I do remember that a single three hour VHS video tape was £10 or more in 1979/80! It took years for them to come down in price!
JB
JB
Laserdisc Query
- Thread starter Methuselah Flint
- Start date
Speaking for the U.S., when home video began, the big studios largely believed that the public would not want to own shows and movies, but just be able to rent them for a couple of bucks. The expected market was for people who want to see stuff once, cheaply. So the way to maximize revenue was to charge rental stores an enormous price per tape, and let the stores earn it back a little at a time with numerous rentals.
Then they started getting feedback from customers who wanted to own the most popular titles, and why was it $89.95 for a single movie (like $225 today)? So they invented the "sell-through" price that individuals could better afford. And those early sell-through prices were still enormous by today's standards, because they charged every penny they could get. As any seller does.
I remember that it was a big deal when TWOK was released as a "sell through" in the fall of 1982 for the "low" price of $39.95.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wik..._(VHS)?file=Wrath_of_Khan_1983_VHS_advert.jpg
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wik..._(VHS)?file=Wrath_of_Khan_1983_VHS_advert.jpg
Weird, nowadays it's as low as £5 for a full set!!!
JB
JB
Well, apparently in 1981 the cost for customers to purchase a CED disc was between $14.98 and $39.98 (USD, $56.39 to $110.44 in 2019) (https://www.soundandvision.com/content/flashback-1981-rca-introduces-ced-‘contact’-videodisc-player)
By comparison, in the late-80’s the average price for a Laserdisc was between $35 & $50 (about $76-$98 in 2019).
By comparison, in the late-80’s the average price for a Laserdisc was between $35 & $50 (about $76-$98 in 2019).
I remember going shopping as a kid with my mom when the folks were trying to decide on their home video system in 82. It was pretty exciting. A thing that could play movies!
anyway we watched the CED system demo'd. I remember specifically as they used the Shogun Miniseries which came on a bunch of platters. Once my mother realized the disk had to be removed and flipped to continue playing after about an hour, and that it could not record anything, it was on to tape. And VHS could record longer than beta, so that was that.
Yeah, in NTSC land, VHS/S-VHS got upto recording a whole 12 hours on 1 tape in SLP mode (DF480/T240—as far as I am the tape was only released under the D-VHS branding, but D-VHS’s LS5 mode you could record 24 hours on one tape at 2.8 Mbps CBR at 480i). Betamax’s Max in NTSC was 6 hours on a L1000 tape, and even then the inside of the shell had to be reorganized to accommodate the extra tape.
Videos were fine for us back in the day apart from the trouble with the colour red or the lines that sometimes rolled down the picture interrupting our enjoyment of the programme we were watching!
JB
JB
I still use videotapes for recording stuff off-air. I volunteer with the local cable company and the only way to get copies of my work is to record off-air, and with my setup it is easier and takes less space using a D-VHS than setting up a computer to record.
But imagine if Trek had been released on D-VHS. They could’ve fit most seasons on 1 tapes in LS5 mode.
I'll bet the quality wasn't up to much then?
JB
JB
LS5 you are talking about MPEG-2 at Constant-bit-rate Of 2.8 Mbps. So it would be a little worst than the DVD’s. Of course if they had used DF-480’s, that could hold 8 hours in STD mode, they could’ve used 2 DF480’s and 1 DF120 to record most 26 episode seasons at a CBR 14.4Mbps, which would’ve offered about 3 times the quality of your average DVD, which DVD’s usually average about 5Mbps.
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