Challenge: Laserdisc overtakes VHS

For those of you who don't know, Laserdisc was essentially the predecessor to the DVD. It was about the size of a vinyl record, and had quality better than VHS (not on par with what DVD could offer; however, most early DVD's were just ports of Laserdisc films, and so that quality was the quality of the Laserdisc if you've ever seen a DVD produced from early in the day), and also offered widescreen (a feature VHS almost never offered). There was also other unique features; for example, you could fast-forward through anything including the FBI warnings, and while there were no menus or special features (at least I don't think) the LP-like sleeve that held it could come with special things like booklets and so forth.

Laserdisc remained mostly a niche format with the masses using VHS. I myself never recall seeing a Laserdisc player growing up, and was unaware of the format until not many years ago relatively. However, I've heard it was huge in the Asian markets, and in some areas did manage to become more popular than VHS.

The challenge is to make Laserdisc overtake VHS in popularity.
 
More format wars between VHS and Betamax can help. If you can have the Adult Movie Industry not adopt either one (IOTL, they adopted VHS as their standard, and that won the format war), then it drags on longer, and both formats take longer to be adopted in large scale.

Then, Laserdisc steps in. As one format, with superior quality to VHS and Betamax, it is immediately appealing to device manufacturers. A few well-placed popculture Science Fiction movies can help too.
 
I only remember seeing laser disks at my Junior High School. I don't recall ever seeing them in anyone's home. You would have to somehow make them appealing for home use. The advantage that VHS had was that it was very inexpensive and blank media could be found everywhere. Laser disks not so much.
 

Thande

Donor
Not very likely, but what if the TV and film industry manages to kill recordable video media as 'piracy' as they (seriously) tried to do in OTL? Then JVC and Sony would have to jump through regulatory hoops trying to 'prove' that their protected versions of Betamax and VHS could not be used as re-recordable media in illegal VCRs, whereas Laserdisc can sell its read-only products with impunity.
 
Not very likely, but what if the TV and film industry manages to kill recordable video media as 'piracy' as they (seriously) tried to do in OTL? Then JVC and Sony would have to jump through regulatory hoops trying to 'prove' that their protected versions of Betamax and VHS could not be used as re-recordable media in illegal VCRs, whereas Laserdisc can sell its read-only products with impunity.

Something keeps Mr. Rogers from testifying before the Senate?
 
What kept Laserdiscs down (I might repeat some of what you guys said)


  • They couldn't record. I don't think that's a death sentence since DVDs can't record and they still took off.
  • You had to flip them over as one side could only store half a movie. Granted, players came out that automatically flipped them over like an LP player.
  • Expense: The average Laserdisc was 30-50 dollars, and a Laserdisc player was 500 dollars.
  • Video stores in the US did not rent them. You had to buy them. In Asian nations, I believe, you could rent them.
  • People hated the black bars of widescreen. Again, not a death sentence as that was the same situation with DVDs, but still...
 
Betamax...

IIRC, Betamax was superior media and tech to VHS, but didn't sign up the film distributors, so...

IMHO, Laserdisk was like 78 vinyl: A wonderful advance on gramophone cylinders, but not good enough-- No growth potential.

Yet, it showed what could be done, and the development of reliable solid-state lasers opened the floodgates.
 
They also have the same disadvantages that LP's had: they get scratched easily. Probably even worse than LP's, if they're like DVD's, even a little bit of dirt is enough to ruin them.

Of course, DVD's also have this problem, but I suspect that DVD's being more compact than VCR tapes and laserdiscs is probably what got them off of the ground.
 
Laserdisc had size, convenience and price going against it...

Laserdisc could take off even despite its size if it

1. Had been able to fit all the data on one side for a two hour movie
2. Had come down in price to at most 30% more than tapes for both the players and the media...

or there had been some huge apocalyptic format war between VHS and Betamax which made tapes unsellable in the US or something...
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Put a laserdisc drive into a game console system, have the game console sell really well and it gets the entry market for Laserdiscs over with, like how the PS2 brought DVDs into the home.
 

Thande

Donor
Put a laserdisc drive into a game console system, have the game console sell really well and it gets the entry market for Laserdiscs over with, like how the PS2 brought DVDs into the home.

Games in the late 70s and early 80s didn't really have the sophistication to make use of that much storage space. The only exception I can think of is the arcade Dragon's Lair games, which did indeed use laserdiscs as their medium.
 
Games in the late 70s and early 80s didn't really have the sophistication to make use of that much storage space. The only exception I can think of is the arcade Dragon's Lair games, which did indeed use laserdiscs as their medium.

I didn´t thought it that way, but probably its worst problem it was that it was too advanced for its time ...
 
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