movie studios to get behind the idea of selling their movies for watching
at home. Especially their older and classic films which
wouldn’t make too much money with a new screening, but might turn a decent profit
on home video. Now that home video was an established business,
buying a laserdisc player made even less sense to the average consumer. What was the point of buying another machine
when I already have a VCR, now that the big movie studios are all releasing their movies
on VHS and Beta? And to be honest, Laserdisc was an inconvenient
format. Pretty much every single movie is longer than
an hour, so you’re guaranteed to have to flip the disc over. And if you push into 2 hours, you’ll need
another disc. VHS and Beta were largely immune to this,
though very long titles would push onto a second cassette. And then there was the rental market. Videocassettes may have cost more to make
than laserdiscs, but many people weren’t buying them, they were renting them. A rental store owner would make the cost of
the tape back many times over, so the high cost of the purchase wasn’t that impactful. And cassettes made more sense for rental,
as their design is inherently less fragile. The tape does wear out over time which Laserdisc
was (at least they thought) immune to --it wasn’t!-- but any surface scratches on the
surface of a Laserdisc would immediately harm the image quality. And the smaller, chunky nature of a videocassette
was easier to transport than the flat, large size of the laserdisc. As years passed, the videocassette received
the benefits of economies of scale much more than Laserdisc did. Though it should be noted that the price disparity
between laserdisc and tapes continued for some time. There’s a clip on YouTube of Siskel and
Ebert and the Movies, and in it they discuss how the film Running on Empty, released in
theaters in 1988-- "that came out at 89.95 on tape, but 24.98 on disc" --But they also
noted that at this time, movie studios were beginning to sell cheap tapes. Paramount had been releasing some films on
tape for $14.95 with some bargain tapes going for $9.95. The trend of tapes continuing to get cheaper
would go on, and Laserdiscs wouldn’t get to join in on that. At this point, it might seem that Laserdisc
would be doomed. Being beaten to market by a device which could
record really hurt its chances, and once the movie studios had started offering their content
on VHS and Beta, buying a second device just for watching movies didn’t make tons of
sense. But Laserdisc didn’t die. It clinged to life until 2000, co-existing
with DVD for 4 years. It was the collectors market, and to a lesser
extent the education market, that saved them from a complete death. Those who bought Laserdisc from the mid 1980’s
onward largely did so for reasons of quality and exclusive content. In the next video, we’ll look at how Laserdisc
evolved over the years into the pinnacle of home entertainment, and we’ll also look
more closely at the features--and follies--of the format itself. Thanks for watching. If this is your first time coming across the
channel, please consider subscribing. This channel is made possible by supporters
on Patreon. Patrons of the channel are what keeps these
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in the description. Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time! ...ability to record. I began the previous video with (in a quick,
snarky, nasal voice) A product with an unknown purpose that was both a few years too late
and way too far ahead of its time
