1997 NYT Flashback: DVDs Can’t Match “Pop-and-Play Ease of VHS Tape”

Oh, people of 1997: how easy it is for us future people to mock you, sitting in the fancy Jetsons-like high-rise called Hindsight. Twelve years ago today, the New York Times asked whether an upstart new technology called “DVD” could possibly succeed.

Today, BTW, the Times Business Section had a feature on Redbox, a company that rents DVDs for $1 apiece and is undercutting older distribution models.

A few choice quotes from the 1997 article (emphasis added in bold):

“[Disney] regards DVD as ‘an excellent technology,’ a Disney spokeswoman said, but it has no plans to release movies in the format.”

“Anyone considering purchase of a DVD player should bear in mind certain realities. The presentation of movies on the disks hardly matches the pop-and-play ease of VHS tape.”

“[i]t is almost unimaginable that the Hollywood studios, which agonized long and painfully before splintering over copy protection on DVD, would ever allow high-definition digital software to reach consumers.”

“NASA will sell rocket cars before Hollywood places such technology in video shops.”

Sounds like Terrafugia has some catching up to do.

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