Thursday, July 27, 2006

A 21st Century Betamax vs. VHS

BBC

Toshiba and Sony recently released two rival DVD formats, HD DVD and Blu-Ray respectively. Given that both formats require different players, but still offer basically the same content, it is difficult seeing them co-existing very long, much like in the case of Betamax and VHS.

There is a bit of an irony to the article as it's about making sure that Toshiba and Sony don't take part in monopolistic practices, when failure to license out Betamax technology was one of the factors in the technology's downfall. I doubt this is a mistake that Sony (creator of Betamax) wants to repeat. So I think the European Commission can relax, as I doubt either company will act monopolistically, and if one of them does, their technology won't be around much longer anyway.

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