Re: defending Beta (was Re: DIVX & Circut City)

["Steve Reindl" <sreindl@home.com>]

You're right I don't believe it. Steven puts on another shoe. How many is
that now 6, 7?
Don't you stumble over all those feet! ;-)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Pritchard" <steve@silug.org>
To: <silug-discuss@silug.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 1:44 PM
Subject: defending Beta (was Re: DIVX & Circut City)


> Steve Reindl said:
> > I wouldn't even compare it to BETA. Beta
> > was and is a far better technology than VHS has yet to achieve ( ever
looked
> > really close at the cameras the news crews use?) DIVX is just the same
old
> > crap with a little scam thrown in! Sony just tried to be greedy by not
> > licensing the technology along the lines of, yuck, Apple.
>
> I used to work as a master control operator of a TV station, believe
> it or not.  While I was there, we got rid of a lot of our old
> equipment, and replaced it with shiny new Beta systems.
>
> It really is great technology, but Sony wanted everyone to pay them
> large sums of money to use it.  So Sony's competitors came out with a
> vastly inferior system (VHS) and basically gave away the specs for it.
> Guess what won?
>
> You can compare it to the situation with PCs and "real" computers.
> PCs were, and largely still are, junk when compared to just about any
> other computer (Macs, any RISC box, etc.).  Because the IBM PC was
> built with OEM'd parts and somebody managed to reverse-engineer the
> BIOS, *anybody* could build a clone with no licensing costs.  (Oh, and
> DOS being available from M$ instead of IBM handed M$ a nice little
> monopoly, but that's another story entirely...)  So, guess what won?
>
> None of this changes the fact that professionals are willing to pay
> whatever it costs for "real" hardware, whether it is a tape machine or
> a computer...  It's just a shame that "Super-VHS" (I seem to recall
> there really was such a thing) never went anywhere...  We might all
> have broadcast-quality video recorders at home by now.  :-)
>
> Steve
> --
> steve@silug.org           | Southern Illinois Linux Users Group
> (618)398-7360             | See web site for meeting details.
> Steven Pritchard          | http://www.silug.org/
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