I remember when VHS movies cost up to $89.99 to buy.....Unreal.and no letterboxing....lousy transfers and poor stereo sound.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tron3
I have to agree. As I recall, of the studios decided to support both formats. Hey, they were in it for the buck and still do so. They don't give a damn if your last working Betamax player just chewed up your tape. Buy a new one. Can't find it in Beta anymore? Oh well, we have it in VHS. Ultimately, they don't care if you ever watch the movie again - JUST BUY IT, and buy it again when a new rendition comes out.
They were a great bargain and they still are today. I have 512 discs in my collection and I still buy them today.
Back then for less $$ than a VHS tape you got better PQ, better (digital)sound, sometimes DOLBY DIGITAL and DTS, and letterboxing. And lots of extra material in Special Edition sets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodstuff
^Yep, it made my laserdisc purchases back then look like an insanely ridiculous bargain.
I did watch one or two laser discs at my friends house. I do recall the picture having a odd digital feel to it. Great to watch.
However, I think the success of VHS largely has to do with people being able to record their own shows. The early models required you to be there and start and stop the tape. At least, I recall that being the case with Beta.
Everyone I knew had VHS or soon wanted one. "You don't have VHS yet? This is the 90's, get with the times!" In my life, I have known two who owned Laserdisc. Not that I ask in regular conversation, but I might now.
Why didn't Laserdisc make it bigger? i know of one or two people who had it, and my school had a player but never used it (i think they had no discs and had no idea how to use it if they did).
I hear they had great quality, and were even comparable to DVDs. but now that BD is out, I have no intention of going back. Just curious.
The ability record was the thing. In the vhs/beta war Sony refused to do an extended recording time(LP mode) and actually so did JVC(VHS) until RCA complained to Matsushita(JVC's parent Co.) that a 4 hour speed would be perfect for recording NFL games..........JVC still wouldnt do it so Matsushita stepped in and told them to. The main problem w/Beta was they didnt have the longer recording times because they didnt want to sacrifice PQ.
As for the Laser vs. VHS battle think(it may not be the best example)of SQ between a turntable & a cassette player.......the turntable had much better SQ but couldnt record...same w/Laser.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tron3
I did watch one or two laser discs at my friends house. I do recall the picture having a odd digital feel to it. Great to watch.
However, I think the success of VHS largely has to do with people being able to record their own shows. The early models required you to be there and start and stop the tape. At least, I recall that being the case with Beta.
Everyone I knew had VHS or soon wanted one. "You don't have VHS yet? This is the 90's, get with the times!" In my life, I have known two who owned Laserdisc. Not that I ask in regular conversation, but I might now.
Why didn't Laserdisc make it bigger? i know of one or two people who had it... Just curious.
Like I just stated, lack of recording ability probably curtailed adoption. It was still expensive, and people didn't like the LP size discs very much. Maybe the appearence of CD about 1984 really changed people's perception of size and quality.
Besides, we were so ignorant of things like lines of resolution, it was all the same to most consumers. Even me at the time.
Besides, VHS was everywhere. I don't think I ever saw a sinlge unit on display anywhere, let alone the movies. Marketing could have been better.
Laser is 425 lines.....Beta was 250......VHS is 240.....SVHS is 400.........Tron's right about the record ability plus, believe it or not, people (mostly women) hated, and I mean HATED letterboxing because they thought they were getting LESS picture now matter how you tried to convince them otherwise.
Remember widescreen TV's werent in abundance then but it wouldnt have mattered because no LD's were "enhanced for widescreen tv's" like most DVD's are. The letterboxing looks pretty much the same on a widescreen or 4:3 tv.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tron3
Like I just stated, lack of recording ability probably curtailed adoption. It was still expensive, and people didn't like the LP size discs very much. Maybe the appearence of CD about 1984 really changed people's perception of size and quality.
Besides, we were so ignorant of things like lines of resolution, it was all the same to most consumers. Even me at the time.
Besides, VHS was everywhere. I don't think I ever saw a sinlge unit on display anywhere, let alone the movies. Marketing could have been better.
ok this may have been beaten down already if so i am sorry. but wasnt sony the creator of beta, and since porn is said to be the deciding factor in that war, isnt it weird that there isnt going to be porn on blu-ray. it just seems sony wouldve learned from there mistakes. but we are killing the compition right now and i dont wanna see it die
Yes, there is Blu-ray porn. I have a copy of the first Blu-ray porn disc released in the U.S. - "Debbie Does Dallas Again." It's sealed in it's original shrink wrap, packed away with the receipt, locked up. I figure in about 10 or 20 years, I should make a nice profit!
