What were the previous format wars like?

[Grisle]

I'm interested to know what it was like during the previous format wars. For those of you who were involved in the VHS v BETA war give us some of your experiences and some similarities with the current war. How did you get your information during the time? It seems like it would have been hard. I'm only 26 so this whole early adopter thing is new to me.

[Razzy]

Originally Posted by Grisle

How did you get your information during the VHS v BETA time? It seems like it would have been hard.

Well, back in the 80's we all had to run out to the corner & grab a newspaper from a boy screaming "Extra Extra...VHS stomps Beta!!"


Seriously though, I'd say the internet is definitely helping fuel this war. I don't recall reading in the newspaper or seeing a whole lot on TV about the VHS vs Beta battle, maybe a blurb here & there. One day beta was just gone.

[GregBlu5]

Originally Posted by Grisle

I'm interested to know what it was like during the previous format wars. For those of you who were involved in the VHS v BETA and DVD v Laserdisc wars give us some of your experiences and some similiarities with the current war. How did you get your information during the VHS v BETA time? It seems like it would have been hard. I'm only 26 so this whole early adopter thing is new to me.

Honestly, it wasn't anything like this. The Internet has added a whole other vicious dimension to this war. In the past, it was more like a gentleman's duel, with seconds and all kinds of polite activities--removing the glove before slapping one's opponent with it and not with one's hand. Now, it's bare knuckle fisticuffs and assault rifles at close range.

Sorry for the levity. You've been posting a lot longer than I, but we really have discussed this thread elsewhere quite extensively--but I really don't know how to point you in the right direction yet. (Also, it seems that I went to bed last night and folks were debating yesterday's good news and this morning I wake up early to find intense anger, suspensions and a generally somber mood all over this forum.)

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

-Greg

[Moefiz]

Originally Posted by Grisle

I'm interested to know what it was like during the previous format wars. For those of you who were involved in the VHS v BETA and DVD v Laserdisc wars give us some of your experiences and some similiarities with the current war. How did you get your information during the VHS v BETA time? It seems like it would have been hard. I'm only 26 so this whole early adopter thing is new to me.

The information that we have now about this war is 100 times better than what we had in the early 80's about VHS and Betamax, now everything is at your fingertips in the old day you had to buy your magazines to read about it back then.
VHS had more studios putting out more movies than betamax eventually you could have gone into THE WIZ(old electronics chain) and buy your movies, laserdisc you had to go to a specialy store to buy them at first until they became more mainstream.
The problem with laserdisc was even thou the picture quality was great,better than VSH at the time the hardware was expensive and you could have only played a laserdisc movie at first with the hardware until Pioneer came out with a combo player that played CD's and Lasedisc.
I personally never think laserdisc had a chance even if the studios were putting the movies out just never caught on then came dvd's same picture and sound quality and the ever inportant you never had to flip the disc over to the other side to finish seeing the movie.

[Magic]

Originally Posted by Grisle

I'm interested to know what it was like during the previous format wars. For those of you who were involved in the VHS v BETA and DVD v Laserdisc wars give us some of your experiences and some similiarities with the current war. How did you get your information during the VHS v BETA time? It seems like it would have been hard. I'm only 26 so this whole early adopter thing is new to me.

1. Thank you for posting a thread with this topic clearly defined in the subject line. I myself am only 27 and am wondering what past wars were like. This will be my thread for those answers (hopefully). Thank you.
2. I clicked to check out your collection and your link takes me to the sign in page at dvdspot......not your actual collection. Oops.

[Blue_Baron]

In my opinion, although Beta was a superior format than VHS, it lost out on the format war because, ultimately VHS was cheaper and more titles available.

With Laserdisc, it was the price (approx. $40/ea) that made it a niche format and it had limited capabilities. The main thing I disliked about laserdisc besides the price was they were 2-sided and large. I eventually switched to DVD because they were more affordable, had better resolution (audio & video) and smaller. Honestly, I didn't think it would get any better than DVD.

The good thing also about DVD was it was a unified format. All the players (Sony, JVC, Philips, etc.)got together and agreed on a standard.

