CompuServe Messages

Well, the reason DAT never became a consumer medium was that they couldn't find a decent way to duplicate the tapes in high speed mode, and real time duplication, even 3X which is the highest Sony ever managed with any reliability, wasn't enough to justify things. DAT will, however, remain the professional (particularly professional portable) recording medium of choice. If you doubt that there will be rental store resistance to more dual media, consider Beta, which died in a masterful JVC/RCA/Matsushita marketing blitz more than anything else. The reason it could succeed was the frustration particularly by the large number of mom and pop video rental stores to maintaining dual inventory and the subsequent resistance of the large chains to handle duals as well. It is far more profitable to handle a single format, and much easier to manage inventory and make choices on how many of what to have, and it was the store's decision to discontinue the format that was behind in machine sales (coupled with an equally masterful set of promos aimed at the stores from the VHS people that gave them bonuses for being VHS-only) that doomed Beta to the professional market. Recordable laserdisks are feasible; the problem is, at this time, even a recordable/erasable CD ROM machine is in the US $8000 class and you need more heads and a lot more electronics for video as well. I think the laserdisk is safe for quite a while. Right now it's giving its market what it wants at a price that is profitable to all. I don't expect to see any shift in video formats over the current rulers until HDTV becomes very common and its owners will accept a new media in that format.