[Ffmpeg-devel] Re: American quality standards.

[Corey Hickey]

Dieter wrote:
>>>Oh yes, anything other than RF and composite is rare in NTSC-land.
>>
>>Ouch, you're kidding me!? Do American viewers not care at all about
>>picture quality?
> 
> 
> Some do.  Most don't.  Did you not notice that VHS outsold Betamax?
> 20 years ago the VHS picture was absolute crap.  But a VHS tape
> held more hours of this crap than a Betamax tape, so VHS won
> in the marketplace.  Recent VHS machines have a much improved picture,
> maybe almost as good as a 20+ year old Beta machine (*).  But VHS tape
> handling is still crap and always will be.  Miss a bit of dialog
> and want to rewind a few seconds?  KLUNK!  KER-CHUNK!  WHAM!
> Whirrrrrrrrrrrrr!  THUNK!  KER-KER-KER-CHUNK!

What was different about Betamax that made it better at rewinding? I've
never even seen one.

I guess I was alive during the latter part of the VHS-Betamax war, but I
wasn't aware of any alternative at the time. Most of our electronics
were pretty old. My dad had to frequently clean the tape handling
mechanisms of our VHS player to keep it working. The player didn't work
when it was too cold, either, so on some evenings my dad would put it in
the oven for a while, and then we would run it propped up next to the
wood stove.

-Corey