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In the last video, we took a look at the early
history of Laserdisc.

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If you haven’t seen that, you can find a
link down below or up there.

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In short, Laserdisc was the first optical
storage format, storing analog video on 12

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inch reflective discs, and it was released
at the end of the 1970’s.

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Featuring many of the noteworthy features
of DVD, it may seem surprising that it didn’t

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become that popular.

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It’s market adoption barely reached 2 percent
of videocassette recorder sales in North America,

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and was even worse in Europe.

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Its most successful market was in Asia, but
even that wasn’t fantastic.

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Only 10% of Japanese households had a laserdisc
player, and Japan was considered the healthiest market.

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In this video, we’ll find out why Laserdisc
just sorta stayed in the background its entire life.

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Let me begin by saying that the problem is
more nuanced than simply, they cost too much.

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Because initially, laserdiscs were far cheaper
than videocassettes.

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And it’s also more nuanced than laserdisc’s
inability to record.

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I began the previous video with

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--A product
with an unknown purpose that was both a few

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years too late and way too far ahead of its
time--

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Those statements are interrelated, but let’s
start with the first one - an unknown purpose.

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To understand that, you need to put yourself
in the mindset of a consumer in the mid 1970s.

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At that time, there were essentially two types
of media you could purchase to consume at home.

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Print media--that’s books, newspapers, etc,--and
music.

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For nearly a century you could purchase music
to play on a phonograph, and indeed this was

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the first way we could listen to music at
home.

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(Static, buzzing, and tuning sounds)

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(through
the radio) Radio came later, providing a source

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of free, nearly continuous programming.

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But radio was a fleeting thing, and unless
you had the patience to record a broadcast

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with a tape recorder, go back and find the
songs you actually want, dub them onto another

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tape (which requires a second tape recorder),
and then finally enjoy music uninterrupted,

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you would just buy the album from your favorite
artist on disc to play at home.

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Indeed radio was pretty much how new artists
were discovered and albums were sold.

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Some of that still happens today, but we all
seem to use streaming services or other, ehem,

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means of getting our music on-demand.

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Anyway, due to the short nature of musical
radio content--generally only three minutes

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or so for a song--the programming on a radio
station wasn’t usually organized beyond

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an hour of such-and-such music.

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Maybe you’d have a host for the
afternoon drive, but the content being broadcast

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would repeat multiple times during the day,
as after all what’s popular is popular.

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This created little incentive for a radio
listener to record the broadcast, which again

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made the sale of music in record stores a
logical, convenient thing.

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This was especially true for less popular
genres of music, where it would be rare to

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hear it on the radio anyway.

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For all these reasons, the consumer of 1975
was used to buying record albums to play at

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home, and indeed wanted to.

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Now if someone wanted to watch moving pictures,
and I’m being deliberately vague here, they

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had two options.

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For long-form content, you would go to the
the-a-ter to watch the newest releases.

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Movies were obviously not a new thing in 1975,
and the way you watched them had been the

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same for many years.

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A film was a thing you went to go see once,
maybe twice, and wasn’t something you would

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expect to see at home over and over again.

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Only the wealthy and eccentric would shell
out the cash necessary to purchase a 16 millimeter

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film projector and prints to go with it, with
a true 35 millimeter projector and films being

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the unobtanium of home entertainment.

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Television was another story, though.

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By 1975, more than 70 percent of households
in the US had a color television.

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But unlike music, which could be heard for
free through the radio or as desired when

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purchased on disc or tape, television was
only a broadcast technology.

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The viewer of a television had no control
over what was being shown.

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All you could control was what channel to
tune into.

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Movies were often broadcast on TV too, with
a generous amount of commercial breaks peppered in,

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but you still had no direct control over
what to watch.

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You were limited to what was offered.

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But that was about to change.

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By 1975, the public had been teased many times
about a videodisc system which would revolutionize

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the television experience.

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RCA had been developing their videodisc since
1964, and Phillips had demonstrated an early

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laserdisc prototype in 1969.

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These companies along with others were trying
to adapt the familiar concept of a record

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player into a video player.

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And they weren’t shy about it.

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You’ll be able to buy video records, with
movies, cooking classes, and all sorts of

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new programming.

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Imagine, television when you want it!

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Keyword: Imagine.

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While this certainly was a neat idea, it likely
didn’t resonate with many people.

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To compel a consumer to purchase a videodisc
player required you to convince them to buy

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into a new kind of media.

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It’s not as simple as a new format, we’re
talking about something foreign.

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It’s an entirely different kind of content,
all together!

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(In unison) It’s an entirely
different kind of content.

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No one had yet experienced what would come
to be called home video.

