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Nice try, but again you're twisting on your own petard.

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on September 1, 2007 at 01:01:47

In Reply to: Auph, there is just so much there that's wrong in your post it would take me all day to correct you posted by Jazz Inmate on August 31, 2007 at 15:55:22:

>>> "Let's just take the 'DVD was never an issue in LD niche status'. Patently false." <<<

Baloney. In order for DVD to have been a factor in laser disc's niche status it would've had to have been around and competing against it's larger cousin from 1985 onward. Let me make this perfectly clear: by 1985 LD was a niche product.

By the mid-80's LD was considered a high-end specialty product mostly purchased by film collectors. Single films often retailed at $39.95 or $49.95 (double disc sets); TV episode two-fers for $29.95. Boxed sets and Criterion titles frequently topped $100. That is NOT a mass market product.

FYI, I recall being pitched LD in late 1978 or early 1979 in a Dallas department store, complete with nifty demos that included some salesman using a brillo-pad to scratch the surface of a demonstration disc to promote the 12" disc's ability to withstand abuse and continue to play perfectly. Even then I cringed.

The promotion of LD went on for several years, but VHS won wider public approval because of it's recordability in addition to being a movie collecting medium, even supplanting it's nearest rival Betamax. So you see, LD was in direct competition with VHS & Beta initially.

Of course there was RCA's CED system which tried to compete directly with LD and muddied the waters even more (that format was a blatant attempt to low-ball consumers into collecting movies with a cheaper stylis read device), but CED never caught on and disappeared after a few years. VHS continued to marginalize LD into it's niche status.

>>> "Period. End of story." <<<

Not quite. You realize Jazz, that I should be charging you for this history lesson, but because it's late and I still have a little ale left, I'll be generous! ;0)

You seem to suffer from long term memory loss, dude, or maybe you're just too young to remember. You keep refering to events no more than 7 or 8 years past, and you're stuck on the idea that the advent of DVD somehow created LD niche status, but that's impossible. Let me repeat: LD was a niche product well over 10 years before the advent of DVDs; you can't rewrite history.

>>> "Collectors clung to laserdiscs for years afterward; but no laserdiscs were in production." <<<

Heck, I still have laser discs in my collection and a Pioneer unit capable of playing them! I was buying Japanese import LDs back in the late 80's because many titles I sought weren't issued here. Even back then it was clear that some newer technology, probably similar to CDs and using a laser would replace LD, but that isn't the reason folks shied away from the format.

Most folks saw the convenience of recordable tapes satisfactory and the 12" disc cumbersome and space consuming. Then the laser rot issue reared it's ugly head and drove LD enthusiasm even further underground. Again, all this occurred long before Toshiba's Super Density Disc was a sparkle in the DVD Consortium's eye.

Nighty nite, Jazz! :o)

Cheers,
AuPh

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