The Format Wars in retrospect.

[Gulliver]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

By the time I was financially solvent enough to buy my own VCR (Panasonic NV-F70: Still have it, still in working order...) VHS had won. I think the only format war I was ever interested in was the high definition video disc format, which eventually came down to HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray. I stayed well clear until there was a clear winner but I actually preferred the 'HD-DVD' name because that sounded exactly like what it was: By comparison, 'Blu-Ray' was meaningless to most people.

A lot was made at the time of the use of a blue wavelength of laser for reading the discs.

[Gulliver]

Originally Posted by wd40addict

Isn't there a story that in its original form Beta didn't have a long enough playing time to record the Superbowl whilst VHS did.

It's certainly been reported. Whether it's true may be lost to the mists of time. But a big reason why the old Philips VCR system didn't gain much of a market was because a typical 90 minute film didn't fit on a cassette. It used 60 minute cassettes. Beta launched with 90 minute record time on the L750 cassettes. VHS launched with two hour record time on T120 in NTSC territories and 3 hours on the similar physical length E180 in PAL territories a year later. Record time was important to customers in the beginning as much as anything else.

[Richard_FM]

Originally Posted by Gulliver

It's certainly been reported. Whether it's true may be lost to the mists of time. But a big reason why the old Philips VCR system didn't gain much of a market was because a typical 90 minute film didn't fit on a cassette. It used 60 minute cassettes. Beta launched with 90 minute record time on the L750 cassettes. VHS launched with two hour record time on T120 in NTSC territories and 3 hours on the similar physical length E180 in PAL territories a year later. Record time was important to customers in the beginning as much as anything else.

Some films needed 2 Laserdiscs to contain the complete runtime, as well as needing flipping over at the end of each side.

I bought an early DVD of Gone With The Wind which is on a double sided disc, luckily there is an interlude in the film where the first side ends, so flipping isn't that inconvenient.

[SiriusHardware]

A lot was made at the time of the use of a blue wavelength of laser for reading the discs.

Indeed so, and known to relatively few people like us, but say the phrase 'Blu-Ray' to someone with no other context and they would have no idea what that would be.

Whereas HD-DVD - "Oh, so that's like DVD, but high definition?".

The right format won, perhaps, but not the right name.

[TonyDuell]

Originally Posted by Maarten

The same about adult movies was rumoured in case of V2000 but there it was even more obviously not an important factor.

I think that is false as I have seen (but not watched, if you get what I mean) commercially-recorded V2000 cassettes with titles that certainly suggest 'adult content'

[wireman]

Had a look for my SACDs.

The first two have Not for Sale on the front so perhaps they were given away:

Super Audio CD, Multi-Channel Hybrid Disc, Jerry Goldsmith / Movie Medleys, LSO

Super Audo CD, Multi-Channel Hybrid Disk, Ivan Fischer, Budapest Fesitival Orchestra, Budapest Live

The third is...

Laura Nyro, Angel in the Dark.

All of them have a Sony/Philips insert describing the format stating that the disk has:

1. Direct Stream Digital(TM) multichanel surround sound
2. Direct Stream Digital(TM) two-channel stereo
3. CD Standard Stereo.

All play on my Marantz CD52mkII and my Pioneer DV-610AV, the latter recognising them as a SACD disk.
I have no idea what stream would come out of the HDMI connector of the DVD player.

[Maarten]

Originally Posted by Gulliver

It's certainly been reported. Whether it's true may be lost to the mists of time. But a big reason why the old Philips VCR system didn't gain much of a market was because a typical 90 minute film didn't fit on a cassette. It used 60 minute cassettes. Beta launched with 90 minute record time on the L750 cassettes. VHS launched with two hour record time on T120 in NTSC territories and 3 hours on the similar physical length E180 in PAL territories a year later. Record time was important to customers in the beginning as much as anything else.

I'd say this is would indeed have been a major factor in US market adaptation. When introduced, the NTSC version of betamax also only recorded 60 minutes on a single tape. Then the leapfrogging with VHS started, with betamax often one step behind and resulting in various incompatible betamax variants.

[hamid_1]

I'm also interested in and collect / tinker with obsolete media formats such as 8 track, Betamax, CED Videodisc, HD-DVD, Zip drives and many others. Usually I acquire these things when no-one else wants them and they are very cheap of free. It's a great way to have fun for little money as well as to study the pros and cons of the technology.

First of all, the story that Betamax failed due to lack of adult content is a bit of a myth. I've certainly come across adult movies on Betamax. I think it was mostly because more manufacturers supported VHS. In a book about the history of Panasonic (a staunch VHS supporter) they said Panasonic chose VHS because it was cheaper to manufacture, though they didn't explain why. I suspect Sony's licensing fees were higher for Betamax, or perhaps their terms and condtions were more stringent, or both. Either way, only a few other companies supported Betamax.

