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Posted by M.I.5 on 01/04/07 09:29
"JoeBloe" <joebloe@thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org> wrote in message
news:84dnp2pfqtu1n36jn3i2od1hrar91h5vgf@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:24:20 -0000, "M.I.5?"
> <no.one@no.where.NO_SPAM.co.uk> Gave us:
>
>
>>It used to be held that any new media that the market accepted had a 30
>>year
>>life. 78s lasted about that time. LPs, CDs and VHS all appear to have
>>had
>>a similar life. But it looks like DVD may not even manage 20 years. Such
>>is the march of progress. The problem can only get worse.
>>>
>>
>
> Someone so knowledgable. Yet you left out Laser Disc completely,
> and it had a twenty year tenure, though it did not penetrate all
> consumer markets like LPs or VHS did. Much less DVDs. They took off
> and even astounded the forecasters.
>
I would not have described Laser Disc as 'taking off'. It failed to
penetrate the mass market completely, remaining very much a niche product.
Even finding sources of recorded material was difficult at best.
The one feature that completely turned the mass market away from it was the
inability to record.
Having said that, the Laser Disc probably represented the pinnacle of
domestic recorded quality at the time it was introduced. However, it was
forever constrained because of the analogue recording format which limited
its resolution to that of the PAL or NTSC colour format respectively.
I also failed to mention Video CD. Although this format had a very shaky
start with poor MPEG compression algorithms, it eventually found its feet
and was capable of resolutions better than Laser Disc. Star Trek
Generations being one of the best productions in this format. But Video CD
was destined for failure before it was released, not because of consumer
acceptance, but because of the introduction of low cost CD recorders which
could easily copy any Video CD. It was not helped when the format changed
horses in mid stream from Green Book to White Book (and were completely
incompatible with one another). The home film producers abandoned the
format ultimately in favour of one that offered copy protection (the DVD),
even though that protection proved to be flawed.
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