The LaserDisc: Important, Yet Forgotten
At first glance, it looks like a large DVD, large enough to fit comfortably in a record player. In some ways that’s not far off. The LaserDisc was expected to be the next generation of media storage and playback, a revolutionary way of presenting video that offered unparalleled clarity and quality. But as with all new technology, the price of entry was steep, and this hurt the LaserDisc throughout its entire lifespan. In the end, it failed to catch on as a viable alternative to the more popular VHS, and now remains a fascinating chapter in the history of entertainment and its delivery into our homes.
Looking back at it now, the large, reflective disc holds the odd distinction of somehow appearing both futuristic and outdated. It’s melding of the old vinyl record format with the then-unheard of optical disc makes for a technology both imposing and quaint. Despite its odd appearance, LaserDisc was truly a step forward in technology when it was released.
In 1884 Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter recorded sound on a glass disc using a focused beam of light. These three men had plenty of technological accomplishments under their belts already, but this experiment would prove instrumental in demonstrating the possibility of what would later be known as the Optical Disc, a format characterized by patterns of binary information read by a laser. The technology was experimented on and perfected during the early 20th century, but was not widely available until the 1978 introduction of the Laserdisc by tech companies Phillips and MCA. This came only two years after the release of the Video Home System (VHS).
1978 saw the release of the first LaserDisc film: Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Their production continued for more than 20 years, and the final title released in America for the format, Bringing Out the Dead, was released in 2000. In that time, LaserDisc offered a much higher quality picture than the other competing home media format, VHS. In fact, other countries (particularly in Asia) embraced the format and it retained a steady popularity throughout its lifespan. So why did the LaserDisc fail in America when videocassette tapes succeeded?
As mentioned before, many now view price as the reason this format was never able to reach a wider audience. Initially, producing a LaserDisc was less expensive than producing a VHS tape, since the tapes had multiple moving parts that brought cost up, not to mention the time-consuming tape duplication process. However, after a few years of production, the sheer amount of plastic needed to produce a LaserDisc meant that they had surpassed the VHS in terms of cost of production, and at some points a LaserDisc movie would cost around $100. In addition, blank VHS tapes could be use used for recording while LaserDiscs were a single-use item. If the expensive, limited discs contributed to the medium’s failure, then the LaserDisc players themselves were the final nail in the coffin. Though some players could be purchased at around $300-$400, higher quality players could reach $1000, if not more. This steep price prevented many people from buying in at all, because to many consumers the higher quality simply wasn’t worth the higher cost.
The DVD was released in the U.S. in 1997. It was a much smaller version of the technology used in the LaserDisc, with the added bonus of a lower cost and the ability to store computer programs and other information beyond the visuals and sound. Their relatively low cost and large data capacity made them a big hit, quickly adopted by a market looking to replace clunky, low-fidelity VHS tapes. Although the DVD and the LaserDisc did coexist for several years, there was never a competition between the two. With the fast, accessible DVD permeating the marketplace, LaserDiscs seemed more antiquated than ever, and their use slowly fizzled out.
Although today they are more likely to be found in the dollar bins of secondhand stores or the display cases of museums than in homes, the LaserDisc represents a drastic leap in technology. In some ways, it was greatly ahead of its time and laid the foundation for the future of media storage and consumption. In other ways, it was grossly behind the times, priced inadequately and offering fewer options than their competitors. Despite this, their impact and innovation is undeniable, and the large, reflective discs grab your attention today just as they did all those years ago.
