MOVIE MEDIA
BIG CHANGES COMING AND GOING
The first recorded movie for my personal library was not purchased at any store -- it was "recorded" off the TV in 1981 much the same as many people do now. But back then it was on a Sony Betamax recorder. Most of us who remember the Sony Betamax are older than dirt, so don't feel bad if you don't recognize the name.
So after I wrote a check equal to a month's salary, including a case of recording media on the tab, I was ready to begin the endless experience of paying too much for a long awaited prize that was already obsolete the day I opened the box. In this case it was obsolete because close on the heels of BETA was a new format called "VHS".
I actually recorded several dozen tapes during the next couple years while keeping one eye on the wars raging between industry giants of technology. It was hard to tell just which format would win out --- Beta or VHS. I dutifully set the alarm clock to remind me when to go turn on the recorder. Sometimes that was pretty early in the morning. And sometimes pretty late at night. But, hey, look at all the great stuff I was getting!
Even when it was clear that VHS was going to win the media battle, I stuck with the Beta machine, right up to the day it puked my tape onto the living room floor and there were no repair persons, authorized or otherwise, who would touch it for less than what a new VHS machine was going to cost.
Those may not have been the proverbial good old days, but they were full of good old challenges and learning experiences. And they definitely taught us enough to appreciate the struggle of advancing technology.
Fast forward to current time and the old Beta library that was originally replaced by VHS, is now being replaced by DVD. Within the next year or so even the DVD's will be fading away because we'll be downloading whatever we want to watch, and watching it whenever we want.
No doubt if we wait long enough, we won't even have to download it. We'll just log in and watch it on the satallite portable from anywhere in the world, and pay for the entertainment on our monthly service.
