{"id":133,"date":"2015-01-13T18:28:22","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T18:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/?p=133"},"modified":"2015-06-25T09:40:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T08:40:23","slug":"format-wars-no-love-for-laserdisc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/01\/13\/format-wars-no-love-for-laserdisc\/","title":{"rendered":"Format Wars: No Love for Laserdisc"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previously on our blog we looked at the tragic demise of Betamax<\/a> \u2013 tragic to those who actually owned Betamax players, at least. This time we\u2019re going to look at the history of the laserdisc, why it didn\u2019t take off, and where it is today. Hint: Garages, car boot sales and eBay feature heavily.<\/p>\n

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Give a kid a laserdisc today and they might be forgiven for thinking you\u2019d transported back to the Land of the Giants and offered them up an outsized DVD. The technology for laserdisc was first patented way back in 1958, but it\u2019d be another twenty years before they hit the mainstream. Befitting its 1970\u2019s inception, the laserdisc was first known as the MCA DiscoVision. Say what you will about the name, it\u2019d certainly make video formats a lot more interesting if they were named after genres of music. FunkVideo or DVDrum\u2019n\u2019Bass anyone?<\/p>\n

Pub quiz question \u2013 what was the first laserdisc ever produced and sold in America? Steven Spielberg\u2019s Jaws<\/em>. That\u2019s a pretty strong start, and it certainly had tons of benefits over VHS. The picture was of superior quality, and much sharper. And they were even cheaper to make given they have fewer moving parts, with a far greater longevity than the now classic video. The trouble was partly due to the extraordinary cost of laserdisc players.<\/p>\n

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And there was another problem. And that problem was DVD. Yep, as soon as the ol\u2019 Digital Versatile Disc hit the market it was game over for laserdisc. Sure, laserdisc might have allowed a greater amount of control when playback movies, and the fact is that, unlike DVD, it wouldn\u2019t become unplayable when the disc was scratched \u2013 it would simply skip the damaged area – but the real issue was the image. The format might have had a better quality of analogue video, but it was no match for the mighty digital.<\/p>\n

Storage was a problem for laserdisc too. Its size was comparable to an LP vinyl, and having your entire film collection on such a bulky format meant that not only was storing them at home no good. Then there\u2019s the cold, hard fact that stores didn\u2019t want to give up shelf space to so few products, preferring to cram shelves with the tinier DVD.<\/p>\n

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Videophiles still debate the relative merits of laserdisc \u2013 some reckon the quality of the audio is much better than anything else on offer. And the picture quality, it has been argued, is a lot more true to the cinematic feel of the big screen. But none of that could prevent the laserdisc going the way of the Betamax.<\/p>\n

Here at Video 2 DVD Transfers we\u2019re passionate about audio-visual technology. That\u2019s why we specialise in video to DVD<\/a> transfer. For all your conversion needs, please don\u2019t hesitate to contact us<\/a> on 0800 592 433 or email info@video2dvdtransfers.co.uk<\/a> and our team of experts will be more than happy to help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previously on our blog we looked at the tragic demise of Betamax \u2013 tragic to those who actually owned Betamax players, at least. This time we\u2019re going to look at the history of the laserdisc, why it didn\u2019t take off, and where it is today. Hint: Garages, car boot sales and eBay feature heavily.   […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.video2dvdtransfers.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}