Originally, the porn industry wanted to go with Blu-ray. Sony would not replicate anything like that. Non-Sony facilities would (I think there was "1" at the time) but had a problem- Disney. Because of a porn disc (or tape, actually, IIRC) getting shipped out accidentally in a Disney case, Disney came up with requirements to prevent a reoccurrence. It boiled down to any plant replicating Disney titles not being allowed to ever replicate porn, or go thru major hoops to ensure no mistakes. It just simply wasn't profitable enough to bother with the porn.
Then the porn industry moved to HD-DVD. There were a lot of hurt feelings around, and a lot was made of the cost of HD DVD replication being cheaper, etc. After their "15 minutes" of fame passed and they worked it out of their systems, it all dropped out of the news and hasn't been heard from since. And they produced very little in high def after all. The porn industry has plenty of money to replicate anything in any manner. We may one day have holosuites because they funded development.
A market continues for porn on disc. It's easier to pop a disc into a player connected to a TV. Few people connect their TVs to the internet, to this day. But it's a far cry from determining any format war.
Sony Pictures, Fox Studios, and Disney are going NO WHERE. Universal and Warner still sit on the fence with both legs dangling in our camp. Just a matter of time.
Disney is going NOWHERE? HA! Have you seen the sales of Disney titles this week? Or even before this week? Daddy wants high def, Disney is only available on Blu-ray, he gets family buy in for the Blu-ray format. Disney has a road show going to malls across the county, introducing people to Blu-ray, HDTV and all the wonder titles available that just happen to be from - DISNEY!
Warner, BTW, does not have both legs in the HD DVD camp. One in each, at best. They are selling about twice as many titles in Blu-ray as in HD DVD. They're not leaving Blu-ray anytime soon. Even Universal is watching sales begin to increase faster than was expected a few months ago. Paramount's deal ends not long after Xmas 2008. The admitted shortcomings of HD DVD in capacity and bandwidth are already affecting titles and limiting what directors want to do. And it's not just Transformers. Splitting a movie across two discs destroys continuity and is not popular. A second disc for extras is fine, but is added cost.
HD DVD has lost everywhere in the world already. There really isn't any hope at all that they will replace Blu-ray in this country, or anywhere. The most they could hope for is co-existence. And that is not likely- retailers, distributors, studios and consumers would all prefer the simplicity of a single format. Of course, they could end up destroying high def discs for a generation, like SACD/DVD-Audio.
HD DVD isn't meeting today's needs, much less any needs in the future. The cost advantage it had was phony, the features advantage it had is disappearing. It's lesser copy protection, and even lack of regional coding, works against it with some or all studios. It's capacity and bandwidth shortfalls are becoming commonly known. There are almost no manufacturers outside Toshiba, and almost no CE support. Seen any HD DVD recorders anywhere for sale? How about an HD DVD camcorder? What? Only in Blu-ray? I can buy a burner and blanks today for Blu-ray. It does matter for movies- it's called synergy.
Sorry if these aren't words you want to read, or even believe. But what you or I believe will not matter in determining "the winner(s)." Next year, maybe the year after, it will be decided. HD DVD will be a niche, or disappear entirely.
Disney is going NOWHERE? HA! Have you seen the sales of Disney titles this week? Or even before this week? Daddy wants high def, Disney is only available on Blu-ray, he gets family buy in for the Blu-ray format. Disney has a road show going to malls across the county, introducing people to Blu-ray, HDTV and all the wonder titles available that just happen to be from - DISNEY!
Warner, BTW, does not have both legs in the HD DVD camp. One in each, at best. They are selling about twice as many titles in Blu-ray as in HD DVD. They're not leaving Blu-ray anytime soon. Even Universal is watching sales begin to increase faster than was expected a few months ago. Paramount's deal ends not long after Xmas 2008. The admitted shortcomings of HD DVD in capacity and bandwidth are already affecting titles and limiting what directors want to do. And it's not just Transformers. Splitting a movie across two discs destroys continuity and is not popular. A second disc for extras is fine, but is added cost.
HD DVD has lost everywhere in the world already. There really isn't any hope at all that they will replace Blu-ray in this country, or anywhere. The most they could hope for is co-existence. And that is not likely- retailers, distributors, studios and consumers would all prefer the simplicity of a single format. Of course, they could end up destroying high def discs for a generation, like SACD/DVD-Audio.
