AC> With Today Tonight recently doing a story on set top DVD
AC> recorders (cheap and nasty models starting from around $450), I
AC> estimate it'll be only a year or so before the mums and dads of
AC> Australia will begin to replace the family VCR when they get to
AC> around the $300 mark.

 DVDs are another of my great failures to predict trends. My greatest
failure was in 1974, when I decided that computers were a dead loss
and always would be. I was so sure  that it was ten years before I
thought: "Oops! I'd better start catching up."

   I could not see why anyone would need more than 500MB storage, or
why anyone would want to watch a movie twice! Especially when it was
always going to be difficult and slow to record gigabytes... when VHS
was easy and the technology *altready* existed to double the bandwidth
on tape. Even when $2,000 DVD recorders came out, I couldnto see
thepoint. Why spend a dollar on a disc you only used once, when a $2
VHS could be used a hundred times and last two years?

 I *still* don't understand the DVD popularity explosion, but I admit
its' real. Consumers have become dickheads!

AC> I have to wonder though, after all a family's video tapes have
AC> been converted to DVD, what will happen to the video tapes? Can
AC> they be used for anything else? Recycled? Throwing them in the
AC> bin seems like a real waste. 

 I've got about a hundred CDs around the house and I haven't even got
a CD player! I've got six VHS tapes... and when they eventually jam I
throw them out. I don't have a video recorder or even a camera. My
memory is free and by the time it needs to be recycled I won't need it
any more.

 But then, I am not a typical consumer. No stereo, no music just
radio, no video just TV, no camera, no mobile phone... it's easier to
list what I do have: phone, computer, radiom, microwave, stove,
fridge, washing machine. That's it for consumer goods.

AC> I note DVD writers for PCs have now reached sub-$150 and prices
AC> continue to fall. CD writers are sub-$40. Amazing. I suspect it
AC> won't be long before they stop making CD writers altogether in
AC> favour of DVD writers (which also burn CDs). 

 Yes... which explains why CD writers are so cheap. The thing I don't
like about CDs and DVDs is what everyone else seems to like so much...
their "permanency." To me, CDs are brilliant for music you like to
listen to many times, and data that will last years (unlike floppies
which are always a risk). I really can't see a use for DVDs except for
home movies and how many of those do you need?

 What stuns me, is the way the price of VCRs have crashed. When they
fell to $180, it was obvious that the price reduction was down to
technology. The electronics ended up in one chip and the transport
mechanism was cheap and nasty. Now they're under $100! I saw a
six-head hi-fi VCR for $99 the other day! They're *giving* them away,
and yet they are perfectly viable as a recording (and re-recording)
medium.

AC> Also, an announcement was made recently about HD DVD writers
AC> (with discs holding up to 30 Gb) to start appearing in the next
AC> year or so. Although, by then an entry level PC's hard disk
AC> drive will probably hold 200 Gb... 

 What's the point of a 30G DVD? I said in another message that hard
drives had just about reached their sensible limit at 80GB, yet they
keep pushing it further (because they can). There ought to be a limit.
The old vinyl was LP (12 songs or half a concert), the CD matched
that, DVD allowed a full movie (or concert)...  what's the point?

 I'm sadly out of touch with consumers today. I don't see any point
in HD TV either, or widescreen, or flat screen! TV is actually
*better* when the screen has a slight bow in the screen (reflections
are dispersed), and 5MHz is a perfectly adequate bandwidth (especially
if digital storage is used to give 100Hz scan). 

 I know *why* manufacturers push these technologies, I just don't
know why consumers buy them! The world market for TV (say) is
two billion units at $400 (say), but reliablity is such that they
never wear out (20 years). The market is fully saturated, and the
10-year replacement market is therefore $80 bn. If they push a
latest-and-greatest new-technology at $2,000 for HDTV widescreen,
digital, internet compatible, computer compatible... the market is now
$4,000bn ($4-trillion!) and even with only 5% market penetration per
year, they have extended sales to $200bn (5-times) and old-tech
sales continue anyway (a second set for the kids).

 *This* is why new technology is pushed down our throats even when it
has no value, but why do consumers keep falling for the same old
trick?

 But to answer your question about what to do with the old VHS
tapes... use them for landfill. We are not the same thrifty people we
once were, with the expertise to reuse technology.

 Back in the late 1950s I got hold of a tape recorder, but the only
tape available was giant reels ex-ABC. I re-spooled that stuff, and
because the magnetic powder wore off, I washed it at the same time and
adsjusted the recorder bias to the new thinner layer of magnetics. It
was really good tape, and it came pre-stretched.

 Of course today, the tape is so good it's as good as new, the faults
are probably obvious wrinkles or tears, and we just chuck it in the
wheelie.

Regards,
Bob
 

--- BQWK Alpha 0.5