FORMAT WARS

Back again, with a post containing a more technological bent, like hardcore technology, unless I get carried away and sappy again. The best recent example I can see is the recent fight for the title of Industry/Consumer Standard High Definition Player. (if you can really call it a fight, considering how long it lasted.) In one corner we had the"high definition" player supported by some manufacturers, and in the other corner we have the "blue-ray" high def player. In a unanimous vote, a knockout was scored by blue ray (the name even sounds cool; blue ray laser light, ....red laser sounds so cd and yesterday. I've even invested in a blue ray movie "Cars" and I don't even have a blue ray player in the house. Oh well, I'm not always an early adopter (more later) and with 1. a player at work by my desk to use 2. and a family blessed with kids, I'm not quite always cutting edge anymore, but I wouldn't trade what I have for anything, "people before possessions. But just the blue case and logos are almost worth 19.95 or 24.95 or whatever it was, is that sick? Am I addicted? Or just equipped to perform my job in technology? Any, this reminds me of a good, old example of a format war fought long, long, ago, in the 1970's to be exact. Sony (no commercial reimbursement, yet) which I have yet to be disappointed with a purchase from this company, like they say, "If you buy quality, you only cry once". Anyway, other good companies, too. Like I was saying, Sony had the Betamax videotape recorder, others had introduced the VHS system. Better quality does not alway win out, neither does Sony, and by all accounts the Betamax was a superior video quality system over the VHS system, but not by much. The VHS system was a good quality system, as is evidenced by it's reign as the video recording system of choice (1) for around 20 years. Betamax was relegated into semi- obscurity, tapes and player available for awhile for a few holdouts, but mostly occupying closet space with the laser disc player (had to turn over mid-movie). A large factor was VHS beating Beta to the longer length for movie(s) recording. Now dvd players are 29.95. Back to the main topic, Blue ray players were originally $1000 or more, now they have broken under the 300 dollar mark. Time marches on. The original NTSC video system that vcr's were based on, often knocked, was a marvel for it's original time of invention, and has served us well up til now, and until, officially, February when time stands still and broadcast tv goes digital. Speaking of vhs tapes, I writing this during the noon hour, and by noon I had already managed to drop a balky videotape on the floor and broke the plastic front. ( she also had it in dvd). Just helping to move her down the road a little bit, technologically speaking.