Now, with this current format war, I think at the end of the day Blu-ray will win. Blu-ray has more studio support thus, more available titles. Both formats have about the same quality although Blu-ray wins in the storage capacity.
The prices of the discs are comparable. The difference here also is in the price of the players. If Blu-ray players drop in price, and Warner Studios decide to drop HD-DVD, i think the format war will be over.

[bluperch]

Here's what I posted in another of these threads:

Here's one person's take on why VHS won that earlier war: http://www.hometoys.com/article.php4?displayid=99

Not mentioned in this article is what some believe was the reason: VHS produced longer-running tapes before Betamax did. I guess the original tapes were only an hour long. VHS was first-to-market with 2-hour and 4-hour tapes. It didn't make any difference to the public that you got better quality from Betamax because they felt the VHS picture was "good enough."

[bluperch]

Here's the original format wars:

In the beginning, sound was recorded onto cylinders. So at some point there must have been a "war" between wax cylinders and wax discs.

Then in 1930, the records at the time were made of shellac (wax) and played at 78 rpm, but RCA Victor launched the first commercially available vinyl long-playing record, marketed as "Program Transcription" discs. These revolutionary discs were designed for playback at 33⅓ rpm and pressed on a 30 cm diameter flexible plastic disc. In Roland Gelatt's book The Fabulous Phonograph, the author notes that RCA Victor's early introduction of a long-play disc was a commercial failure for several reasons including the lack of affordable, reliable consumer playback equipment and consumer wariness [sound familiar?] during the Great Depression. Vinyl wouldn't catch on commercially until decades later.

Here's the full wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record

Then also around the same time (1927, The Jazz Singer) there was the "war" between silent pictures and talking pictures. Some studios at the time believed talkies were a fad and wouldn't catch on.

[Tulsa]

The PQ on the Beta was better but not enough that anyone really cared. What made sense back then was the 1.5 hour recording time on the Beta and as mentioned the 2 hour recording time on the VHS. You could get an entire two hour movie on a tape. Originally you only had a wired remote that would only pause the recordings, so if you sat there and watched it while you recorded it, you could cut out the commercials if you had good hand/eye coordination and timing.

The news, unless you went looking for it, you never really heard about it until it was all over. VHS simply had more bang for the buck to the average consumer when PQ on their 25" console tv sucked anyway.

[bluperch]

Originally Posted by Tulsa

Originally you only had a wired remote that would only pause the recordings, so if you sat there and watched it while you recorded it, you could cut out the commercials if you had good hand/eye coordination and timing.

Oh, man, I forgot about the wired remote. I remember a bunch of times recording movies late at night and only recording half the movie because I paused the recording during a commercial and then fell asleep. Those were the days, people.

[redtornado]

I remember the format war of the VCR. Lots of video rental places had a separate section for Beta and another for VHS. Over time the VHS side got bigger and bigger. Thats how I knew who won.

We still used our Beta player for recording tv shows. It lasted for years.

[Dalese]

Originally Posted by GregBlu5

Honestly, it wasn't anything like this. The Internet has added a whole other vicious dimension to this war. In the past, it was more like a gentleman's duel, with seconds and all kinds of polite activities--removing the glove before slapping one's opponent with it and not with one's hand. Now, it's bare knuckle fisticuffs and assault rifles at close range.

The internet is making the big difference allowing more people to be intimately involved and in the "front-lines" of discussions.

From the everyday consumers viewpoint, with Beta, laserdisc, and even more recently with vinyl lps, and cassetes it has been about what do you see when you go into the stores. Items that are going to be the future get more shelf space, out facing the products that are on the way out. VHS did that to Beta, DVD did that to VHS, CDs did that to cassettes which did that to lps. Nintendo's Wii software replacing GameCube's is another example.

That's why Blu-ray getting more shelf space in Target and Blockbuster is important, because customers equate more shelf space to better items. The same goes for Blu-ray having more manufacturers with more models than Toshiba. The customer will walk down the aisle seeing Sony 300, Sony 500, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, etc... all for Blu-ray, then see a Toshiba for the same price, a cheaper Toshiba, and maybe an even cheaper Toshiba. Consumers like "more" and feel good about having "more" purchasing choices.

What we as enthusiests often forget is that most people don't spend time on forums, reading blogs, and spending massive amounts of waking hours living and breathing HD.

