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ENTERTAINMENT
Thursday, March 23,1989
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The Future of Entertainment Technology
ompact disc sales soaring,
stores cut vinyl album stock
By Chuck Squatriglia
ORRESPONDENT
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Compact discs have become the
atest trend in the music industry,
ind their rising popularity could
ausethe death of the vinyl album.
Several local record stores either
ave done away completely with
heir record inventories or are in the
irocess of doing so.
Music Express already has elimi
nated its record inventory and car
ies only compact discs and cassette
apes. The only vinyl records the
[tore carries are 12mich singles,
ales clerk Mark Othersen said.
Both Gere Comeaux, music man-
iger of Hasting’s Records, and Doug
)onahue, manager of Record Bar,
aid their stores are eliminating al
bums completely.
“Right now we are working on ex
panding our CD inventory and del
ving our albums,” Comeaux said.
Donahue said, “We don’t carry
oo many albums any more. We are
vorking on phasing them out com-
letely.”
Music fans who don’t own a CD
tlayerwill find it harder to purchase
nusic. However, some local music
lores plan to continue carrying re-
ords as long as possible.
Comeaux said, “The extent to
dtich records are phased out de-
tends upon the store. Our older
tores sell more albums than CDs
md probably won’t delete albums
:ompletely.”
Tom Howard, manager of Tip
Fop Records, said, “As long as we
an get jjbums we will continue to
handle them because there are a lot
of turntables out there. I think it’s
stupid to do away with them.”
Jeff Drake, manager of Camelot
Records, said new releases will be the
hardest to find.
“We’re getting rid of albums as far
as new titles are concerned,” he said.
“We are still going to carry budget
albums, but it won’t be an instance
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I think albums will be
completely phased out. I
just don’t see record
companies printing new
stuff on vinyl. I’d say that in
a couple of years, you’ll
see the end of albums;
they’ll quit manufacturing
them altogether.”
— Jeff Drake,
Camelot Records
where we order weekly.”
Budget albums are older releases
that generally sell for a reduced
price.
Some local record merchants say
CDs eventually will eliminate vinyl
albums, while others say albums al
ways will be around and are only suf
fering low sales because of the sud
den popularity of CDs.
“I think albums will be completely
phased out,” Drake said. “I just don’t
see record companies printing new
stuff on vinyl. I’d say that in a couple
of years, you’ll see the end of al
bums; they’ll quit manufacturing
them altogether.”
Comeaux disagrees.
“As long as there are record play
ers around, there’s going to be peo
ple wanting albums,” she said.
David Gilbert, owner of Digital
Audio Exchange, said albums always
will be in demand.
‘Tfhere always will be a group of
people who will buy vinyl albums,”
he said
Several record merchants said the
record industry is responsible for
the phase-out of albums.
Donahue said, “The record labels
are at fault. They started this phase
out years ago. They aren’t manufac
turing many albums anymore.”
Othersen agreed that the record
companies are causing the elimina
tion of the vinyl album.
“The record companies are slow
ing production of albums,” he said.
“They don’t see any future in it.”
Money plays a large part in the
decision to eliminate record invento
ries, Howard said.
“A lot of the large chains of re
cord stores want the big money items
like CDs,” he said. “They feel that if
they can force the manufacturers to
do away with albums, they can force
everyone to go to CDs. That would
give them a higher ticket item to sell,
and they would make more money.”
If record retailers would continue
to carry albums and promote them,
the manufacturers wouldn’t elimi
nate album production, he said.
Donahue said the record compa
Compact discs are gaining momentum and
popularity in home audio systems and begin-
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
ning to make vinyl records obsolete and un
available in record stores.
nies themselves are causing the elim
ination of records by charging serv
ice charges to retailers for unsold
albums.
“Record companies are charging a
25 percent service charge to retai
lers,” he said. “If you order 100 al
bums and don’t sell them, you end
up having to pay 25 percent of the
cost of the records when you return
them.”
This means retailers get a 75 per
cent refund when they return any
unsold records, he said.
Retailers are less willing to pur
chase records because of the risk of
losing money on unsold albums.
This service charge is not levied on
CDs, he said.
The record industry actually may
reduce sales of recorded music by
eliminating albums completely,
Howard said. People without a CD
player may refuse to change format
and could quit buying recorded mu
sic altogether, he said.
“They’ll end up handling the situ
ation just as people did when they
stopped producing 8-track tapes,”
he said. “Instead of switching over to
cassettes, many consumers quit buy
ing music.
“You’ll find a lot of the older peo
ple who have turntables aren’t going
to convert to CDs.”
People who don’t have CD players
will have to convert or miss out on
the future of music, Donahue said.
“People without CD players are
going to have to get with the technol
ogy,” he said.
Video cassette recorders gaining popularity among TV owners
New eight-millimeter cassette threatens conventional VHS, Beta format
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ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
Watching a movie at home on a vi-
ieo cassette recorder (VCR) was
)nce an activity for the few. Now
t’s part of everyday life, and there
nay well be more VCRs in the
United States than households.
