An object lesson in how to lose a decade or so

Editor’s note: On the heels of this month’s Multimedia and CD-ROM Expo in San Francisco, where the unbridled (and, we might add, mostly unwarranted) enthusiasm was so thick you needed a scythe to walk the show floor, it might be a good time to take a little walk down memory lane.

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the first interactive multimedia format: the Analog Laser Videodisc, which Philips and MCA introduced to the North American market in 1978. The laserdisc, as it came to be called, seemed to have it all: full screen, full motion video (up to two hours per double-sided disc), two tracks of good audio, and, if desired, still color images — up to 108,000 of them!

Videodisc, it was claimed, was the “medium of all media.” Then, while Jimmy Carter was still president, Philips, MCA, IBM and Pioneer, in various combinations (does the name DiscoVision Associates ring a bell?), brought out laserdisc players that could be interfaced with the microcomputers of the day, as well as players that were manufactured with internal microprocessors. These made it possible to link the computer’s text files, structured databases, computer graphics, and logic with the laserdisc’s audiovisual sights and sounds.

Now that really was multimedia. It was interactive: the system could respond to the user’s input, and could directly retrieve images and sounds. The conjunction of movies, computers and publishing was at hand, as Nicholas Negroponte of MIT’s Media Lab would say and demonstrate. A Japanese electronics company (Pioneer) even got together with a Hollywood studio (Universal) to nudge this development along. Plus ½a change … .

What happened? If the world is so hungry for interactive multimedia, shouldn’t there be videodisc players connected to computers everywhere by now? How did interactive multimedia make so little impact the first time around?

LESSON ONE: IGNORE STANDARDS, LET PLATFORMS MULTIPLY ENDLESSLY

The laserdisc that Philips and its allies introduced and Pioneer ultimately championed, this direct ancestor of the compact disc, this analog laserdisc that in our digital age is only now becoming a hot consumer electronics product, was not the only videodisc in the Age of Disco and Malaise. No, going against the laserdisc were Thomson’s incompatible transparent optical disc, RCA’s SelectaVision, Matsushita’s VISC and JVC’s VHD.

Cross-platform compatibility? Of course not. Consumer confusion? Of course. Furthermore, the technically clunky formats did a certain amount of well-poisoning for the more proficient laserdisc. Burned by an inferior format, customers decided they could wait a decade or so.

The class structure. The laserdisc player designers and marketeers decided, in their wisdom, that there would be different classes of video players for different degrees of interactivity. The classes would permit the marketing of inexpensive consumer players for movies, with just basic random access capabilities, and more sophisticated (more expensive) players for digitally controlled interactive training, public access kiosks, etc.

(This sounds like Sony’s latest announcement of a whole range of CD-ROM drives, all with different prices –and access times — which assures title developers that they have no assurance whatsoever how a single disc will run across a number of drives.)

First there’s Level I … Level I interactivity (as labeled by the University of Nebraska Videodisc Group) used no digital data to guide the user. If the user knew the desired chapter number or frame number, he/she could play the desired segment by punching in its address on a remote control device. On more recent Level I players, a barcode scanner can read the address information from barcode stripes on a printed page.

Mercifully, Level I format laserdiscs have remained quite compatible across the various manufacturers’ players. It is true that there is a difference between standard play (CAV) discs, which allow access to each frame for still-frame display and special effects capabilities, and extended play (CLV) discs, which trade off those features for doubling the motion video playing time, but all laserdisc players can accept both of these formats.

Poor image support. One problem that was never really solved was that there was never a standardized or wholly satisfactory way to deliver audio messages in conjunction with a still image, other than shooting the still as if it were a moving image. Coupled with the surprisingly high cost of capturing still images onto the analog laserdisc format, videodisc developers were pushed toward high cost motion video or film material.

Next there’s Level II … Level II was also never standardized. It was the one-box multimedia appliance solution of its day, the CD-I or CDTV of 1979. With an internal microprocessor and a tiny amount of ram, it was hoped that enough data could be read from one of the videodisc’s audio tracks to present the user menus or choices in proper sequence, and link them to disc segments.

Underpowered and nonstandard, the Level II device, in theory, eliminated the need for a separate computer, but it was never given the intelligence and flexibility to replace a computer. It also couldn’t offer a price advantage over the plummeting costs of PCs and Macs.

(Let’s see … a PC clone today costs around $700, just about the retail cost of CD-I … . )

And finally, Level III. Then there was Level III — the configuration that required interfacing a general-purpose desktop computer and a laserdisc player. From a compatibility standpoint, it was a nightmare. For years there was no standard communications port built into Level III players, no hardware or software standard interface on the computer side and no standard computer platform.

There was no uniformity on such basic matters as how the user would input data (touchscreen, remote keypad, keyboard, mouse, lightpen), or how the video from the laserdisc and the screen display of the computer would relate to each other. (One or two screens? Which genlock or overlay board? Video windows on the computer screen or computer output on the video monitor?)

No titles bandwagon. The lack of standards not only slowed down the investment in videodisc hardware but also retarded the development of a library of commercial titles, useful beyond just one enterprise, which would have helped the installed base to grow.

Are we seeing a replay of the platform chaos of the first decade of interactive videodisc with today’s digital multimedia formats? MPC, Mac CD-ROM, Ultimedia, CD-I etc.? It certainly has a familiar feel at times.

