Spring Break
Technology before our time
John Tavares
Issue date: 1/8/08 Section: Forum
The other day I was surprised and horrified to learn that few people of my generation know about the VHS vs. Betamax war of the late 70s and 80s.
Now I know that my generation wasn't even being conceived until the final shots were being fired, but there is still a vital lesson that we must understand.
The videocassette format war began in 1976, when JVC introduced the VHS videotape to compete with Sony's Betamax format. This was a problem, as both were incompatible formats that accomplished the same thing.
Since it was expensive to produce videos for both formats, the film distributors began taking sides, meaning some videos were only available for one format or the other, causing the consumer to suffer.
Yet it was the consumer, with the power of demand, who would choose the winner. To put it simply, Betamax had better quality but less run time, while VHS sacrificed quality for longer run times. In essence, the consumers chose VHS because, to them, buying one eight-hour tape made more sense than buying two four-hour tapes for double the cost.
Okay, so why is this so important? The history of media technology is full of format wars, as two companies duke it out to become the market standard. If you don't learn your lesson from the unfortunate Betamax owners, who suddenly owned something completely worthless, you are bound to suffer the same fate.
Yes, finally I get to the point. Today we have Sony's Blu-ray vs. Toshiba's High Definition DVD battling to replace the still-youthful DVD. Just as with the video tape war, both formats are designed to do the same thing: play HD movies. The difference is that Blu-ray has a much higher capacity at a higher cost than HD DVD.
Now this is the part where I offer sage advice on which format will win out and which you should buy. But I won't.
In fact, you should avoid buying either. First of all, either format is only worth anything if you already own an HD TV that can do justice to the videos. And since some of the players cost more than a television set, they just aren't worth it at this time.
Now I know that my generation wasn't even being conceived until the final shots were being fired, but there is still a vital lesson that we must understand.
The videocassette format war began in 1976, when JVC introduced the VHS videotape to compete with Sony's Betamax format. This was a problem, as both were incompatible formats that accomplished the same thing.
Since it was expensive to produce videos for both formats, the film distributors began taking sides, meaning some videos were only available for one format or the other, causing the consumer to suffer.
Yet it was the consumer, with the power of demand, who would choose the winner. To put it simply, Betamax had better quality but less run time, while VHS sacrificed quality for longer run times. In essence, the consumers chose VHS because, to them, buying one eight-hour tape made more sense than buying two four-hour tapes for double the cost.
Okay, so why is this so important? The history of media technology is full of format wars, as two companies duke it out to become the market standard. If you don't learn your lesson from the unfortunate Betamax owners, who suddenly owned something completely worthless, you are bound to suffer the same fate.
Yes, finally I get to the point. Today we have Sony's Blu-ray vs. Toshiba's High Definition DVD battling to replace the still-youthful DVD. Just as with the video tape war, both formats are designed to do the same thing: play HD movies. The difference is that Blu-ray has a much higher capacity at a higher cost than HD DVD.
Now this is the part where I offer sage advice on which format will win out and which you should buy. But I won't.
In fact, you should avoid buying either. First of all, either format is only worth anything if you already own an HD TV that can do justice to the videos. And since some of the players cost more than a television set, they just aren't worth it at this time.
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