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It simply wasn’t a thing.

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The videodisc was a classic case of a solution
in search of a problem.

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Which brings us to the second issue.

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It was too late.

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Though the concept had been around for more
than a decade, it took until 1978 for it to

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be introduced, and it wasn’t available nationwide
for a couple of years.

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But three years before Discovision came onto
the scene, we got our hands on a different

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technology which actually had a problem to
solve.

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Unlike radio programming, television shows
took up a large chunk of your time, and were

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far more immersive.

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They were also scheduled, occurring on a known
channel at a known time.

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Generally, these shows were broadcast once
a week, with over a dozen episodes produced

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in a year.

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The continuity, character development, and
other serial aspects of the shows compelled

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the viewer to watch every week, and missing
your favorite television program was a severe

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disappointment.

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If only there were a device that could keep
that from happening…

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Enter the videocassette recorder.

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In 1975, Sony released the Betamax system,
and JVC followed with VHS a year later.

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I’m not going to cover the format war between
those two formats because I have already in

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previous videos, but at this stage in the
timeline, the format war was irrelevant.

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And yes, there were earlier, unsuccessful
systems, and I know about Video 2000, but

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the existence of a VCR of any kind is what
matters.

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These machines promised to change how we watch
TV.

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If you were gone, you could tape your favorite
shows using a built-in timer.

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And if there were two shows you liked that
were on at the same time, you could tape one

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and watch the other.

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The videocassette recorder had a problem to
solve.

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And it was perfect for the way television
programming worked.

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You knew when your show would be on thanks
to the TV Guide, and there was an incentive

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to not miss any episode of your favorite shows.

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It sounds silly because TV is after all unimportant
in the grand scheme of things, but the VCR

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was seen by many people as a potential way to free up
their schedule.

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The act of recording a show to be watched
later was called timeshifting, and that was

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what sold VCRs.

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If you had a VCR, it took the limitations
of a format you were used to, that’s television,

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and removed them.

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It solved a problem.

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Now, here’s where many discussions on the
failure of Laserdisc get hung up, I’m looking

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at you Simon Whistler.

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When you look back to the beginning of the
two formats, you’ll see that they were meant

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to be used completely differently.

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Take a look at early advertisements for these
machines, and you’ll see that Laserdisc

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wasn’t really ever competing with VHS or
Betamax.

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This ad for this machine describes it as a
turntable.

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A VIDEO turntable.

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And an excellent one at that, making pictures
better than TV itself!

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But you have to buy your video records, and
the ad from 1981 shows that there are a whopping

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120 to choose from!

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Ah, that’s so many!

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Look at an ad for any VCR in the late 70s
or early 80s, and you’ll see it takes a

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different approach.

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This add for the RCA machine’s 4-hour brother
talks about television shows you want to put

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on tape, and touts how easy it is to program it
so you won’t miss a thing.

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You don’t find anything about pre recorded
tapes you can buy.

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That’s because the VCRs of this time period
essentially predated modern home video.

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The videocassette recorder wasn’t being
marketed as a device to play a pre-recorded tape.

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Content distribution of that kind wasn’t
a thing yet, in large part due to the high

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cost of producing video cassettes.

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That’s right, here’s another thing in
the saga on Laserdisc that gets overlooked.

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The idea behind videodiscs in general was
that they could be mass-produced quickly and cheaply.

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Since they are stamped like vinyl records,
with RCA’s ill-fated CED system literally

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being a vinyl record, the discs could be made
pretty easily.

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From an ad linked in the description, the
original cost of Discovision titles was intended

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to be $5.95 or $9.95 for half-hour and hour
long titles, respectively, with new feature

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films priced at $15.95.

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Adjusted for inflation that may seem pricey,
but considering the price chart from Popular

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Mechanics shows the cheapest one-hour BLANK
VHS tape

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--that’s blank, with nothing on it--

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going for $16.95, you get a sense of why
the disc was considered better for content

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distribution.

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The tape used in videocassettes was a brand
new, very specialized fine particle tape.

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It was expensive to produce well over 200
meters of the stuff for each cassette.

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And to mass produce pre-recorded video tapes
in a meaningful quantity would require hundreds

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of separate videocassette recorders, each
spending the entire runtime of the program

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being recorded to actually produce a duplicate
tape.

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One machine could make dozens of laserdiscs
per hour, whereas one video tape duplicator

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would take more than an hour per tape.

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And the laserdisc players were cheaper, too!

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That same chart shows the cheapest VCR costing
$995.

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This magnavision player started at $699.

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And it doesn’t seem as though that cost
was subsidized by potential profit from selling

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discs, as Philips/Magnavox and Discovision
were separate entities.

