Double Vision In the Den

By Janice Castro

Any entrepreneur knows that thinking up a good idea for a product is the easy part. Seven years ago, Terren Dunlap, a lawyer in Scottsdale, Ariz., started a company called Go-Video to produce programs for corporate meetings and family occasions. He soon discovered that making cassette copies by wiring machines together was unwieldy and produced poor results, so he decided to develop a double-deck VCR. Since then, Dunlap has battled opponents ranging from Hollywood movie studios to Tokyo electronics giants. Starting this month, videophiles will finally be able to buy Dunlap's VCR-2 (price: $1,095).

Dunlap's machine, the first dual-deck VCR in the U.S., is venturing where electronics behemoths have feared to tread. Japan's Sharp test-marketed a version in the Middle East several years ago but withdrew the product after movie studios threatened to sue on the grounds that users would make illegal copies of prerecorded movie tapes. Dunlap and his colleagues ran into the same objections to their dual-deck technology in 1984. They were also unable to find any electronics companies willing to manufacture their machines or supply the needed parts. In 1987 Dunlap's company filed a $1.5 billion antitrust lawsuit against 28 defendants, charging that JVC, NEC and other large consumer-electronics firms, as well as the Motion Picture Association of America, were illegally blocking the new product.

The M.P.A.A. signed a truce with Go-Video in 1988 after the company agreed to equip its VCRs with an electronic device that can detect a special signal on a movie tape and prevent the consumer from making a copy. Last year Go- Video settled with 21 other defendants in the suit, accepting $2 million. One of the companies, Samsung, agreed to manufacture the VCR-2 at its factory in South Korea. In exchange, Samsung will license Go-Video's technology to sell dual-deck VCRs under its own label around the world. Building on its earlier case, Go-Video filed a new, $1 billion lawsuit last January against Sony, NEC and other Japanese companies, charging that they have conspired to monopolize global markets for such products as VCRs, digital-audio recorders and high-definition TV. Last week a federal court denied motions to dismiss the suit, clearing the way for a trial in Phoenix later this year.

The pricey VCR-2 is selling briskly at upper-crust stores, but can it find a big audience? Some 12 million U.S. customers are expected to buy VCRs at an average price of $300 this year. Dunlap believes that at least 750,000 buyers will choose his machine in the next year or two. Camcorder buffs, he points out, can use the VCR-2 to edit their home movies. Among other applications: recording two programs at the same time, copying favorite tapes and recording a program while watching a tape.