What were the previous format wars like?

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by 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.

Two things about this are incorrect. Beta kept lowering the price of their players so they were much cheaper than VHS, but VHS won because of more studio support, that part is correct. But at the time, VHS and Beta tapes were $100 and over to purchase them. The first VHS VCR I bought was $600, but that was after the price came down a lot, I never considered Beta because of lack of titles. Earlier VHS VCRs were well over $1000, Does any of this sound familiar?

Also, one of the bigger draws for a lot of people with Laserdisc was the affordability. Yes, some of the players were expensive, but you could get a really good player for little more than a VHS VCR. And, at this time VHS tapes were still $100 and over at first they were meant only for the rental market, thus the $100 price tag. You sometimes had to wait a year or more before the prices came down to an affordable range. That is one of the reasons many people picked LD too, They were more affordable from release date by about $60!

[Tulsa]

Originally Posted by atomik kinder

Earlier VHS VCRs were well over $1000, Does any of this sound familiar?

I purchased my first VCR the summer of 78 and paid $799 for it. It was a top loader so there was no component stacking going on. I couldn't afford actual recorded movies, it was all blank tapes and doing my own recordings.

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by Tulsa

I purchased my first VCR the summer of 78 and paid $799 for it. It was a top loader so there was no component stacking going on. I couldn't afford actual recorded movies, it was all blank tapes and doing my own recordings.

And would you care to share with others how large that thing was? Some of the earlier VCRs were pretty huge, Heavier than most people's current TVs.

[BluOgre]

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 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.

I think VHS vs BETA was intresting. It was actually quite similar to the current war except Sony was on the losing side (no support and went it alone).

Fortunately for Toshiba no one really contested the DVD format outside of Fox and Divix (what a funky format.....kind of like paperview on dvd lol). I seem to remember Sony gave up their format to avoid a war like the one they saw during the VHS days.

Funny how Sony was a real good team player back then. Too bad Toshiba didn't take notes so we wouldn't avoid another VHS/BETA battle.

[Tulsa]

It was so big, the buttons were bigger than most people's mp3 players!



Really it was very large. Rudimentary in it's operation and as previously mentioned, it had a "wired" pause button. A cable about 20 feet long with a single switch to pause and unpause the recording head. You also had to set your recordings when you weren't going to be there at least a minute in advance of the start of the show as you had to allow for the pre-roll of the tape to start up and actually begin recording.