Illustration by Kevin Hand, Star-Bulletin

That once-prized device for playing black vinyl records might as well be a redwood surfboard. Through the years since the compact disc pushed the LP into technology's back room, your turntable not only fell into disuse you may even have given it away.

Now, a similar fate looms for two other items that not long ago seemed safe, sure and enduring: the VCR and laser disc player.

Digital video disc players, expected in stores this fall, could send present video components reeling into obsolescence, along with the turntable, the eight-track tape, Betamax videotape recorders and the digital compact cassette.

The DVD promises more than four hours of playing time from a CD-size disk, with discrete 5.1-channel home-theater sound and picture quality that may equal or outperform that of laser discs. Manufacturers are pursuing aggressive marketing strategies. One goal is a $500 player right from the start to make the DVD vastly more popular than the laser disc.

Is the CD doomed, too? Where will it all end?

Welcome to the digital age, folks, where evolution only looks like revolution because it's happening at warp speed.

Many people believe they should wait for next year's model before jumping in and making a purchase. Will prices drop so far and so fast that you'll feel foolish by the time you receive your credit-card bill? Or should you jump in when it feels right.

Consumer electronics is about entertainment. You can wait for tomorrow's technology until your eyes grow dim and your hearing fails and still never catch up.

But there are a few rules of thumb. Such as:

• Don't buy a new model in its first year. Wait until the manufacturer gets the bugs out. Even good new products often look and sound significantly better in the second generation.
• Prices tend to drop sharply in the second and third years.
• If a new technology is still aloft after three years, it's probably going to fly some distance. At that point, a fairly stable market value should be established, too.

Then, 10 years later, when prices of CD players had bottomed out, hardware producers came up with two new products touted as "the next CD": the digital compact cassette and the minidisk. But far from surpassing the compact disc, neither the digital compact cassette nor the minidisk even approached the CDs performance standard.

Where the CD had captured consumers' hearts and changed the entire industry, its touted successors went largely unnoticed because they were substandard products. In both cases consumers saw no compelling reason to jump on the bandwagon.

Fine tuning of performance isn't everything. The ability of a product to allow users to do something they couldn't do before counts for a lot. The first VCRs, with all their limitations, offered consumers a way to watch movies at home at their pleasure and indeed, to own their favorite movies. Users also could record television programs to watch at a more convenient time.

For most consumers, it was an easy

decision to buy a VCR. The CD-size digital video disc could likewise inspire consumers with love at first sight.

Last September, Sony joined eight other companies to create a unified standard for the emerging DVD format.

Technically, it reportedly has the potential to deliver a better picture than

either the laser disc or the digital satellite system, with superior sound.

With digital video disk (DVD) players targeted to sell for about $500, accompanied by full-length movie disks selling for $20, consumers may find the one-two punch of picture and price a no lose situation.

How is it different from compact discs?

DVD holds seven times the data of a CD; and it offers a dual layer, single-side option.

A disc the size of a CD will hold an entire feature film with picture quality that surpasses current laser discs and multichannel soundtracks that rival compact disc quality.

Digital video discs will have the same diameter and thickness as the original CD, the pit size and spacing between adjacent tracks will be much smaller and higher in density.

Videophiles will be glad to know that DVD will offer a choice of multiple aspect ratios to allow video playback in full-screen, 4:3 letterbox, or 16:9 widescreen formats.

Manufacturers believe consumers will take to the feel of user-friendly DVD handily.

"The CD has become such a comfortable part of the home that DVD already has a familiar feel when you first see it," a Sony official said. "It is not intimidating or complex and it can be used for multiple applications like movies and music."

The new DVD products will perform very nicely on your current TV whether you buy it tomorrow or bought it three years ago, Sony officials said. Dual layer discs can feature two high-density information layers that will store 270 minutes of program material. This means that even the longest playing motion picture epic can be placed on one side of a disc. And because the two layers are independent, it will even be possible to store a soundtrack on one layer of a disc with a video game based on the movie on the other.

So when's the right time to invest in a new technology? That's determined by personal taste, even intuition. If it brings something fresh and better to home entertainment maybe you should go for it. Remember, some will be winning choices; some will be losers.

The point is sometimes made that people buy this stuff and don't use it. So what? Don't you have shoes and shirts in a back closet that didn't work out. But you still keep buying shoes.

So when the first digital video disc players arrive on the scene prepared to make room in the closet for the VCR.