[EricJ]

The Internet was used as Modern Warfare for the first time back when in the 90's, when DVD-vs.-DiVX was as new as the Net itself:


A few Bill Hunt artifacts from the War Museum--
Sound familiar?

[rigpig]

...dvd vs laserdisc wasn't a 'war', if that term has to be used. Apples and oranges really.
You have one format that really was thee only 'higher-res' home movie delivery alternative, for the better part of two decades. It's direct competitor was VHS really....when dvd came about, it was better technology, period & any long term laser-phile knew the writing was on the wall, no war, just a newer, better technology displacing an older that had a decent run. DVD got hold AFTER laserdisc had been around for a long time. Laserdisc had quite a long life, was a viable format, although expensive & really brought things to the table that weren't in existence prior..ie higher res video over vhs, discrete multichannel surround (AC-3), predominantly widescreen & original aspect ratio material & the whole concept of 'extras' & se's & 'director's cuts'. Laserdisc started HT.

[clyon]

There is already a thread on this:

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...mats+died+past

[SamIam]

Without the net there really was no "war" between VHS and Beta...it was mainly word of mouth and magazines that assisted people in deciding..

As for LD....nobody outside the uber enthusiast group cared at all about it..it barely hit the general publics radar...I don't recall knowing a soul who wanted one. Thus it never took off pat the niche phase...kinda reminds me of what we're up against now with HDM...general public apathy toward HDM.

[Shadowself]

There were various information on the 'net, but very few people accessed them. Mostly people with connections or true technology wonks. There were BBSs and Net News sources.

The biggest differences were that the real specifications of the systems were hard to come by and often were only available to those directly in the industry.

Later, when the war was virtually over, we had BIX (Byte Information Exchange), GEnie (GE Information Network), etc.

It wasn't all stone knives and bear skins.

[quetzalcoatl]

Originally Posted by rigpig

...dvd vs laserdisc wasn't a 'war', if that term has to be used. Apples and oranges really.
You have one format that really was thee only 'higher-res' home movie delivery alternative, for the better part of two decades. It's direct competitor was VHS really....when dvd came about, it was better technology, period & any long term laser-phile knew the writing was on the wall, no war, just a newer, better technology displacing an older that had a decent run. DVD got hold AFTER laserdisc had been around for a long time. Laserdisc had quite a long life, was a viable format, although expensive & really brought things to the table that weren't in existence prior..ie higher res video over vhs, discrete multichannel surround (AC-3), predominantly widescreen & original aspect ratio material & the whole concept of 'extras' & se's & 'director's cuts'. Laserdisc started HT.

That is what happend with LD w/o a doubt. And the thing that really killed it was when VHS started to come down in price. Remember the days of new releases being $99 on VHS. I was happy to $40-100 for my LD.

And just for fun my LD player is older than yours.

[Grisle]

Originally Posted by Magic

1. Thank you for posting a thread with this topic clearly defined in the subject line. I myself am only 27 and am wondering what past wars were like. This will be my thread for those answers (hopefully). Thank you.
2. I clicked to check out your collection and your link takes me to the sign in page at dvdspot......not your actual collection. Oops.

Thanks for the heads up on the sig...check it out now.

[bluperch]

I'm sure someone has posted this, but it's new to me and I was quite surprised (stole this from wiki):

In the early 1990s two high-density optical storage standards were being developed; one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc, backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density disc, supported by Toshiba, Time Warner, Matsushita Electric, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson, and JVC. IBM's president, Lou Gerstner, acting as a matchmaker, led an effort to unite the two camps behind a single standard, anticipating a repeat of the costly videotape format war between VHS and Betamax in the 1980s.

Philips and Sony abandoned their MultiMedia Compact Disc and fully agreed upon Toshiba's SuperDensity Disc with only one modification, namely changing to EFMPlus modulation. EFMPlus was chosen as it has a great resilience against disc damage such as scratches and fingerprints. EFMPlus, created by Kees Immink, who also designed EFM, is 6% less efficient than the modulation technique originally used by Toshiba, which resulted in a capacity of 4.7 GB as opposed to the original 5 GB. The result was the DVD specification, finalized for the DVD movie player and DVD-ROM computer applications in December 1995.[1] In May 1997, the DVD Consortium was replaced by the DVD Forum, which is open to all other companies.