[NJARC] Re: Videodisc

[amagoun]

The best, and conveniently brief pb, book is Margaret Graham's RCA and
the VideoDisc: The Business of Innovation, which details the convoluted
way a generationally new product is developed and brought to market.
The work was sponsored by Harvard Business School in the mid-1970s, and
no one anticipated that it would flop or that GE would buy RCA shortly
after.  The project was the Princeton Labs' major project with the
Consumer Electronic/Record Divisions in Indianapolis and represented a
tour de force to put video frequencies in record grooves at 10,000 per
inch.  A basic restriction was cost, so lasers were out but the discs
can be read by laser.  The cassettes were added to keep the discs
immaculate in household environment, and as anyone who has an early
player can attest, a child can use it.  We play Star Wars on the CT-100,
which will be playing during the Open House/Clinic on Jan. 28.  The
causes of death were multiple, delays in production coming from hanging
onto electron-beam rather than diamond-stylus recording, CEO turnover,
inter-divisional conflicts, and the spontaneous development of VCR tape
rentals, which defeated the discs' price advantage ($15-20 v. $60-80).
The whole period of home video has come in for attention from graduate
students, several of who have come here for research on dissertations.

cheers,
Alex

--
Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D.
David Sarnoff Library
201 Washington Road, CN 5300
Princeton, NJ 08543-5300

609-734-2636
amagoun at davidsarnoff.org
(f) 609-734-2339
www.davidsarnoff.org