Question, why did DVD succeed when earlier RCA CED and Laserdisc bombed?

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

...It got closer to mainstream popularity when many Blockbuster stores started selling discs...

And renting Laser Discs. '89-91 or so, there was a Blockbuster near where I worked that had 'em and for a while I rented on Friday afternoon to watch over the weekend. I wish I had the cool LaserDisc neon sign they had in the window.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Ed, you are right. If I remember right, one Blockbuster not too far away from me sold Laser Discs and a different one or two, further away, rented them.

[Ed in Tx]

They made great recordings to S-VHS

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

....the heavy marketing of a format that was far cheaper to manufacture than Laser Discs, and a sweet spot was hit that has still not been equaled or beat by Blu-ray OR online streaming, among others.

I think part of it is that tech is moving faster than consumers of recorded media want to go. Look at the 78, LP's, CDs and VHS. Better performing formats at comparable prices existed midway through their reigns, but did not displace the main stream status. During record's time magnetic tape in it's various incarnations, CD had SACD, HDCD, and DVD audio discs with better specs competing with it, VHS had ED beta, 8mm/digital8, and miniDV which IMHO were better tape formats). IMHO once a format gets a decent footing it is hard to displace it for at least 40 years since people that have long in the making collections of audio or video simply don't want to go to the expense of duplicating what they have on another format or having a second machine cluttering up their living space.

Expensive home electronics generally do not lend well to tech advancement fads as most consumers with limited funds don't take well to having to 'upgrade' (reads to them as 'needlessly blow their hard earned money') their expensive playback/recording equipment....It is expected to last at least half as long as the pipes and wiring sealed in the walls of their house...Especially if they have a personal library of media.

[Celt]

Wait....I don't have to rewind my DVD's?

[Telecolor 3007]

The price. And the size. D.V.D.'s could be played in computers too and could be used as a media storage (not for only movies).
But the big problem is that as bigger the quantity of infromation stored on a optical disc, the nastyer scracthes can be. But most people dind't considered this aspect.
I hated D.V.D.'s. Because I had to get a player for them and they killed V.H.S. I liked them at a while, not I may not say that I hate them, but they aren't a big passion for me. And since they where replaced by another technologies, they didn't had the time to make a lot of fans, like other tehcnonogie did. Of, and a lot of people had them, so they wheren't something of a extraordinary... if you show somebody a L.D., C.E.D., V.H.D. there are chances that that person will be amazed - a guy was really shocked when he saw a LaserDisc.
In the end, D.V.D. is really Dead, Very Dad.

And copywright protection... sometimes it work, sometimes no. Before the days when the internet becamed cheaper and avaible to more people + the connectionspeed increased, D.V.D. copying transefring to C.D. or D.V.D. was a business in Romania!

Ed in Tx , can you please tell us more about the days when you operated an 7280 L.D. player?

[dtvmcdonald]

The answer is the same as everything:

1) at least works

2) support by at least say 40% of the major hardball manufacturers and program suppliers

3) convenience

4) readily available porn

[maxhifi]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

All these formats were pre-recorded video movies. RCA tried to create a market for pre-recorded video "records" with their CED videodiscs. And there was Laserdisc. Laserdisc made a better picture, and RCA's discs were a little cheaper. The presence of 2 formats couldn't have helped either. And of course VHS videotape was also available. And with that, you could record your own tapes, though the image quality was pretty poor. Though one could buy porn tapes... CED was better, but it suffered from skipping (if there was dust on the disc or in the disc material). Both disc formats were rather big, about the size of LP records.

Then comes along DVD, and they were a hit. Maybe it being digital (and full standard def quality) and physically smaller made the difference?

Considering the source, this has got to be the definition of a rhetoric question
But to take it at face value - the DVD was affordable, came at a time when all forms of analog media were being viewed as obsolete, and it's advantages in terms of picture quality and sound quality were very clear to the average consumer around the time it was released. It was also heavily promoted by industry, it's non recordable nature seemed like a natural solution to piracy. Also, at the time, "digital" meant "better"

The laser disk was way too expensive versus VHS and was only ever promoted as a high end item... People who used laser disks had more money to blow than the average consumer. The CED was RCA's Edsel, it's just a shame.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Of, and a lot of people had them, so they wheren't something of a extraordinary... if you show somebody a L.D., C.E.D., V.H.D. there are chances that that person will be amazed - a guy was really shocked when he saw a LaserDisc.

I will admit to having thoughts like this about the DVD format. Right from the beginning, it was expected to be a mainstream, common product, so it never had the "thrill" of Laser Discs, nor of HD DVD and Blu-ray later, to me.