HD DVD isn't meeting today's needs, much less any needs in the future. The cost advantage it had was phony, the features advantage it had is disappearing. It's lesser copy protection, and even lack of regional coding, works against it with some or all studios. It's capacity and bandwidth shortfalls are becoming commonly known. There are almost no manufacturers outside Toshiba, and almost no CE support. Seen any HD DVD recorders anywhere for sale? How about an HD DVD camcorder? What? Only in Blu-ray? I can buy a burner and blanks today for Blu-ray. It does matter for movies- it's called synergy.
Sorry if these aren't words you want to read, or even believe. But what you or I believe will not matter in determining "the winner(s)." Next year, maybe the year after, it will be decided. HD DVD will be a niche, or disappear entirely.
Having been (generally) on the losing end of format/technology wars over the years (8-track, cassettes, Betamax, VHS, VideoDisks, laserdisks, and, eventually, SD), I fully believe you're right on course here.
Obviously, though, someday Blu-ray will be replaced by something else perhaps we haven't even conceived of yet. But for now it's the best format. The quicker even SD gets replaced, the better it'll be, regarding the availability and prices of movies and TV series in Blu.
Having been (generally) on the losing end of format/technology wars over the years (8-track, cassettes, Betamax, VHS, VideoDisks, laserdisks, and, eventually, SD), I fully believe you're right on course here.
Obviously, though, someday Blu-ray will be replaced by something else perhaps we haven't even conceived of yet. But for now it's the best format. The quicker even SD gets replaced, the better it'll be, regarding the availability and prices of movies and TV series in Blu.
-Greg
It won't be replaced as quick as you think. HDTV is still in relative infancy and the BDA is already researching and developing larger and larger disc capacities. What does that mean? it means that when even higher resolution TVs become available, the format of choice for home video could very well still be Blu-ray disc.
Glenn's right. In the 20 or so yrs. that laser was around only a million players were sold........and it still hung around that long. How many Blu & HD'S have been sold to date....counting X's and PS3's??
Quote:
Originally Posted by glenn22
It won't be replaced as quick as you think. HDTV is still in relative infancy and the BDA is already researching and developing larger and larger disc capacities. What does that mean? it means that when even higher resolution TVs become available, the format of choice for home video could very well still be Blu-ray disc.
It won't be replaced as quick as you think. HDTV is still in relative infancy and the BDA is already researching and developing larger and larger disc capacities. What does that mean? it means that when even higher resolution TVs become available, the format of choice for home video could very well still be Blu-ray disc.
Took the words out of my mouth - basically. I think we all agree blu-ray is the here and now, and is "it" in the foreseeable future.
Now, taking a que from music. Gramaphone, LP, 8-track, cassette, CD, Ipod.
The future of movies could very well be on memory stick type devices. Cost being the prohibiting factor now. Plus, they need higher throughput speeds. Could be why they are working on USB 3.0 specifications.
I have said before that the future of blu-ray could be players that do both (BD100) disc and USB stick. How cool is that?
Beta (max) lost the (consumer) war vs VHS because it was 1 manufacturer (Sony) vs 1 other (Matsushita), much higher prices vs much lower quality.
No studio backup or exclusivity (at first there were no movies released, it was meant to record TV and your kid's play at school on massively oversized camcorders).
So Low price won vs High Quality.
That was in the early 80's. Since then, Beta (max) has won the professional video market under the name Beta (cam) and has been by far the most successful and commonly used format in Broadcast video (specifically Beta SP, the successor to the very successful U-Matic SP in term of market share).
NOW, 20 years later or so.
You have a dozen of manufacturers behind one format that is truly a new generation of technology (Blu-Ray), vs 1 manufacturer (Tosh) backed by 1 Software maker with shaddy motives (MS).
And look at that. Despite being (theorically) about the same level of quality (HD / 1080p), and being higher priced, Blu-Ray IS winning (denying this at this point is just delusionnal).
Why is that?
Because Blu-Ray offers more space, that is true, and more bandwidth. But that kinda is a technicality for your average Joe , no?
The future will offer more features with BDJ, true as well. But what does it mean, right now, for the consumer? The PS3 sold millions vs a mere hundred thousand of HD-DVD players, but as most HD DVD fans would say, most people use their PS3 to play games (their arguments).
