In 2007, while sorting through old magazines to keep, or put in the re-cycle bin, I happened across an article in Issue 74 of TV Zone about Cult Television On LaserDisc. Not knowing too much about LaserDisc other than a feint memory of the Phillips (Top Loading as I recall) LaserDisc player in the 1980s I looked into what was now available and was quite surprised at how recently titles were still being released; indeed, the last releases of LaserDisc were in Japan as recently as 2002.
Reproduced below is the original article (in italics) littered with my personal opinions.
Cult Television On Laserdisc
(TV Zone Issue 74)The Home Video revolution my be with us already, but it is still only in its infancy. How many of those people who collect video tapes have had to take back a recording because it is in some way faulty? Although video companies assure us that their recordings are on top quality video tape it is quite obvious that many are not, and that video tapes on sale are most certainly not 'for life'.
Costly Start
Back in the mid to late Seventies we had the Phillips video tape, where an hour cost around £20. Then followed the surprisingly good betamax standard, which lost out to the much poorer, but better marketed, VHS tape. Over the years VHS has improved dramatically, with longer and longer running tapes, and now multi-channel, digital and seven-hour tapes are not far off.
Yet VHS is still not the best home video standard around. That prize must go to the LaserDisc, which provides the best picture definition and best sound for home use to date.
Differing TechnologiesThe LaserDisc market is ever growing, both in films and television. When video discs were first launched, about 13 years ago, they too suffegreen the problems of more than one standard existing, and the LaserDisc was effectively knocked out of the race by VHS. Then in, relatively, recent years the LaserDisc returned, with one worldwide standard. There is a variation, but more of that later.
The new discs are still the size of the old vinyl LPs, but now support Dolby surround sound and THX-quality sound in some cases. And already even higher quality sound reproduction on the format has arrived. The picture quality is quite remarkable, and comparing a similar recording made on video tape shows that LaserDisc is almost at transmission quality.
On the film front, the LaserDisc has become the collectors' standard, with 'special edition' releases containing parallel audio tracks with commentary by the film makers themselves, behind the scenes details, and a book-worth of pictures scripts and details.
For 1995 this sounded fantastic! So why didn't we all go out and buy LaserDisc players? As someone who was collecting films and TV programmes at the time this article was written, I can only look back and recall why I didn't. Firstly: I didn't know about it; this passed me by! I honestly can't remember any advertising for LaserDisc players in the 90s (not since the Phillips ones in the 80s) or any advertising for the LaserDiscs themselves.
However, remembering my personal situation in those days I simply wouldn't have been able to afford one anyway; especially as there didn't seem to be many releases that would have interested me (but this is covered further on). Secondly, in the early to mid 1990s the showing of vintage British dramas on television was becoming more frequent and splashing out on a media that one couldn't record these programmes to was a bit extravagant; after all, it wasn't until 1993 that I got my first large television (25" Sony Trinitron) and, as far as I can find, the price of a LaserDisc player would have been something equivalent to what I paid for the 25" TV; around the £500 mark. I saved up for ages for that telly! Having said that a VCR I bought around the same time cost around £350 but, as previously mentioned, the primary concern for most VCR purchases was the ability to record; a facility which even a more expensive LaserDisc player couldn't provide.
Maybe the 're-launch' of LaserDisc was just too late; I got my first DVD player, once DVD was a definite established format, in 1999; only a few years after the TV Zone article was written - the attraction being far superior picture quality than VHS and much smaller storage space. DVD, upon its release, rendered Laserdisc obsolete; so much for "and one which will be with us for some time yet."
There is one misleading statement, in the article, regards LaserDisc; that there was only ever one standard format (for both PAL and NTSC; see further on). The format was added to include better soundtracks etc, but a 1980s BBC Video LaserDisc will play in a 1990s LaserDisc player. It is possible that the article is referring to Video CD or Phillips' short lived CD-i.
I certainly won't disagree with the comments regards having to take back VHS tapes because of faults; I recall taking back my copy of Doctor Who's The War Games about three times and still settling with a poor recording. However, there are many VHS advocates that are still keeping collections on VHS because they trust their home recordings more than with DVD-/+R as many VHS home recordings and purchases have lasted (see What Is Best For Storage: VHS or DVD-/+R?). Time has also not been that kind to Laserdisc either. A search on net throws up that LaserDiscs were often poorly made and suffered from what is called 'Laser Rot'; this is where air has gotten into the inside of the LaserDiscs and oxidised the reflective layer: laser rot can appear as surface damage or, on playback, as blocks across the screen.
LaserDisc was also limited by the amount of video that could be contained; the technology was similar to music CDs and would only hold one hour of video per side on the 12 inch discs making a maximum of two hours playback. For the average length of a film, this would mean having to turn the LaserDisc over half-way through a film. This was something that a few early DVD releases did and they weren't very popular. However, some of the LaserDisc players did have a feature where it played both sides of the LaserDisc without having to remove it from the player.