One former student owns two
VCRs himself, and his two room-
nates each have one, for a total of
our VCRs in one house. They have
two that are Beta format and two of
he more popular VHS format.
Dinosaurs
But how did the VCR explosion
this come about? Not too many years
ago, few players could be found in
households.
“The early VCRs were tremen
dous dinosaurs created for the tele
vision industry,” said Chris Lewis a
repair technician and Texas A&M
graduate. “They were horribly ex
pensive, used up miles of tape and
were limited to black and white.”
Consumer VCR sales didn’t really
begin until the Japanese entered the
market, he said.
“In the early days, both Sony and
JVC were developing similar con
sumer video machines, and they
came into the marketplace in about
1974,” Lewis said.
Sony and JVC had collaborated on
the machines, and in developing a
more useful recorder, Sony indepen
dently developed the Beta format.
Beta is a Japanese word that means
“a colorful paint stroke,” Lewis said.
Meanwhile, JVC independently
developed the VHS format, the one
that is by far more popular among
American consumers today.
Beta vs. VHS
“The Beta is still better,” Lewis
said. “It wraps more tape around the
tape-head, and it uses a larger head
for better picture quality. The JVC
machine uses a smaller head with
commensurate poorer picture qual
ity.”
JVC’s smaller head allows it to do
special effects like slow-motion and
freeze-framing. The viewer can look
through a VHS format tape one
frame at a time on a good machine,
which is not possible on a Beta.
The tape-head is the device that
reads the tape. It is a spinning drum
that has two or four magnetic read
ers. The drum spins against the di
rection of the tape, thereby reading
the tape faster than the tape moves.
Lewis explained why VHS ma
chines became more popular. “Be
cause of more successful marketing
uut no 1
Melissa Becktold, a senior health education major, looks
through the selection of video cassettes available for rental at
video outlet National Video Superstore.
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
and not enough picture quality dif
ference, VHS became far more pop
ular in the U.S.,” he said.
Some South American countries
have more Beta than VHS recorders,
however, he said.
When the machines were new, the
Beta format was limited to one hour
of recording time, as opposed to two
hours for VHS. Now, both formats
have increased possible recording
time dramatically.
Beta now supports up to six hours
of recording time, and VHS tapes
will record for up to eight hours.
“Improvements in technology
have given audio advantages too,”
Lewis said. High-fidelity VCRs can
record audio from 20 to 20,000
hertz, which means they sound about
as good as a good home stereo sys
tem, he said. However, non-hi-fi
systems record audio signals be
tween 40 and 8,000 hertz, which is
relatively muffled-sounding.
Lewis said he believes that both
the Beta and VHS formats even
tually will be outdated by another
format that is already on the market.
“There’s a new format that should
eventually replace the 14-year-old
formats, called eight-millimeter,” he
said. “It has a better picture quality
and is very compact.”
Camcorders — combination video
camera recorder/players — already
use the eight-millimeter technology.
Viewing preferences
Beta-format VCRs simply are not
popular in the United States. Many
video rental stores do not even carry
Beta films.
Chris Nobosad, an employee of
National Video Superstore in Bryan,
said, “All we rent is VHS, and I only
know of one store in town that rents
Beta.”
The most popular rented movies
are dramas, Nosobad said. “Lots of
housewives and people who don’t
work come in during the day and
rent the dramas,” he said. “Kids and
their parents come in at night and get
action and comedies.”
Video is a booming business. In
the year that Nobosad has worked at
the rental store, National Video has
increased its offerings from 7,500
tapes to 10,000. The store rents be
tween 3,000 and 5,000 tapes each
week.
The average renter takes two
tapes, he said, although he said he
has seen someone rent 13 at one
time.
Almost every video store’s busiest
66
I always rent a movie
when I’m with a girl — I
make that a rule,” Moore
said. When he’s with the
guys, he said, he rents
action films. He said he
never rents just one movie
at a time — usually taking
two and once as many as
four.
night is Saturday. Barbara Carton,
who works at The Video Center in
Bryan, said that more comedy and
action movies were rented on Satur
days than dramas.
Why Rent
Saturday may be the busiest night
for video stores, but many people are
more likely to rent movies on week- >
days.
Eddie Moore, a junior electrical
engineering major, said he usually
rents a tape during the week.
“It doesn’t cost much, and it’s
easy, high-quality entertainment,”
he said. “I have a TV in my.room, so
I just plug in a tape and kick back.”
He does not have too much time to
watch movies, however, and given
the choice, he said, he would rather
socialize than watch a movie.
Moore said his choice of movies
depends on who he is with. “I al
ways rent a movie when I’m with a
girl — I make that a rule,” he said.
When he’s with the guys, he said, he
rents action films. He said he never
rents just one movie at a time —
usually taking two and once as many
as four.
Gary Ash, a freshman business
major, said that the major reason he
rents a movie is boredom, “when I
just don’t have anything else to do.”