Digital Video Disc New Trend In Home Electronics

Few things are certain in the mercurial world of consumer electronics, but here is one: The laserdisc is close to death.

Yes, that crisply efficient, 10-inch disc with the surprisingly vivid picture and surreal sound is headed for the home electronics Dumpster. The culprit: an emerging video technology known as digital video disc (DVD), due to appear early next year.

Once a dominant standard emerges, it’s expected that the audio CD-sized platters will become the medium of choice for in-home playback of rented movies and directto-video productions. Featuring sharper digital pictures, vast capacity for audio and data storage (up to eight language audio tracks and 32 subtitle channels), greater convenience and durability than videotape and a price advantage over both, DVD is poised to largely replace videotape over the coming decade. (The one stickpoint: recording. When DVDs debut, they won’t be recordable, so consumers interested in time-shifting, video archiving and home video will need to hang onto their VCRs. Recordable DVD is likely, but not for several more years.)

Even Mike Fidler, senior vice president of new technology for U.S. laserdisc leader Pioneer Corp., sadly predicts laserdiscs will fall to DVD in three to five years.

Of course, none of this sentiment is preventing the company from jumping enthusiastically on the DVD bandwagon, with its first DVD player due to come on the market next year. To help ease loyalists’ transition, and perhaps their pain, the company may market an adapter allowing laserdisc machines to play DVDs.

So what went wrong with the oncepromising technology?

Laserdisc entered the market at the same time as VCRs, and the fact that they couldn’t record was a serious disadvantage. So did the format’s higher price, limited availability of new and rental software and the lack of adult titles.