Format wars: the tech that should have won

By Ian Morris and Mia Underwood on 27 December 2007

Did you love Laserdisc? Were you bonkers over Betamax? Do you cry yourself to sleep because BeOS never hit the big time? Fret no more -- superdork Captain Tech is here to travel back in time and save the format losers that should have triumphed.

1. The quest begins
2. Betamax
3. Laserdisc
4. 8-track
5. High-definition audio
 6. MiniDisc
7. BeOS
8. DTS
9. Atari ST
10. What life would be like

The quest begins

All images courtesy of Mia Underwood

We hate format wars. Not because we're afraid of good old-fashioned tech fisticuffs, but because they're often completely unjust. So often, the format that wins isn't technically better than the competition, just cheaper or better marketed. (And no, we're not just sore because we were Betamax owners.)

It's happened so many times over the years that we had to make a list of the technologies that got knocked out of the fight for survival, but really shouldn't have. We've laid out the reasons their demise was unfair along with the causes over the next nine pages.

We've also allowed ourselves to dream. What if we could go back in time and change the way it happened? And as if by magic, our prayers were answered. The sky darkened and from the clouds appeared a shadowy figure resplendent in a tight Lycra outfit and cape. In a booming voice he said, "Don't worry technology lovers, I'm Captain Tech, and it's my job to put right what once went wrong. Technologically speaking, anyway."

And with that Captain Tech vanished into some sort of quantum vortex, and journeyed back through time to assist ailing technology and save the gadgets that should have made it...

Topics: formats, betamax, vhs, laserdisc, dvd, dolby digital, dts, 8-track, blu-ray, sacd, dvd-audio, minidisc, atrac, beos, atari st, amiga, hd dvd

Related Articles

Comments (8)

  • Haiqu commented on 04/06/2009 04:38 Report abuse

    Captain Tech is on the right track. I waited for 6 months for a CD-4 Quadraphonic version of Thijs Van Leer's "Introspection" album, and eventually gave up when the record shop couldn't deliver. I've experimented with Ambisonic recording (awesome!), been an early licensee of HDCD technology and own both a Pioneer Minidisk recorder and a Sony MD-Walkman.

    I do have to take him to task on one point though. BeOS may be gone, but the open-source replacement is ready for prime time, and by all accounts will be a viable alternative operating system well into the future. Visit http://www.haiku-os.org and download your CD image today!!

  • neeeo commented on 24/03/2009 19:36 Report abuse

    Captain Tech rules!
    Long live Captain Tech!
    only he can save us from medocrity
    and a fate far worse than death ;
    poor sound and picture quality.
    May the ones and zeros be with you
    Captain Tech !

  • two-ears-good,four-ears-better commented on 29/05/2008 18:33 Report abuse

    Comparing iPod with Mini-disc is not really the point. The two are different products for different purposes. Can you do high-quality field recordings with an iPod? I doubt it.

    OTOH for the convenience of carrying around a great deal of reasonable quality music just to listen to, there are many MP3 hard-disc players around (not *just* iPod, let's remember!) which offer a more compact solution than Mini-disc.

    There are many other issues like battery life, battery replacement, add-ons, etc, etc. Neither technology wins on all points.

  • canberra_photographer commented on 11/01/2008 09:56 Report abuse

    An iPod is way better than those mini disc players because u would have to carry those mini-discs everywhere, and the iPod stores everything on its hard disk.

  • Peterk commented on 04/01/2008 10:59 Report abuse

    Our friend from the ACT is not aware of Hi-MD introduced in 2003/4. 1 gb minidiscs that could record many hours of music (highly compressed) and be used for jpeg, word and other comptuer files.
    ATRAC still sounds far superior to MP3

  • abuska commented on 30/12/2007 19:07 Report abuse

    absolutely brilliant article guys.. thankyou

  • canberra_photographer commented on 30/12/2007 01:32 Report abuse

    DTS a failure, every news Special Edition DVD has DTS from the major studios. They remastered the entire James Bond series into DTS and proudly make it a selling point. DTS is a success.

    MiniDisc over iPod, the iPod can hold uncompressed WAV audio, MP3, AAC.
    MD hold... ATRAC... and... well nothing else, just heavily compressed ATRAC.

    DTS is the only things in this list deserving of being saved. Even high def audio isn't.

    The world is moving towards digital content delivery through the internet.

  • canberra_photographer commented on 30/12/2007 01:16 Report abuse

    Doesn't wear out over time? Laserdisc was netoriuous for so called "laser rot" and the size and materials used meant that discs were easily scratched. I'll take VHS anyday, though I would have prefered beta!

Post your own comment

You must read and type the 6 chars within 0..9 and A..F

You must read and type the 6 chars within 0..9 & A..F

Submit

Enter your personal information to the left, or sign in with your Facebook account by clicking the button below.

Connect

The Explain Series

Must read