End of an era

[AVGWarhawk]

I remember Block Buster opening up their first stores. It was all the rage. Especially in my hood. No cable yet. Then there was the Betamax or VHS wars. VHS winning out in the end. But, yeah, I remember jumping in my mom's Buick to go score a new release.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I remember Block Buster opening up their first stores. It was all the rage. Especially in my hood. No cable yet. Then there was the Betamax or VHS wars. VHS winning out in the end. But, yeah, I remember jumping in my mom's Buick to go score a new release.

VHS didn't win. The top dog spot was given to them because the chairman of Sony would not issue licenses to the porn producers to use their Betamax.

Either way, Tape recording has too many problems inherent to magnetic media. We learned that from the eight tracks.
Disc storage media has all but wiped out magnetic tape.

Good riddance I say.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Disc storage media has all but wiped out magnetic tape.

Good riddance I say.

But even that's not infallable, I fear over the next decade many, many families will see their digital family photos corrupted over time thinking that once it's backed up onto a disc it's there forever. It's not.

But it's still better than some Ferric Oxide and Cobalt mix.

Oh, by the way, Beta was a superior quality to VHS but due to the case dimensions it had a shorter play-time, so Sony halved the speed to resolve this but the quality decreased accordingly and equalled VHS until VHS HQ came along.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

But even that's not infallable, I fear over the next decade many, many families will see their digital family photos corrupted over time thinking that once it's backed up onto a disc it's there forever. It's not.

speaking of which, the very first DVD I ever bought back in 1997 or so was "Das Boot", one of the old discs you had to flip in the middle of the movie, which as you may have guessed as seen a lot of play over the years. I rewatched it over the weekend and now see that the image is getting coorupted in parts, i.e. red lines flashing across the screen, still 16 years is a good run

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

VHS didn't win. The top dog spot was given to them because the chairman of Sony would not issue licenses to the porn producers to use their Betamax.

I was not aware because back in them days it was Hustler or Playboy. We did not have much access to the videos.