Intially, sales of both were neck-and-neck. Indeed, in 1082 Britain's best-selling video recorder was the Sanyo Beta VTC-5000 mainly because it was the first VCR to sell for less than £300. But it was short-lived: soon the market was flooded with cheap VHS machines and blank tapes. A couple of years later, sales of Betamax were a small fraction of VHS. Possibly the longer recording time of VHS in the US market gave it a head start over there, and in turn this may have helped the other Japanese manufacturers achieve greater economies of scale with VHS, thus catching up with Sanyo. In PAL and SECAM countries both Betamax and VHS started with similar recording length tapes.

Once VHS had nudged ahead, there was no stopping it. People wanted to have the same system as their friends and family so they could swap tapes. Video libraries started to only stock VHS copies once the majority of their customers were using it. This forced new customers to choose VHS and existing Betamax customers to switch, though many kept their old Betamax alongside their VHS machine so they could copy rented tapes.

Oddly there was one video library in Speedwell, Bristol called "Super Flicks!" which bucked the trend and only stocked Betamax movies (no VHS) until around 1990 when new Betamax releases had dried up. During the late 1980s the shop briefly did a roaring trade as old Betamax machines were sold cheap or given away to people who previously had no VCR at all. Those people and diehard Betamax enthusiasts scurried across the city to the only shop still supplying Betamax movies. I actually gained from this briefly by collecting ex-rental Betamax video recorders that were being disposed of, then fixing them and selling them. Even when pre-recorded movies were no longer available, they were still useful for recording TV programmes and movies.

VHS reigned supreme for decades, but was eventually superseded by DVD for pre-recorded movies and hard-drive digital TV boxes (Sky+ in the UK) for recording TV.

Most successful formats have about a 30-40 year period of popularity before they are superseded, but there are exceptions. Some things go out much more quickly, particularly computer storage media (think Zip and Jaz drives, various flash memory cards like SmartMedia, Sony Memory Stick ... ). Some things like vinyl records are still with us after many decades, albeit a niche market now.

It's not always technically the 'best' format that wins. VHS wasn't technically superior, it was cheap and good enough for the average person. MP3 falls into the same category.

Sometimes there's no outright winner. 33rpm and 45rpm records started off as rival formats from different record companies but the music industry brought them together. Likewise DVD-R(W) and DVD+RW recorders were produced by rival companies. Luckily multi-format DVD+/-RW recorders appeared quite quickly, avoiding a lengthy format war. Users could then choose the most suitable disc for their application.

Sometimes competing formats co-exist, with each having enough market share to remain commercially viable. Some examples are the Xbox and Playstation series game consoles, Windows and MacOS computers, Android and iOS smartphones.

Even today we have a multitude of broadcast systems -
TV: digital terrestrial, satellite, cable, internet streaming
Radio: AM (rapidly dying), FM, DAB/DAB+, radio via digital TV (see above) and streaming

AM and FM have greatly exceeded the 30-40 year rule but previous analogue TV systems (405 black and white, 625 colour) had about 40 years each. Original DAB is 30 years old (started in 1995) and gradually being replaced by DAB+ and streaming. Indeed all broadcasting looks like it will be replaced by streaming in the future, unless something else comes along?

As for SACD, I should mention that I have 3 discs, War of The Worlds, Dark Side Of The Moon and a Sting album all bought cheaply from car boot sales. I also have a Sony blu-ray player which carries the SACD logo yet I've never actually tried playing my discs in it. This would involve connecting surround sound speakers to get the full SACD experience. To be honest, I can't be bothered. The discs play in regular CD players in 2-channel stereo, which is good enough for me. Maybe one day I'll try it.

[emeritus]

I understand that its higher quality means it is possible to retrieve teletext data from off-air Betamax recordings, whereas it is normally only possible from S-VHS recordings. I believe that this feature of S-VHS was never openly publicised because it would have been construed as an incitement to users to infringe the copyright in the teletext pages: there used to be a teletext page warning users that it would be an infringement of copyright to copy pages without permission. I bought a S-VHS recorder for my profoundly deaf mother so she could use the 888 subtitles on recorded programmes.

[kalee20]

Originally Posted by jamesperrett

I seem to remember that it was possible to shave off the top layer of wax and then re-use them.

That makes sense - and cylinder players had the advantage over discs that the pickup was actively driven, by a leadscrew, from the start to the finish of the cylinder whereas the disc player made its own way across the disc according to the spiral groove.

I guess the wear on a cylinder was somewhat less, so a hard wax surface was nevertheless robust enough to last for several playings, whereas on a disc it wouldn't have done?

Whatever, the cylinder format did lose out to the disc (which obviously could be double-sided!) and did not make it into the electrically-recorded era... Shame really!