So how come the disc sales, even in the US -but much more so worldwide-, are very much in favor of Blu-Ray?
Originally Warner was pro HD (despite being officially Neutral), Paramount was neutral but went HD DVD after a $150M bribe (source NYT)...
I mean, when you look at it, lower price players, relatively good studio support (Paramount/DW and Universal exclusives, Warner prefered until Q3 /07), only player truly competitive being an "overpriced" console (HD DVD argument) ... how come Blu-Ray is getting so much support and is winning in disc sales every week, and is even (worst part for them) tying HD- DVD in player only sales ?
HOW ? (cries the HD DVD fan)
Let me tell you why.
This is because, from the get go, Blu-Ray was conceived as a true Next Gen and englobing format. By that I mean that it was created to be an entire next step to the DVD (like it was to the CD), whereas the HD DVD was conceived as a cheap upgrade. By englobing, I mean that it is the work of dozen of patents and ideas coming from several manufaturers, members of the BDA (among which are Apple, Philips and many others).
It did cost them a lot to take the higher approach (and almost cost them the war, as the Betamax approach did). But thanks to the brilliant tactic employed with the PS3 (which ended up costing Sony a whole lot), but also thanks to well informed fans who are spreading the word, and more and more people looking deep down what it means to have a true next generation format, Blu-Ray is winning.
In fact, I may be wrong, but to me Blu-Ray has already won the war.
The war against HD DVD that is. The industry (as in professional markets) doesn't lie, and the US market for retail discs sales/player sales hardly makes for the entire world. If your format can barely tie or lay at 2:1 losing in the US, but gets literally crushed all over the planet, it's over.
If you look at the Hardware industry and see that out of 10 well knownn makers 9 are making the machine of your competitors, it's over.
If you look at the PC DATA market, and every retailer hosts 6x the number in references to the other format, it's over. If all 4 top PC makers, as well as Apple, back up your competition, it's over.
The war Blu-Ray hasn't won yet, is the HD penetration war, vs the lingering DVD. HD DVD can at best make the goals and challenges more blury, in the hope of "getting by". Toshiba will end up victim of its own greed, having refused early on to join the Blu-Ray assocation to continue to develop on their now obsolete format (Tosh is holding some major patents on the DVD format which they would very reluctantly see go away). But no company out there has the resources to keep on fighting this kind of market war against everyone else without paying a serious price.
Sony learned this lesson with Atrac (Beta was really an entire other situation), a format they tried to promote against mp3.
It seems Toshiba is going to have to learn the hard way...
What about MS in all this?
response: What do they care really?
They would like nothing else but to be the next Itune for the HD market, if you haven't realized that already, with their "Live" service.
If Blu-Ray wins by a larger margin than they would like, what's preventing them from releasing an external Blu-Ray drive, as annoying it might be for them?
No, there's only two companies I wouldn't want to be right now. And that's Toshiba (mostly), and Paramount (for looking like a fool taking bribes against the interest of the consumer)...
I'm really tired of hearing that "Beta was better than VHS and look what happened" argument when that wasn't really true for pre-recorded Beta II/VHS SP movies.. for the last time 486interlaced NTSC 1/2" videotape with 240 lines of horizontal resolution is equivalent to 486interlaced NTSC 1/2" videotape with 240 lines of horizontal resolution.
Actually the original Beta was 250 lines (later much improved with the Super Beta, and then Beta ED) while the VHS was 240, later improved to 250.
Also, due to their support of "Long Play", and worse with ELP, VHS's much praised quality of "longer recording duration" was coming at the cost of a sharp (very sharp with ELP) decline in picture quality.
<--- Point of my post (that the Blu-Ray vs HD DVD war is very different from what happened with Beta/VHS, and that despite a perceived HD DVD advantage, anyone educated realises rapidly that Blu-Ray is the better format to the despair of HD-DVD fans)
WOOOOOSSHHHH
<---- you (still involved in a sterile discussion that OMG-VHS-was-o-so-equally-good-as-Beta).
Why are we even discussing this? Not only it was true when Beta(max) was first introduced (that it was technically better), but this also relates to the way most people think about this format (higher priced but better picture).
Oh and S-VHS came much later btw
You work for JVC or something?
Peace, and let's try to discuss the point of the post.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Ultimately, they don't care if you ever watch the movie again - JUST BUY IT, and buy it again when a new rendition comes out.
Linear Mode
