CompuServe Messages

There are some laserdisc rental places, mostly those places that are independents in areas dominated by the big chains who want to distinguish themselves. There is one such place in a nearby town that does in fact rent laserdiscs at the same rate as tapes, but most do not. More do in places like New York, California, etc. However, one drawback of lasers is that often the laser version of major films from big studios is not released until months after the tape version. Disney is particularly strict on this (although they tend to lavish extras on the LD when they do bring one out). Reason: laser is so much better a signal, broadcast monitor quality, that a disreputable tape rental and sale place could make near flawless duplicates! Thus, they like to insure that all the tape money they can get has been gotten before releasing the disk version (one reason why we won't get the finished print version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST until it's actually withdrawn from tape distribution). Not all studios and almost no independents do this, but a few majors do.