Posted by wandrinandz on 09/22/03 11:49

you are overlooking the obvious... if the format war continues, both sides
will suffer huge financial losses and if Bluray causes enough of a problem
then Microsoft and Toshiba will simply license out the technology to China
and we will see cheap hd-dvd players on supermarket shelves as we did with
standard dvd. companies have already invested huge amounts of money in dvd
production and simple tooling changes are all that is required for these
manufacturers to produce hd-dvd discs. The buying public will become
confused by a format war and in the end we may end up with nothing, like the
SACD and DVD-AUDIO war, with only a handfull of titles on both formats.
Since you're on about the subject of betamax, Sony invented Betamax and
althought the spec was better, the format still failed as a domestic
format, and the winner was ultimately decided by software price and
availability. The build quality of the betamax machines made by other
manufacturers like Sanyo for instance was not that great and there were much
better VHS machines made by manufacturers like Panasonic, and VHS improved
with the advent of more video heads and digital tracking and hifi tracks.
Similarly, HD-DVD can easily be updated on 2ng gen machines to include 1080p
and full Dolby HD surround.

"Matthew Sylvester" <matthew.sylvester@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1hgdeu2.17p715kczshasN%matthew.sylvester@gmail.com...
> POD {ҿ�} <DONT.EVEN.TRY.IT@DEADSPAM.COM> wrote:
>
> > Well we see the extent of your woeful knowledge, do we not, Betamax is
> > still alive and well and until recently used by the BBC before they went
> > fully digital.
>
> You're getting mixed up between Betamax and Betacam. The only thing they
> have in common these days is the cassette shell.
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betacam>

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