LESSON TWO: SELL IT TO THE PUBLIC AS A MOVIE PLAYBACK SYSTEM

It is only recently that laserdisc players have caught the public’s eye as movie players, now that they are sold for as little as $350 and are marketed as combination players that also play cd-audio. As a home entertainment product, the laserdisc system had been dormant for a decade.

Movies-on-disc was a seductive concept. In fact, it was the driving vision of the developers of a dozen or more different disc systems, going back to 1928: photographic, phonographic, magnetic, capacitive, holographic, laser-optical, you name it.

The laserdisc, however, as a movie medium had to compete with an explosion of film access: motion picture theaters and broadcast television had been joined by cable TV and the half-inch tape VCR, in both VHS and Beta.

Quality, yes, but it couldn’t record. The laserdisc had significantly better video quality and audio quality than the home VCR, but it could not record. The public wanted the recording capability to time-shift TV programs and to make home videos with cameras and camcorders (as well as to make pirate copies of movies).

The typical home or consumer videodisc title was a movie to be shown at Level 0 interactivity: sequential play, start-to-finish. Thus, any potential advantages of the videodisc’s random access capabilities over videotape cassettes were ignored, even though they were built into the players. Could this have been a marketing mistake?

As far as computer-controlled interaction, it is only now, in 1992, that Pioneer and Sony are offering Level III players to consumers and industrial customers. Level III players can be connected via a serial port in the player to a PC, Macintosh or other desktop system.

No “need to own” factor. Definitely a marketing mistake was the fact that videodisc titles were marketed to be purchased by consumers, not rented, while videocassette titles were widely rented at a much lower cost. (Movies were not, and are not, it seems, “need to own” items in the same way that music titles are.)

LESSON THREE: OVERSELL THE BENEFITS OF INTERACTIVITY

While the laserdisc’s random access capabilities were pretty much ignored in consumer marketing, the magic of interactivity was the sizzle for all other applications.

Unfortunately, many of the first interactive videodisc applications seem to have been designed by people enamored of the technology who lacked the necessary design and content skills. Often the questions of where — or whether — interactivity would be helpful were not well considered. The benefits of producing an interactive videodisc versus a printed manual or an ordinary “linear” videotape for a particular application is an example.

Irrelevant and inappropriate. In theory, interactivity means that the user/learner doesn’t have to sit through irrelevant or inappropriate material. In practice, however, it is easy to have too much interactivity: too much navigation in hyperspace without orienting guidance, too many checks for progress and understanding of the material, too much fragmentation of the material rather than coherent flow. Interactivity itself became irrelevant and inappropriate.

The key problem was adding value: how to show that interactivity increased the effectiveness of the audiovisual material, or that pictures and sounds added to the effectiveness of the computer-based programs.

As is often the case with a new technology, the first interactive videodisc titles were often transfers of old models, like text-oriented, computer-based training, or conventional videotapes, to the new medium. No wonder people called the medium “interrupted video.”

We are obviously seeing an “old wine in new bottles” phenomenon with CD-ROM and digital multimedia, and experiencing the same issues all over again.

LESSON FOUR: MAKE IT DIFFICULT AND EXPENSIVE TO PRODUCE FOR THE NEW MEDIUM

Producing for interactive media is more expensive than producing for linear media, since you have to add the cost of designing and programming the interactive aspects to the cost of producing the linear footage.

In the early years of interactive videodisc, high-level authoring languages were not available. It was also hard to simulate the final product, since a recordable disc, or a process for stamping an inexpensive checkdisc, did not exist.

Adding to the difficulty was the need to form teams that would combine several kinds of expertise that had not been combined before: computer programming, media production, instructional design, teaching or marketing experience, and content knowledge.

LESSON FIVE: CREATE A COMPLICATED, COSTLY DELIVERY SYSTEM, WITH LOTS OF HARDWARE AND A COMPLEX USER INTERFACE

The first Level III interactivity videodisc user stations cost about $10,000 each, including the computer and player. For corporate training, these could usually only serve one trainee at a time, given the need for interactivity and the small screens. Training groups of people in system-filled rooms required a major corporate commitment to the technology, which took years to generate.

This could not be more true for today’s digital multimedia. A developer remarked not long ago that “multimedia is anything that requires more than one trip to the car” to bring in the equipment. Although hardware packages such as the Multimedia PC are changing that equation, a solidly operational, high-quality multimedia system is still right up there with the first Level II interactive videodisc stations.

THE BRIGHTER SIDE, IN BRIEF

This is not to say that all is lost. The videodisc is alive and well in training and education, where developers have learned that a little interactivity goes a long way, and that Level I can often be quite effective in the classroom.

In addition, standard platforms and authoring languages, such as HyperCard for the Macintosh and IBM’s InfoWindow for the PC, are powerful tools that keep the medium from stagnating.

And despite its own lesser brilliance in a digital world, interactive videodisc applications have already greatly influenced digital multimedia products. They have given producers an idea of what was possible if producers could not only play back data, but manipulate it and have real-time casual, conversational and professional interactions with it.

It’s far easier to “roll your own” CD-ROM than it ever was to press your own laserdisc, a feature that has already provided great economies of scale for the industry. And as computers and consumer electronics converge, some platform will likely emerge in sufficient volume to keep the industry moving forward.

But it can only lead to disaster if the multimedia industry ignores the lessons that are right under its nose — and there are plenty of them to choose from. Every single one of the lessons outlined here map directly to the new multimedia craze. It seems abundantly clear, however, given the “Tally ho!” attitude of most people and companies in multimedia today, that no one is paying attention. We respectfully submit that it might behoove them to do so.

Bernard Banet