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Date:      Wed, 8 Apr 2009 23:07:00 -0700
From:      Charles Oppermann <chuckop@gmail.com>
To:        freebsd-bluetooth@freebsd.org
Cc:        "alexei@raylab.com" <alexei@raylab.com>, Bruce Simpson <bms@incunabulum.net>, Maksim Yevmenkin <emax@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: libhci update
Message-ID:  <200904082307.01454.chuckop@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <49DD40E2.5030403@incunabulum.net>
References:  <49D92E26.2030508@incunabulum.net> <bb4a86c70904061358l3983ed51m11265859a833f202@mail.gmail.com> <49DD40E2.5030403@incunabulum.net>

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On Wednesday 08 April 2009 5:27:14 pm Bruce Simpson wrote:

> I agree with you here, but that doesn't change the fact that we are
> potentially being Betamax'd by BlueZ, even if not intentionally ;-)
> 
> FYI if you are not familiar with the story of Betamax: it was the
> technological superior of the VHS video cassette standard, bot of
> course VHS got the dominant market share, and therefore won
> out in the end.  

Common misconception.  The Betamax was only marginally of better quality, and any differences were not discernable to consumers.

People bought VHS-format VCR's because the first publically available recorders could record up to go 2 hours, vs. Sony's 1 hour maximum for Betamax.  When the major use of VCR's was to record movies off of cable for repeated viewings, the recording time was a major factor.  Every time Sony came up with longer recording times, JVC and RCA would stay ahead.

Sony tried very hard to position Betamax as the higher quality alternative, but Sony's 2-hour long tapes made the same compromises as VHS did.  SuperBeta tapes were higher quality than VHS, but the format war was over by the time they were available along with recorders.



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