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So then, say you’re a consumer in 1980 deciding
between these two machines.

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The Magnavision is touted as having stereo
sound and an incredible picture, and there

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are exciting interactive possibilities to
go along with it.

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But there’s not a lot of content you can
watch.

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You’d save a few hundred dollars buying
it, but once you’ve purchased 20 or so movies,

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you’ll have spent all that anyway.

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The long-term cost of ownership doesn’t
really add up.

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The VCR, though, is a somewhat mature technology.

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You know people who use them, and they love
them!

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And while this machine is more expensive,
and so are the tapes, you can’t see yourself

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needing more than one tape.

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You still aren’t sure you need to save a
TV program after you’ve seen it, after all

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that’s not been possible before, so after
you’ve watched the shows you missed that

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week, you can re-use the same tape.

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Who cares if it’s more expensive so long
as it’s reusable?

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If you buy the Magnavision machine, how often
will you really use it?

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You’d have to be buying a disc every day
to get serious use out of it, and that’ll

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get expensive fast.

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Sure the frame-by-frame and slow-motion features
are a neat gimmick, and the possibilitiy

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of an art encyclopedia is kinda cool, but
that will only occupy a few hours of time.

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You’re pretty sure you’d get bored with
it, and need to buy another disc.

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You know you’d use the VCR at least once
a week; M*A*S*H and Mork and Mindy are on

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at the same time, and you’ve always wanted
to watch both.

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Plus, you can never stay up late enough to
watch Johnny Carson.

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Maybe you’ll use it daily.

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Sure it’s kinda ugly and clunky, but who
cares if it does its job?

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Do you really need the better picture of this
machine?

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You only have a 19 inch television at home,
who knows if you could even see the difference?

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And who really needs stereo sound for TV?

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Nothing on TV’s in stereo anyway.

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And I doubt you’ll rearrange the living
room just to have this machine play through

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your hi-fi.

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See the problem?

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A Laserdisc player was a technological marvel
with some neat tricks up its sleeves, but

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its lengthy development time caused it to
be released after videocassette recorders.

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If Laserdisc had been available, say, in 1970,
I don’t think it would have struggled like it did.

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Without the existence of a videocassette recorder,
the idea of buying content to watch on your

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schedule might be more appealing.

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After all, you’ve been doing the same thing
with music for decades, and there would be

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nothing else to allow you that sort of flexibility
on your TV.

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But with the VCR already on the market, suddenly
the Laserdisc has to convince buyers to forgo

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timeshifting capabilities for cheap-to-own
movies.

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Which again, was an odd proposition to many
consumers of the time, having never been able

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to own a movie before.

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The idea of owning movies was also a foreign
idea to movie studios.

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They had never before needed to think about
how to sell their content for mass home consumption.

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Laserdisc was trying to start an entirely
new market category: that of home video.

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With MCA backing the Discovision format, their
catalogue of content could easily be licensed.

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But Discovision would face challenges when
trying to license other content.

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Movie studios were understandably reluctant
to sell their catalogues of movies to a company

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like Discovision.

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Before home video, it wasn’t uncommon for
older movies to be released in theaters again.

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The movie studios were used to charging essentially
per-view, and a home video solution goes entirely

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against that.

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The issue of licensing was further complicated
in the disc realm by competing standards and

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confusing branding.

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With the development of their CED system,
RCA was hard at work convincing movie studios

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that they should license their content to
RCA.

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This might have limited the content available
to Discovision if any exclusivity clauses

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were added to the contracts signed.

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It was also frustrating to consumers, as they
didn’t know which disc system would be better

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supported with content down the road.

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And even among Laserdisc players, Magnavox
continued to refer to this as Magnavision,

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even though the discs you could buy were called Discovision

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and the format had been christened Laservision

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by this time.

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This fear and confusion probably kept a good
number of videodisc players on store shelves.

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Thus began a chicken-and-egg problem.

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Buying a laserdisc player in the early years
meant buying into a system with limited content.

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This kept sales low.

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Which meant there weren’t a lot of people
with players.

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Which meant the movie studios couldn’t make
much money selling discs.

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Which meant there wasn’t much content, which
kept the sales of players low, and the cycle continued.

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But videocassette recorders didn’t have
that problem in the slightest.

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Going back to our ad, you’ll remember that
pre-recorded content isn’t mentioned at all.

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That’s because, this wasn’t their primary
purpose.

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Time-shifting was what you did with a VCR.

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It didn’t have anything to do with buying
a movie to watch over and over again.

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Who would want that?

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But plenty of people would want to record
their TV shows while they weren’t at home.

