Customer Reviews

Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the Vcr

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It happens all the time. Here we go again. Pick a winner and win a prize.

Here is a wonderful history book about new media, and the string of failures including
CBS's EVR, RCA's Holotape and MagTape, Sony's U-Matic (it was intended to be a
consumer device, but was an accidental hit in the professional market, not unlike IBM's PC)
and Betamax, Discovision, Cartrivision, V-Cord, and the ultimate winner, JVC's Video
Home System. It explains why the Japanese decided to fight it out in the marketplace
with competing 1/2" tape systems, and has lots of coverage of the Betamax Case, which
has important implications not only in Freedom of Speech and Copyright Law, but in the
politics of Muchomedia. Many of the questions we struggle with in Modern Muchomedia
tripped up these guys a decade earlier.

This book is so relevant to the time we live in now its silly. All the IP issues that are argued ad nauseum about ... and its ilk have all been hashed out 20 years ago. Even some of the players were the same, such as our old friend Jack Valenti and Sony (who were on the other side at the time!) The IP parts are great, but the history of the BETA vs VHS battles are also very illuminating and the stories about the Sony engineers and early failed attempts at VCRs are fascinating.

Techno junkies will love this book. Order it....

The RCA CED VideoDisc system is barely mentioned in this book, but it does provide a comprehensive history of video tape formats, with an emphasis on how RCA and other American manufacturers let VCR production slip through their fingers. Besides covering the Betamax and VHS tape formats, the book also deals with other obscure tape formats like CV-2000, U-matic, EVR, InstaVision, Cartrivision, AutoVision, V-Cord, HoloTape, and MagTape. The last several chapters of the book deal extensively with the landmark Universal vs. Sony lawsuit.

This is a great book for those who think that Japanese firms somehow misbehaved in overtaking the U.S. electronics industry. It is also one book that the founders of Apple should have read. By keeping it for itelf, Sony seems to have insured the demise of the superior beta format!