I said


So why didn't laser disc take off? It was clearly superior to VHS and is
arguably superior to DVD.

Tom said


Not that much better than VHS/Beta and nowhere near DVD

I said


I quite disagree on both counts. DVD ghas some serious image problems that
laser disc never suffered from. There is simply no contest between laser
dics
and VHS.

Tom said



Sure there was. Price was only one. Availability was the other.

i was strictly speaking about performance.


Tom said


Picure quality
on LD varied remarkably from release to release.


As it did with VHS and still does with DVD. I persoanlly mastered the transfer
of one comercial release for VHS and produced the commercial poduct. I spared
no expense to produce the best VHS cassettes possible. The Laser disc produced
off the same exact masters simply killed the VHS version. Laser discs were
simply inherently superior. There is no way to prevent some people from
producing crappy laser discs, DVDs or VHS cassettes.

Tom said


Personally I've never seen major picture quality problems with DVD and the
basic picture quality improvement with DVD is much greater than the
improvement
of LD over VHS/Beta.

Well we totally disagree on this one. While it is more a matter of original
matterial and quality of transfer when comparing DVDs to laser discs there is
no getting around the fact that the best DVDs still have major problems with
contrast color accuracy and pixilation with sudden rapid movement in the image.
You may not notice it but it bothers me a great deal. These problems are
clearly a problem unique to the DVDs themselves.

Tom said



I was a Laser-Fan and spent several thousand on laser hardware and software,
enjoying the picture improvement thoroughly, but it was not as major a step
forward as DVD, which dispensed with the analog video.

We obviously are looking at the image quite differently. Certainly some DVDs
look better than some of their laser disc counterparts but for the most part I
find the opposite to be true. i also find the best laser discs to be
substantially better than anything on DVD. DVDs have some serious flaws. I live
with them because it is all we have but it is not a good picture IMO unless you
are watching cel animation without shading.

Tom said


LPs never "gave way" to cassette.


I said


Complete nonsense. In less than 10 years cassettes went from non-existance
in
the market to total domination of the market.


Tom said


My memory may be wrong but I thought that it took nearly 10 years from
introduction before cassette captured half the market.

It had 80% or there abouts by the eighties. Commercial releases on cassette hit
the market in the mid to late seventees if I remember correctly. It took CDs
about the same amount of time to overtake cassettes. The LP gave way to the
cassette and the cassette gave way to the CD. The LP just happened to stick
around while the cassette died.


Tom said


OTOH CD dominated LP in
a comparatively short time.

So? Cassettes were already totally dominating the market. Cassettes overtook
8-track pretty quickly too.


Tom said


IMO analog formats like VHS, Cassette and LP co-existed quite nicely just as
CD/DVD coexist now. SACD and DVD-A are a "laser-like" format, a specialty
market that will keep "going" as long as manufacturers will continue
supporting
it. Like Sony did with Beta and Pioneer did with Laser Disc. My gratitude to
both of them.


You say this as though LPs have gone away. They continue to enjoy a niche
market that has grown substantially over the past 10 years.

I said


Something like an 80% market
share. The LP certainly did give way to the cassette. The fact that both are
analog couldn't be less relevant to my claim.

Tom said


Actually it is relevant. The 'real' technology replacement was analog by
digital.

We ween't talking about "technology"we were talking formats. So it was quite
irrelevant dispite your attempt to change the issue.

Tom said

We have also overlooked the digital format wars. Remember DCC and
Minidisc?

Vaguely.

Tom said

How about DAT; it replaced open-reel analog tape in an eye-blink for
both studio and on-location recordings.

Balony!


I said


It is more convenient. Without that it wouldn't have made such an impact. I
agree that it was an improvement in quality over cassettes.


Tom said


And a major, major improvement over LP.

IYO. Not in mine.

Tom said

If it were primarily convenience than
cassette would still be a major player.


No. CDs are better in quality than cassettes. They are also much more rugged so
they are a tad bit more convenient