One more thing to note is the '...the surprisingly good betamax standard, which lost out to the much poorer, but better marketed, VHS...' line used. I have read many web sites and forum postings on the subject and the cited reasons that VHS won over Betamax are many and varied: Betamax tapes were not long enough, better marketing of VHS (as stated), VHS helped on by availability of pornography on the format, availability of more films on VHS, VHS machines being cheaper to produce and buy... But was Betamax really that much better? Many think that it was (although I have never seen an actual betamax/vhs comparison; can someone lead me to one?) but the death of Beta, as far as I can tell, was simply that it didn't have the support that VHS enjoyed. If you search the net you may find a few sites that cite the Beta was better than VHS subject as an urban myth; rather than being 'much poorer' there, apparently, wasn't much difference in the product after all.
However, back to the article and the part that interests me the most:
TV EmergenceLaserDiscs have tended to concentrate on the film world, but even television programmes are also being released, and are slowly but surely making an impact on the industry. The US market has not been slow to react to the potential of their own programmes, even if they have not always been sensible about it. When Star Trek: The Next Generation was first released it was one episode per disc, about $30. An outcry from the fans soon persuaded them to make it the standard two episodes per disc. Now the first few series of Next Generation have been released, as well as superb copies of the original Star Trek series.
Unfortunately, due to the bizarre nature of copyright and the slowness of video companies to respond, programmes are often available on LaserDisc in countries which did not originate the programmes in the first place. Two note able cases are with ITC and BBC programmes.
If you want top quality - that is made from brand new prints - versions of The Prisoner, UFO, Thunderbirds and many other ITC series then you have to go to Japan. There the programmes are so popular that the Japanese LaserDisc industry will quite happily produce discs just for the home market. The down side is that these tend to be limited pressings, and expensive to buy in Japan, and even more expensive to buy from abroad.
If you want to buy BBC programmes on LaserDisc then you must again leave the UK. A compilation of the first series of The Tripods made it to a US release. So far two Doctor Who lasers have been produced in recent years - there were two UK video disc releases but they were on one of the original laser standards. The first, Day of the Daleks, almost ruined any chances of further releases, being a compilation version and made from a very poor standard conversion. The second was The Three Doctors (sic) [this should be the Five Doctors - CB], and was a great improvement, with pin sharp picture quality. In fact, with modern day LaserDisc technology the deficiencies of the current television standard become apparent on LaserDisc.
And here, for me, is where the whole system crashes and burns; as a British Television collector I will not shell out for a system that can't or isn't able to supply the sort of material that I would want to watch (If, on the other hand, I was a music-video collector there was a huge wealth of releases!). With VHS, if programmes were not being released at least the user can record programmes or films for themselves. The trouble was it was pretty much obvious that most video production companies had committed themselves to VHS video; after all, the widespread commercial VHS market wasn't that old and LaserDisc had already stalled once in the UK already; because of this the general availability of films on LaserDisc was much more limited. Having said that, the Cinematic release dates of many films on available on LaserDisc (in the NTSC format) that are up for sale on ebay [at the time of writing] seems to suggest that there was a sizeable market up until very recently but in the US and Japan.
Some UK companies appeared to make an attempt in the 90s: Encore Entertainment released several television titles; mainly vintage BBC such as Balck Adder, Fawlty Towers and three Doctor Who stories, but also contemporary titles such as ITV's 1996 Poldark revival. I don't recall this company handling VHS releases back then and, as far as I can tell, are no longer with us today. Encore Entertainment titles still appear rarely on ebay - as do some of the old BBC video releases - and they do appear quite collectable even though they have may have received a cleaned up DVD release.
Another thing to consider is the price. First of all, I must state that the price comparisons that I am giving are based on the evidence that I have seen for myself but it could be that prices I state may have come from items purchased in sales; for the benefit of this article I am assuming that they are full-price. Anyway, the LaserDisc copy of The Ark In Space, that I recently obtained, still has its price label. The retail price states £21.99; a VHS release around the same time retailed at about £10-£12. Consider that these were the days before widescreen LCD or Plasma televisions were common (I remember seeing one of the first plasmas in Dixon's in Oxford Street in 1998 for the astounding sum of £10,000!) and the average consumer didn't have the extravagant home cinema systems that are widespread today; if they did they would be largely relying on high end VCRs anyway. But to the point: if one could by two VHS tapes for the price of one LaserDisc...
Oddly, this is in complete contrast to an 80s Laserdisc; my copy of Toyah At The Rainbow (released in 1983) also has it's price label attached and this is at £9.99. At the same time a commerical VHS tape could cost around £25 to £40. However, Video tape was already established and, as previously stated, recordable whereas the LaserDisc was not. Again the LaserDisc looses out.
Just to clarify there have been a total of Five Doctor Who releases on LaserDisc in the UK. There were two by BBC Video in the 80s: Revenge of the Cybermen and the hour long version of The Brain of Morbius. Since the article was written there were three further releases: Day of the Daleks, The Ark in Space and the Terror of the Zygons; these last three were not by BBC Video but by Encore Entertainment.
