“So for now, don’t give up your VCR”

Laserdisc_a

 

Back in 1992, Buffalo’s WGRZ aired a piece on the return of the laserdisc which had won a small war against rival disc format CED, but lost out to VHS and Betamax because of the latter’s recording capabilities.

With material sourced from Consumers Reports, the news piece goes through laserdisc’s pros & cons, but suggests it may not be the new big thing. History proved them right – it didn’t exceed tape because of an inability to record and the higher prices of discs – but laserdisc is directly responsible for cultivating and refining the concept of special editions, and was the first real push to present films with robust audio, and in widescreen.

 

 

Back in 2001 I remember we had a demo, if you will, for complainers of ‘those annoying black bars.’ Like a card, when opened it, you saw a mounted widescreen image from James Cameron’s The Abyss (1989), and when the card was closed, the matted border re-framed the image to full screen, chopping off the picture to a relative square.

That’s how a few at a time learned the pros of letterboxing.

Comments are closed.