Never owned a LaserDisc player until 1994. So I found the following videos from the mid 1980's particular fascinating. "Cleveland Tech Report" produced for Kerry Decker's "NightLife" cable-TV show that aired in the 1980s. This report is about the Laserdisc videodisc system that first appeared in late 1978....and the Magnavox player demonstrated was the first laserdisc player ever released. This was produced in 1984 and is very detailed.

Part 1


Part 2


Interesting perspective from back in the day ... from the expanded "alternate ending" of the second video that takes place at 2:30 min.

1. Current day term "LaserRot" was referred to as "dust" that was pressed inside the disc during the manufacturing process.
2. Early Disco Vision titles were perceived as higher quality than the latter Pioneer releases.
3. VHS & Beta Titles were around $30 & LD titles were $10 more.
4. Not many places rented LaserDisc titles.

Hello condorsat,

Thank you for digging this out, whatched and enjoyed both parts.

To be honest I never purchased any Laservision Disc's mostly because I didn't like the covers.
Each to their own guy's

Great footage though I shall have to look at some others at some stage.

Sincere regards

I do not own any Discovision or Laservision titles either. Discovision has a reputation for having a high degree of problems with LaserRot. My own perception is that the titles that came after Discovison were of higher quality ... it's just interesting to see how a consumer was viewing this back then (the video was made in mid 1980's). When you watch the video's ... it gives you a good feel for how the format was being perceived in the mid 80's and it's understandable why it remained niche.

If you watch some of the other vintage video's by Ray Glasser that were produced for the late Kerry Decker ... you can understand the fascination people had with the Beta & the "main stream" VHS tape format(s.) The ability to watch TV shows whenever you wanted too was considered revolutionary back then ... today's it largely taken for granted. We can watch a show when we want and where we want.

Another thing that caught my ear during the video was the statement made by Glasser that it was almost impossible to find a place that rented Laserdiscs (he lived in Cleveland Ohio). I lived in Omaha Ne at that time ... and I don't remember a video store that rented them either. All I can recall is VHS and some Beta tapes. I remember that I thought of the Laserdisc format as a toy of the rich.

Ray Glasser is the same guy who runs the Beta Info Guide website, right?

http://www.betainfoguide.net/

Yes ... that's him.

Well, there was a huge market for the early Discovision discs in the mid 80's. They were actually very expensive because there were so many Discovision titles already released but most had Laserrot and so clean copies went for huge amounts of money. Here is quote from an article from David Robert Celliti where he talks about prices of Discovision discs.

randomtvandmovie ... interesting ... thanks for posting the information. I've always avoided Disco Vision because I've heard stories of LaserRot as high as 70% ... not sure how true it is ... don't own any myself.

That's really a misconception. DiscoVision suffered from a serious lack of quality control, so that many of their discs were defective right off the pressing line, but those which weren't have survived rather well. Many of them suffer from speckles due to foreign bodies embedded in the disc material, which interrupt the scanning beam, & can be mistaken for laser rot, but really haven't gotten any worse since they were first played. On the other hand, early Pioneer pressings suffered from a form of progressive warp, owing to problems with the injection-molding process.

So what would the "estimated" defect rate be for DiscoVision titles? In my own collection ... my LaserRot rate is probably about 5% ... of a little over 180 titles ... with only about two being really bad. I really have no idea ... I'm curious.

DiscoVisions "off the press" defect rate was around 90% during the first year - once IBM joined with MCA, The defects dropped to around 60%, with the CLV discs being far worse. Plus, for the first year, the Magnavox player didn't meet the disc specifications that MCA had relaxed in March of 79. The first Pioneer player was designed for these relaxed spec discs due to the MCA/Pioneer partnership, Universal Pioneer.

Interesting ... thanks for posting the info.