CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[Jesse Skeen]

One question that's repeatedly come up ever since I started collecting these things: MCA was one of the initial supporters of Laserdisc, so what was the story of how they ended up releasing stuff on CED? The only answer I've heard was just that they caved in after a lot of CED player owners kept asking for their movies, but was that really a significant number, and wouldn't MCA not have wanted to support the competing (and inferior) format?

Anyone know the real story behind this? (Another irony was RCA controlled Columbia Pictures' video output for a while, and they ended up releasing laserdiscs manufactured by Pioneer.)
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Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[Rixrex]

Before the recent Blu Ray vs HD DVD fiasco, the movie production companies were not restrictive by home video format, and did not actually have ownership of any particular format. Even if there was a preference for a particular format, anti-trust laws and anti-monopoly laws at that time would have prevented ownership and such restrictive behavior, as when the studios were forced to give up their company owned theaters many years earlier.

Home video formats were just another way to get the product out and sold, so why not let product go to any available format?

But with BR vs HD, and after losing the VHS-Beta battle, Sony learned that if they somehow could control the production of home market releases, partly by ownership of MGM, which should have never been allowed, and partly by payola to other production companies, which should have been prosecuted, they could lock up a big share of the product and squeeze out Toshiba's HD DVD. The final blow came when Warners went Blu Ray exclusive then, quite interestingly, a few months later we find out that Warners had gotten the rights to all releasing, licensing fees and royalties from DVD releases of the Sony/MGM film library archives, and even got to put the Warners logo on the packages.

It was a case of an administration that didn't care to prosecute big business, a public that didn't know any better, entertainment pundits that complained about competing formats, a news media whose idea of investigative reporting is easily set-up sting operations, and cash-rich Sony spreading around so much money that Toshiba couldn't keep up. A rare instance where the cheaper one of two of the same product (in the public's eyes) failed.

Left on their own, and with all theatrical product available to both formats, it's a good possibility Sony would have lost again to another smaller Japanese company. And they could not save face in Japan had that happened. Imagine a whole executive group committing hare kare at the same time.

[cbertra2]

In my opinion Toshiba's HD-DVD format was a better format for watching movies. I Think the video had a more natural analog look than Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray has gotten a little better but out of the box in the beginning HD-DVD was a clear winner. I am on my fifth firmware update on my Sony Blu-Ray. I quit checking on Sony's website for firmware updates, I just wait until a new Blu-Ray movie will not load or play properly and then I know it's time for an update. It is a case of marketing beating out over quality. I have twice as many HD-DVD discs than Blu-Ray and still buy them when I run across them.

[Rixrex]

I agree, in over 35 yrs of home video viewing, plus having a degree and professional experience in film and television, I also though the HD format for viewing purposes was the better format in giving the viewer a more film-like experience. Blu Ray had a tendency to look unrealistic. as if even the live action was CGI.

Another effect of BR with a high HZ refresh rate is to lose the natural blur effect that our eyes have for fast motion, and then this live motion looks too much like the old stop motion animation where there was no blur to the model's moves, Dragonslayer being the one exception due to a new model animation technique they used, and which was never used again as far as I know.

Other advantages HD had over BR were the price, proven MS coding easy to update, no region code restrictions. BR did have more capacity and a better anti-duplication system, but these were not significant feature benefits for home viewing of a film. I'd say this was one time when the 'overall' better format did not succeed in a head to head competition, and the reason was illegal anti-competitive behavior including pay-offs, corruption and graft.

Now some may say, what about Beta, wasn't it better than VHS? And in quality, matching standard 1 hr Beta against 2 hr VHS SP, it was. But in reality, and for actual home viewing, Sony had to slow the beta tape to accomodate a whole motion picture, so nearly all pre-recorded home viewing was in Beta II format, which was not better than VHS SP format.

So in considering formats for the home viewing experience, I'd say VHS proved to be better 'overall' than Beta. And RCA's choice confirms that.

[Jesse Skeen]

The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format war was a huge mistake- having two physically identical yet incompatible formats, it was inevitable that one of them would fail. I was amused at how Universal stuck with HD-DVD til the bitter end and didn't release anything on Blu-Ray until it was officially dead and buried.

MCA was a huge part of laserdisc in its beginning though- they owned the DiscoVision label which also licensed a few Warner and Paramount movies before those companies started their own labels. With CED destined to fail anyways, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they would've supported it.
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Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[Rixrex]

Except that it's in the public interest to have competition. Had the hi-def formats been allowed to operate and be sold in a true free market without payola and graft, without a product manufacturer, who also was a producer & licenser of theatrical features, creating an oligarchy of exclusivity in order to freeze out the competition, then the two formats would have stood on their own merits and the purchasing public would decide what was best for them. The mistake was that the justice dept. of a pro-big business administration took a hands off approach at this illegal activity.

It's plausible that both could have continued viable for quite a long time. That isn't a bad situation, as competition is nearly always better for product development and pricing. What created the animosity towards there being two different HD formats was the fact that too many releases were only in one format or the other, not both. So if one wanted to go HD, one had to get both players or the one which had more of what you liked, or guess at which one would not fail. That is what caused the aggravation on the part of purchasers.

Looking back at the CED Universal situation from this point in time makes Universal an easy target but, back in 1981, CED looked like just another market where money could be made. If Universal had limited themselves to LDs, they'd have been losing out on another market that at the time was in a great number of households already. So it did make sense to release on CED as well as LD and videotape.

[7jlong]

By the time Selectavision looked to being having some measure of success MCA was pretty much done with the optical videodisc market. By the end of 1981 (when Selectavision was just gaining ground) Discovision had more or less spun itself right into Pioneer's hands and MCA (and their strange bedfellows IBM) had much less of a role as the Discovision imprint died in favor of Laserdisc.

So as to why they licensed their films to Selectavision - my guess is it probably helped a bit in recouping some of the money they lost nursing the doomed Discovision along.

Just a guess.