On 06-08-2000 07:15, las wrote:
> MD could still be a big thing if a) People were educated. b) They started to
> fill music stores with prerecorded MDs that were selling for the price of
> cassettes, not CDs. c) They started offering recorders and players at
> realistic and competitive prices. I can't see any reason why a portable MD
> player should cost more then a portable CD player.
>
And don't forget complexity; they shoud have sold low-end MD recorders that
are the equivalent of a tape deck: record, play, pause, stop, fast-forward,
rewind. No frills like editing etc., way too daunting for the average
technofobe (my parents or sister, for instance).
> But everyone has their hits and misses. When Phillips and Sony got together
> and created the CD they eventually had a hit on their hands (CDs were not
> moving off of the shelves for quite some time after they were introduced).
> Sony had Beta. Phillips had the DCC.
>
Philips also had their own video format that failed: V2000. It failed
because they refused to rent porn tapes.
> You have to admit that the DCC was a much bigger failure then Beta. Beta is
> still used professionally and did generate some sales. But how many people do
> you know who own a DCC?
>
Two. They're quite happy with them, they bought their (portable) recorders
just after they wer discontinued for bargain-base prices. But a downside to
DCC is the size of the media; while it was sort of a boon that regular
analog cassettes can be played in them, it was already determined that
protable DCC equipment would never be smaller than a casstte box. Look how
tiny the latest MD protables are...
> Phillips also had the CD-I. Another bust. Expensive and you had to buy a
> separate video module to play movies and certain games. The quality of the
> movies was not good.
>
This is an interesting comparison... CD-I failed mostly because it's biggest
competitor was the CD-ROM, which emerged more or less at the same time.
CD-ROM is much more versatile, and came out on top. I daresay part of the
problem with MD is that DataMD never caught on, for various reasons (speed,
interchangeability with MusicMD, price...).
> When I was a kid RCA had the original cassette. It was much bigger in size
> then the compact cassette, but didn't sell. DATs never caught on in the
> consumer market.
>
Because of copy protection schemes, mostly, I think. Which is in part what
is holding MiniDisc back. Look at the MP3 craze; people are willing to
settle for lesser audio quality, if it means they can easily record and swap
music. In a sense, this is why compact cassettes are still quite popular; a
taped copy of a CD sounds like crap, but it's cheap, easy to make, and you
can swap it easily.
,xtG
.tsooJ
--
Joost van de Griek
Applications Developer
Yacht ICT
http://www.yachtgroup.com/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word
"unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
