Guest123_x1
Guest
- 0
- Posts
On occasion, when a new media format is released for sale to consumers, another format with a similar purpose is also introduced, usually by a rival company or group, that ends up competing with the other format, resulting in what is called a 'format war'.
Notable format wars include HD DVD vs. Blu-ray from the middle of last decade (won by Blu-ray), the various competing memory card formats used by digital cameras around the early 2000s (eventually won by Secure Digital), and VHS vs. Betamax from the late 1970s and early 1980s (won by VHS, perhaps the most widely-referenced competition ever).
What format wars do you remember or have heard others talk about? Have you ever bought technology and media products that were mired in the middle of a format war? Do you have technology that eventually lost a format war?
I remember the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war that started around the time I graduated high school (2006). Although that war had been won by Blu-ray in 2008, I didn't get my first Blu-ray player until 2013, given how pricey such products were then and in the preceding years.
I also have read about the videotape format war (the aforementioned VHS vs. Betamax) at numerous points in time, and found that the Blu-ray war had some parallels to the videotape war (even though I wasn't around to witness the earlier war).
As recently as the late 1990s, I would sometimes see some Betamax movies in thrift stores, not really knowing at the time why those cassettes were shaped so much differently from VHS cassettes.
I also remember the aforementioned competition between memory card formats, although by the time I got my first digital camera (2007), that war was pretty much going in SD's favor.
Notable format wars include HD DVD vs. Blu-ray from the middle of last decade (won by Blu-ray), the various competing memory card formats used by digital cameras around the early 2000s (eventually won by Secure Digital), and VHS vs. Betamax from the late 1970s and early 1980s (won by VHS, perhaps the most widely-referenced competition ever).
What format wars do you remember or have heard others talk about? Have you ever bought technology and media products that were mired in the middle of a format war? Do you have technology that eventually lost a format war?
I remember the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war that started around the time I graduated high school (2006). Although that war had been won by Blu-ray in 2008, I didn't get my first Blu-ray player until 2013, given how pricey such products were then and in the preceding years.
I also have read about the videotape format war (the aforementioned VHS vs. Betamax) at numerous points in time, and found that the Blu-ray war had some parallels to the videotape war (even though I wasn't around to witness the earlier war).
As recently as the late 1990s, I would sometimes see some Betamax movies in thrift stores, not really knowing at the time why those cassettes were shaped so much differently from VHS cassettes.
I also remember the aforementioned competition between memory card formats, although by the time I got my first digital camera (2007), that war was pretty much going in SD's favor.