The only LaserDisc that I remember seeing for sale, while they were being marketed, was the Brain of Morbius, the hour long version, which I saw during the mid 80s in a record shop. This would have been around the time of the advertising campaign for the Phillips Laserdisc player that I have previously mentioned. I already had, and still have, this version of the Brain of Morbius on VHS (and Betamax). The mid 80s was also when BBC Video got going and many of its earlier titles were released on VHS, Betamax and LaserDisc. Betamax and LaserDisc were soon dropped from the releases, leaving only VHS. If I ever stumbled across any of these titles on LaserDisc in a boot fair, charity shop or ebay then I would probably buy it for the novelty value; and if I ever do, here it will appear.
TechnologySo back to technology of LaserDiscs. The variation in LaserDisc standards comes from the various local television standards around the world. For instance, in the US we have NTSC and in the UK we have PAL. The big plus is that players are available which play PAL and NTSC, in fact the case for PAL-format discs and players is shrinking rapidly: the majority of releases, by far, are on the NTSC discs.
Players and LaserDisc systems are still improving. The often-mentioned term 'home cinema' is really very accurate. Try watching [Star Trek] The Next Generation with a good sound system. It's almost like watching a new series. It's even more impressive with a large screen to watch it on. There are just so many things you will have not noticed before.
With so many releases on NTSC, the case for a worldwide NTSC standard for LaserDiscs is ever growing. With around 400 UK releases a year, 20,000 in the USA and 30,000 in Japan, the UK market is very small. Since just about any LaserDisc player will also replay NTSC there seems little point for UK producers to limit themselves to the PAL market when an NTSC release will give the potential of a worldwide market.
The LaserDisc market is still in it's infancy, but for fans of cult television there is a surprisingly large amount of classic [US] programmes available, with perfect picture, great sound, no advert breaks, no irritating satellite channel logos or voice-overs telling you about a programme coming up you didn't want to know about, and, best of all, great programmes.
So the death-throws for a UK television archive collector were already there to see; this was going to be for the US and as it turned out the US and Japan is indeed where LaserDisc was most popular.
I didn't really notice how poor VHS was until I bought a Loewe television in the early 2000s - this really leads me to believe that the equipment that was available to the average consumer, in the mid-90s (e.g. 21" 50hz televisions), couldn't really apply the better picture quality that Laserdisc could offer as people just wouldn't notice. In these situations the technology becomes an enthusiast item and usually doesn't last.
Oddly, at the end of the article, a call for NTSC to be a worldwide standard; what is potentially being suggested is that a UK video company e.g. BBC Video converts its releases from the original PAL to NTSC to then sell to the UK consumer whose LaserDisc player will have to convert back to PAL! This can only work if the said releases would be popular in more than one country. This could work with something like the BBC's, 'Allo 'Allo or Doctor Who, because of its huge worldwide popularity. But converting PAL to NTSC for a domestic release only, like some of the DIY or gardening programmes, would be pointless as they would only be of interest in the UK anyway.
Of course each format, PAL or NTSC, has their own 'issues' but NTSC has a lower resolution than PAL and ultimately, and the article does use the example of better quality pictures, is not allowing for its full potential in a land of PAL. But I have no doubt LaserDisc is superior to VHS and I am merely nit-picking.
Confirmation also that the system was going to be a US and Japan led format: a staggering average of 99.75% fewer releases in the UK than the US and Japan. This was always going to be a market dominated by American output. Not a problem in itself but for someone, like me, who wanted to see vintage British television the only place to get that was with VHS; this didn't make LaserDisc an attractive investment.
So, with a lack of support from UK video production companies, the price of films and LaserDisc players being, from what I have found, quite expensive in the 90s and being a non-recordable format didn't do very well for LaserDisc in the UK and, as I see it, were the reasons that it never really caught on. A mere five years after the TV Zone article went out, DVD rendered the whole system obsolete anyway.
But, as a collector, there is one thing that LaserDisc can still offer me and that is the possibility of obtaining some hard to find material. For example, during the early years of BBC Video titles were released on three different formats: VHS, Betamax and LaserDisc. It was during my initial research into LaserDisc that I just missed out on obtaining a couple of early BBC LaserDisc releases on ebay; titles that would be very difficult to find on VHS! Having said that, the same reasoning means that I will now have to investigate Betamax as well...
All LaserDiscs that appear on this page are owned by myself and were purchased while compiling this article. It is hoped, as previously stated that I will be able to obtain some hard to find titles in the near future. At the time of writing I have twice missed out on Mike Harding Goes To Town and gave up on Doctor Who: The Revenge of the Cybermen because it became too expensive.
Please Note: permission was sought to use the TV Zone article but no response was received. If the TV Zone editorial staff wish me to remove this page then please email me. I would like to restate that no profit is made from this site; the article was just so useful as a platform to introduce LaserDisc to the site it was too good an opportunity to pass.