Stephen C. Gallagher wrote:
> There are reports that dispute that. Sony did offer to license
> the Beta format to JVC and Matsushita and they refused
> (because they were secretly developing and preparing to
> market VHS). JVC felt that VHS's longer recording
> time made it a superior product.
>
> http://www.urbanlegends.com/products/beta_vs_vhs.html
Thanks for that correction (and detailed clarification), Stephen.
> It just goes to show that the more popular product, idea,
> or standard of measurement, is not necessarily the
> better one.
If you read the white paper carefully, you'll note that, on normal consumer
television sets, it wasn't possible to detect a qualitative difference
between Betamax and VHS. In fact, there was a greater difference, sample to
sample, within VHS, than there was between VHS and Betamax.
Thus, as it turns out, the analogy between consumer video format differences
and SI/ifp differences may be less than satisfactory. As we all know, the
superiority of SI over ifp is clear and undisputable.
Bill Potts, CMS
Roseville, CA
http://metric1.org [SI Navigator]
