About 3.9 million digital videodisc players, many now priced under $300, were sold last year, vastly exceeding industry projections.

A typical system would be a videodisc player operating under computer control.

The manufacturers of videodisc players in the late 1970s and early 1980s had high hopes for commercial success across consumer, professional and business markets.

He peeked at the digital clock on the videodisc player atop the TV.

Sales for the year rose 5 percent, helped by demand for flat-panel televisions and digital videodisc players.

A videodisc player can be connected up to a monitor or television set in the same way as a videocassette player.

A videodisc player works on the same principle as a record player in that an arm moves back and forth across the disc.

The combination with videodisc players is particularly interesting because of the ways random access can be exploited.

A computer program can be encoded on the disc's surface and then loaded into the microprocessor in the videodisc player.

This is possible with both videocassette and videodisc players and there are various ways of linking either to a computer.