Own Brand Laser Beaming: Compact Disc Players

Abstract

After what happened with the VCR it appeared as though the battle of the systems would rage again, although this time in audio, as the prospects for the establishment of a digital audio standard were not favourable. Indeed, various such systems, partly derived from existing video disc systems, were on the verge of being launched.1 The Compact Disc player has its origin in Laser Vision — the Video Long Play, as it was then called.2 JVC and Matsushita, the originators of VHS, had developed the Video High Density (VHD) video disc player, a capacitative system, from which Audio High Density was derived.3 AEG-Telefunken had also developed a capacitative system — Teldeck — which was only an audio version. The greatly superior position of Japanese producers in the audio HiFi market at the beginning of the 1980s — up to 95% of the world market and practically 100% of the Japanese market — meant that their co-operation was necessary to establish a hardware standard. Non-co-operation would lead to Matsushita promoting its own version of the audio disc player, at least in Japan, with the danger of other manufacturers following suit, thereby undercutting prices of any other system abroad. The difference with video tape recording is that different formats can co-exist, but pre-played tapes are not interchangeable, so that distribution of non-compatible software is expensive. Different standards in record players would have the disadvantage of different formats of software only and, consequently, cause non-acceptance by consumers and, consequently, no standard at all. It can be imagined that for record players, there should be one standard only.