How did your parents watch movie at home back then? No downloaded movie in hard discs, no CD’s, heck! It was even expensive to own a home video movie viewing system! Thank God for digital video discs! We don’t need to head to our nearest video rental store to rent out those gigantic shiny Frisbee looking round things called laser disc. When VHS tapes were released back then, we thought that it was the coolest thing to happen to movie videos, superseding the now-defunct betamax tapes.
Laser disc players sold like hotcakes even if one unit would cost a high price tag of 600 US dollars. It dawned the era of streak-free and nose-free home video viewing and at the same time, one-click shuffling from one stage to another was called chapters.
It was not convenient as it seemed because unlike your current DVD player, you have to flip the disc from side A to side B to finish watching the movie. Although there were some models with auto-flippers, it would cost you another arm and leg.
Video rental shops sprouted like mushrooms all over the metro! You can easily locate one if you were finding one back then. Each overnight rent would cost around $2.50 depending whether what you have is a single or double disc. Overnight means, you have to return it the next day or face the stiff penalties imposed which could be as costly as your rented video.
That is not it. Another caveat is that you have to handle these delicate laser discs with utmost care. Having them just lying around the house with kids, animals or sunlight in its path would increase the chances of your laser disc being damaged and I am sure that you would not want to do that!
A single crack on the disc would cost you to buy the whole disc regardless how small the crack is. They will forcibly let you purchase it since other customers won’t be renting that damaged disc anymore. It would cost around $60 bucks per disc.
Before, higher class people managed to save up and purchase this ridiculously priced laser discs for their home video collection. Now, they are just collecting dusts in their shelves. Sadly, those people spent a fortune on them.
A lot of movie buffs feasted on renting laser discs and copying the movies on VHS tapes for home viewing and video rental purposes. This is also another kind of piracy back then, which evolved now to DVD’s. It was called laser copy and now, the term burning is used when copying discs.
Although Laser discs are not relics per se, there are still some who watches laser discs to revive the old feeling they had when DVD discs were no where seen in the future. Don’t worry, the now famous DVD discs would be a relic in the near future. Do you remember the first DVD or CD you ever bought? If you now own a huge collection of DVD’s, enjoy it because change is constant.
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