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That was an idea you could get behind.

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As more and more people purchased a VCR, suddenly
there was a large installed base of devices

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that could play a pre-recorded tape.

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And now there was a place for home video.

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Tapes needed to get cheaper to manufacture,
and duplication facilities needed to mature.

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But once those things happened, it became
easier for movie studios to get behind the

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idea of selling their movies for watching
at home.

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Especially their older and classic films which
wouldn’t make too much money with a new

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screening, but might turn a decent profit
on home video.

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Now that home video was an established business,
buying a laserdisc player made even less sense

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to the average consumer.

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What was the point of buying another machine
when I already have a VCR, now that the big

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movie studios are all releasing their movies
on VHS and Beta?

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00:15:11,399 --> 00:15:15,059
And to be honest, Laserdisc was an inconvenient
format.

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Pretty much every single movie is longer than
an hour, so you’re guaranteed to have to

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flip the disc over.

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And if you push into 2 hours, you’ll need
another disc.

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VHS and Beta were largely immune to this,
though very long titles would push onto a

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second cassette.

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And then there was the rental market.

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Videocassettes may have cost more to make
than laserdiscs, but many people weren’t

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buying them, they were renting them.

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A rental store owner would make the cost of
the tape back many times over, so the high

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cost of the purchase wasn’t that impactful.

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And cassettes made more sense for rental,
as their design is inherently less fragile.

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The tape does wear out over time which Laserdisc
was (at least they thought) immune to

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--it wasn’t!--

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but any surface scratches on the
surface of a Laserdisc would immediately harm

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the image quality.

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00:15:59,689 --> 00:16:04,790
And the smaller, chunky nature of a videocassette
was easier to transport than the flat, large

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size of the laserdisc.

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00:16:06,470 --> 00:16:10,610
As years passed, the videocassette received
the benefits of economies of scale much more

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than Laserdisc did.

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00:16:11,730 --> 00:16:16,059
Though it should be noted that the price disparity
between laserdisc and tapes continued for

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00:16:16,059 --> 00:16:17,059
some time.

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00:16:17,059 --> 00:16:20,850
There’s a clip on YouTube of Siskel and
Ebert and the Movies, and in it they discuss

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how the film Running on Empty, released in
theaters in 1988--

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00:16:23,940 --> 00:16:29,460
"that came out at 89.95 on tape, but 24.98 on disc"

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--But they also
noted that at this time, movie studios were

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beginning to sell cheap tapes.

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00:16:34,309 --> 00:16:40,739
Paramount had been releasing some films on
tape for $14.95 with some bargain tapes going for $9.95.

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00:16:40,739 --> 00:16:44,500
The trend of tapes continuing to get cheaper
would go on, and Laserdiscs wouldn’t get

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to join in on that.

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00:16:45,730 --> 00:16:48,939
At this point, it might seem that Laserdisc
would be doomed.

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Being beaten to market by a device which could
record really hurt its chances, and once the

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movie studios had started offering their content
on VHS and Beta, buying a second device just

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for watching movies didn’t make tons of
sense.

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But Laserdisc didn’t die.

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It clinged to life until 2000, co-existing
with DVD for 4 years.

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00:17:06,839 --> 00:17:11,050
It was the collectors market, and to a lesser
extent the education market, that saved them

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00:17:11,050 --> 00:17:12,660
from a complete death.

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00:17:12,660 --> 00:17:17,079
Those who bought Laserdisc from the mid 1980’s
onward largely did so for reasons of quality

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00:17:17,079 --> 00:17:19,020
and exclusive content.

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00:17:19,020 --> 00:17:23,060
In the next video, we’ll look at how Laserdisc
evolved over the years into the pinnacle of

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home entertainment, and we’ll also look
more closely at the features--and follies--of

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the format itself.

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Thanks for watching.

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00:17:30,160 --> 00:17:33,740
If this is your first time coming across the
channel, please consider subscribing.

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00:17:33,740 --> 00:17:36,890
This channel is made possible by supporters
on Patreon.

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00:17:36,890 --> 00:17:40,820
Patrons of the channel are what keeps these
videos coming, and each of you deserves thanks.

306
00:17:40,820 --> 00:17:45,140
If you’re interested in supporting the channel
as well, please check out my Patreon page

307
00:17:45,140 --> 00:17:48,380
through the link on your screen, or down below
in the description.

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00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:51,360
Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time!

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00:17:57,600 --> 00:17:59,260
...ability to record.

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00:17:59,270 --> 00:18:03,070
I began the previous video with (in a quick,
snarky, nasal voice) A product with an unknown

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purpose that was both a few years too late
and way too far ahead of its time