Posted by Derek Janssen on 06/20/06 05:12

Black Locust wrote:
> In article <r9l149yxqupz$.l7kcrj0l4knj$.dlg@40tude.net>,
> "Jay G." <Jay@tmbg.org> wrote:
>
>>To be fair, with very few exceptions, there were very few older releases
>>that hadn't been released on VHS or LD at some point. Had DVD not come
>>along, new releases and re-releases would've continued to appear on VHS and
>>LD. And failing that, studios would've been restoring and retransfering
>>titles for HDTV. That's kinda the dirty secret of DVD: it is mainly
>>supplementing what studios would've had to have done for HDTV in any case.
>
>>What the hell are you talking about? Superman Returns isn't even out in
>>theaters yet. And the Matrix was available on VHS.
>
> Actually, all 3 Matrix films are/were available on VHS. They may be OOP
> now; I'm not sure. Infact, Star Wars Episode 3 was the first MAJOR movie
> to not be released on VHS and that was in November of 2005. VHS took
> much longer to kill off then it really should have. Only NOW are the big
> film studios finally ceasing pre-recorded VHS production completely. So
> looking at it that way, will DVD co-exist with one of the HD formats
> until something else comes along to replace them both? Seems pretty far
> fetched, but that's basically what happened with VHS..

Yes, but you have to realize--
It wasn't "DVD's looked sort of nicer on screen than VHS", it was "DVD's
made you look at your VHS's as if they'd been chipped out of stone by
Neanderthals with bear knives...'Ooh, I'll REWIND my Matrix VHS tape,
and then I'll get out my 80's spandex and play Pac-Man on my Atari!'"

Maybe HD's are a little "neater" than DVD's, but they ain't the quantum
leap to make us turn against DVD's like a pack of jackals--
Remember CD's and vinyl, or word processors and typewriters: To become
a "replacement" technology, the new gizmo has to make you *LOATHE AND
DESPISE* the old technology...

Derek Janssen (as opposed to "Huh. Looks neat.")
ejanss@comcast.net

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