Laserdisc Sales Are Booming; Beta Is Managing To Hold On

According to the LaserDisc Association, there are now 650,000 laserdisc households in the United States. More than 5,400 movies and concerts are available on disc, and 4,000 retail outlets will be carrying them by year's end.

The aggravating delay between tape and disc release is gradually being eliminated. When "Home Alone" comes out on videotape later this week, Image Entertainment promises to have the disc in stores at the same time.

Also making the format more attractive is the audio-visual quality of some of this year's releases. Disney's "Fantasia," a 1940 sight-and-sound spectacular for which the laser format might have been invented, will make its video debut in November. The disc is scheduled to arrive on the same day as the cassette.

Image's president, Martin Greenwald, predicts that "Fantasia," which will be available in a standard $40 disc version and a deluxe $100 edition, will be the first laserdisc release to sell more than 100,000 copies.

The top sellers to date have been Paramount's "Ghost" and "Top Gun," which sold about 90,000 copies apiece; "Home Alone" is expected to hit 70,000. About 12 million discs will be sold this year.

Bill Mechanic of Disney claims that "Fantasia," which the studio says will never be released to the video market again, "has always been the most-requested title on virtually all the laserdisc wish lists."

Its limited release, which ends in late December, will undoubtedly prompt the sale of more than a few laserdisc players. Like CDs, laserdiscs are supposed to last forever. Tape can't make that promise.

A few of this year's laser innovations have also expanded the market. FoxVideo, which normally charges $40-$100 for new discs, is releasing "Home Alone" through Image for less than $30. If you check out the frequent laser sales such as Tower Records holds every few months, you're likely to find it for less than $25.

MGM/UA Home Video recently launched a series of "MGM Double Feature Discs." The Woody Allen double bill of "Stardust Memories" and "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" sells for $40, or $20 per film. MGM/UA is also bringing out a boxed set of all six "Thin Man" movies for $125; a 35th-anniversary edition of "Forbidden Planet" for $25; a four-disc set of "The Golden Age of Looney Tunes (1933-1948)" for $100; and a four-disc Greta Garbo collection for $100.

Silent films, once poorly represented on disc, have inundated the market this year. So have such children's programs as Warner Reprise Video's "Kidsongs" series and Images's "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle"; letterboxed editions of such wide-screen epics as "Cleopatra" and "How the West Was Won"; Republic Home Video's collections of Saturday-matinee serials; and such special releases as MGM/UA's deluxe edition of "That's Entertainment!," which comes with 98 chapter stops - allowing you to move within seconds to the musical number you want.

Companies that recently joined the laser bandwagon include Proscenium Entertainment ("James Galway in Concert"), PBS Home Video ("The Astronomers"), Teldec ("Jacqueline du Pre and the Elgar Cello Concerto") and Home Vision ("New Ways of Seeing: Picasso, Braque and the Cubist Revolution").

Next month, Pioneer will bring out a combination laser player for $700 (the CLD-M90) that can hold up to five CDs and one laserdisc at the same time - allowing instant access to either format.

Speaking of minority formats: There are still more Betamax than laser households in the U.S.

The format is hanging on in some Beta-exclusive stores, a few companies such as Paramount Home Video offer new Beta releases for just $30, and there's now a catalog of Beta tapes at bargain prices.

A New Jersey company owned by Ted and Diane Brauer carries a double-cassette set of "Gone With the Wind" for $13; "Going My Way" for $10; "The Thin Man" for $7; "A Night to Remember" for $5; "The Best of John Belushi" for $4; "Topper Returns" for $3.

The company has more than 3,000 titles on Beta. It also sells blank Beta tapes ($40 for a 10-pack) and Sony SuperBeta machines, which range from $400 to $900 for a deluxe model.

For information, call 1-800-962-7722 from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays (Pacific time). The address is: Brauer Trading Ltd., 26 Emery Lane, Woodcliff Lake, N.J. 07675.

Video Watch by John Hartl appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment. You can get more video information by calling the Seattle Times' 24-hour free service Infoline. Call 464-2000 from any touch-tone telephone and when instructed, enter the category number 0911 to reach the Video Hotline. You may replay all information by pressing "R" (7); back up to previous information by pressing "B" (2); and jump over over current information by pressing "J" (5). -----------------------------------

NEW VIDEOS IN STORES THIS WEEK

-- Tuesday - "Shari Lewis' Lamb Chop in the Land of No Manners," "Scorpions: Crazy World Tour Live Berlin 1991," "Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts," "Dire Straits: Alchemy Live." -- Wednesday - Brad Dourif in "Hidden Agenda," Kris Kristofferson in "Another Pair of Aces: Three of a Kind," Kate Capshaw in "Code Name: Dancer," Margaret O'Brien in "The Secret Garden," Doris Day in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," Jack Benny in "The Horn Blows at Midnight," Spencer Tracy in "Men of Boys Town," "Beyond the Door III," Keith Coogan in "Book of Love," "To Die Standing," "Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet," "The Hobbit," "Chuck Amuck: The Movie," "General Spanky," "Tom & Jerry's Night Before Christmas." -- Thursday - Macauley Culkin in "Home Alone," Casey Siemaszko in "The Big Slice," James Spader in "True Colors," Tim Thomerson in "Trancers II," Christopher Walken in "The Comfort of Strangers," Linda Purl in "Web of Deceit." -- Friday - "Felix the Cat: The Movie." -- New laserdiscs: "Jesus of Montreal," "The Brave Little Toaster," Audrey Hepburn in "Two For the Road" (letterboxed), Gabriel Byrne in "Miller's Crossing," James Franciscus in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (letterboxed), Kim Hunter in "Escape From the Planet of the Apes" (letterboxed), John Hurt in "Frankenstein Unbound," Robert Newton in "Blackbeard the Pirate," Meryl Streep in "Plenty," Mary Pickford in "Sparrows," Greta Garbo in "Joyless Street," Louise Brooks in "Diary of a Lost Girl," Constance Bennett in "What Price Hollywood," "Grateful Dead: The Movie."