Posted by Derek Janssen on 12/09/05 10:45

Black Locust wrote:
>
> You're ignoring the issue. My point was, a new format doesn't
> automatically equal success. There have been numerous audio/video
> formats over the years that were history before they even had the chance
> to get going. Remember Philips Video 2000 videcassette format? Which
> BTW, was superior to both Betamax and VHS, but it didn't mean a damn
> thing to the average consumer. It was pratically dead on arrival.
>
>>The train is actually heading the opposite direction with Audio....
>>Does that mean everyone with using their IPOD's to watch the latest
>>Blockbuster? My gut says no.

My reading of articles, which tell of customers (most of whom don't
*have* iPod Videos yet, and are trying to watch them on big screens)
being unimpressed by the grainy small-screen renderings they ARE getting
for their download time, and of every other studio being too
competitor-petulant to provide content.

....Maybe, as noted, in a couple years, but that's a lifetime in the
"new-gadget" market.

>>?? Not quite sure what you mean. The VHS market and Laser market
>>were quite different... and DVD killed them both.
>
> What's so difficult to understand? You were saying that only now is DVD
> finally doing VHS in for good. So that means VHS is dying only a mere 4
> or 5 months before the launch of Blu-Ray, ASSUMING IT DOES INFACT LAUNCH
> NEXT SPRING. Using that analogy, DVD won't be completely done in until a
> format comes along to replace Blu-Ray(or HD-DVD)! No need to worry about
> DVD dying anytime soon if we're using this argument.

People (like, say, media-analyst zombies, for example) who keep
proclaiming that the next new tech-geek idea will "replace DVD's" seem
to be revealing:
A) a basic fear and fathomless awe of the technology which stems from
the fact that
B) they hadn't really gotten a grasp of *why* DVD's caught on in the
first place.

And, as they say, "If you have to ask...":
Those of us who were there remember: The day we tried out our first
DVD, it was like nothing on this earth (except for laserdisks, but only
geeky theater-heads cared about that)...
Someone had read our collective minds, taken EVERY single problem that
had ever secretly frustrated us about VHS (shelf size, forwarding,
rewinding, decomposing), solved them in one stroke, and made it
affordable--To the VHS user of at least ten years, DVD's were nothing
less than a Gift From Zeus. 0_0

And that's not what S-VHS was. Or satellite pay-per-view. Or DVD-A Or
Blu-Ray.
We didn't get excited about DVD's because they were "new", we got
excited *AFTER* using them, on our Playstations or computers, or what
have you. As in, we didn't have to buy any new gadget to start the
revolution and change hearts and minds.

....Top that, guys, and ya got your "replacement".
But to change users' minds, you first have to solve a problem, and for
that to happen, you first have to have some sort of problem.
Which we AIN'T GOT right now.

Derek Janssen
djanss@charter.net

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