[Gulliver]

Originally Posted by Richard_FM

Some films needed 2 Laserdiscs to contain the complete runtime, as well as needing flipping over at the end of each side.

I bought an early DVD of Gone With The Wind which is on a double sided disc, luckily there is an interlude in the film where the first side ends, so flipping isn't that inconvenient.

I had occasion to see probably the same version of Gone With The Wind on DVD in 1998. Two-sided disc, with terrible compression artefacts. It was that experience which lead me to wait a few years to adopt the format myself. Even then some single layer discs were pretty poor....Tim Burton's Batman is one that just looks horrible in it's first DVD release. Compression artefacts all over it.

It was far from clear that DVD would surpass Laserdisc in terms of quality at that point in time...but it was always more convenient. And that usually wins. Laserdisc, with the larger, heavier discs requiring turning over in the middle of the film was less convenient. Eventually DVD surpassed Laserdisc in terms of quality too.

[Gulliver]

Originally Posted by emeritus

I understand that its higher quality means it is possible to retrieve teletext data from off-air Betamax recordings, whereas it is normally only possible from S-VHS recordings. I believe that this feature of S-VHS was never openly publicised because it would have been construed as an incitement to users to infringe the copyright in the teletext pages: there used to be a teletext page warning users that it would be an infringement of copyright to copy pages without permission. I bought a S-VHS recorder for my profoundly deaf mother so she could use the 888 subtitles on recorded programmes.

I have retrieved teletext pages from standard VHS PAL SP recordings, but it can be hit and miss. Needs to be a clean recording made on a recorder that was in great condition and similarly played back on a machine in great condition.

Beta had just a little more horizontal resolution (250 lines per field compared to 240 for VHS) which would have probably just pushed it into being good enough to archive teletext before S-VHS came along.

[Welsh Anorak]

I was called to a talking book transfer studio which was using some new minidisc recorders for interviews. The discs they recorded wouldn't play on the studio machine.

Turned out the portable MD recorders were hi-MD which were incompatible with virtually everything - and completely move the top for this use. I think in the end they replaced them with solid state recorders.

Some salesman must have been pleased to offload several machines before riding off into the sunset!

[Welsh Anorak]

Incidentally, re Nick's post #57, video by post is still available. Although LoveFilm went out of business some years ago, Cinema Paradiso has taken its place.

I use it for new films on Blu-Ray, foreign films and relatively obscure old movies. Yes, I know I can stream most of these, but I choose not to have adverts so would have to pay subscriptions to various services. Also some of the quality is suspect, especially on older films or low-rent platforms.

The major downside is that Netflix and Apple have no intention of releasing some of their 'films' so two more subscriptions would be necessary for this. This all soon would add up.

However with the cost of postage and the ubiquity of streaming I wonder how long the 'DVD by post' service will last?

[Maarten]

I think the betamax mechanism would have been more expensive to produce regardless of any license fees. I'm thinking of the threading mechanism and head drum specifically, though U-loading was successfully used by Grundig and Philips as well. Grundig didn't mind making things expensive and Philips was very good at optimising construction for cost.

[Welsh Anorak]

I remember back in the Eighties (well before DVD) a Chinese customer brought in a personal CD player.
I repaired the fault, but was intrigued to see a video jack. I assumed it was for Karaoke, but when I tried it with his disc it played a film, much to my amazement.
No idea what system that was.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by kalee20

...and did not make it into the electrically-recorded era... Shame really!

It did - barely. Edison only ceased releasing cylinders in 1929, and some of the later cylinders are thought to have been electrically recorded. In its use of a permanent replay tip and lack of filler in the record material, the Edison cylinder was decades in advance of disc.

[Gulliver]

Originally Posted by Welsh Anorak

I remember back in the Eighties (well before DVD) a Chinese customer brought in a personal CD player.
I repaired the fault, but was intrigued to see a video jack. I assumed it was for Karaoke, but when I tried it with his disc it played a film, much to my amazement.
No idea what system that was.

It could have been VCD (Video-CD). This used MPEG-1 on standard CDs to record about 70 minutes of medium quality video about 350x288 resolution if I recall correctly? VCD saw some official studio releases in Asian countries but in the West was mostly used for piracy or home digitisation of VHS cassettes before recordable DVD was a thing. Many DVD players can play VCDs.

There was another totally unofficial video format on CD which gave higher resolution and about 40 minutes per CD. I forget what it was called but possibly SVCD.

[Viewmaster]

Edison cylinders came in two sizes, The standard one we all know and a Concert disc. This was about 4 inches in diameter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwwvqrOVCKU

[vidjoman]

Flat 78rpm discs are easy to press but a cylinder is hard to copy. No wonder the discs were popular because of the lower price.