Adoption of New Video
Storage Technology Quickens Over Time
There have been a lot of different
mediums for storing video over the years and they just keep getting
better and better. For example, the first movies were silent movies
because the technology of the time wasn't capable of encoding sound
on celluloid (or reading it off of celluloid either for that
matter). In these movies, text was shown on the screen in between
shots of the actors to tell the audience what the actors were saying
and music was often played along with the movie either by a live
piano player or on a record player of some sort. Of course it didn't
take long for movie makers to figure out how to encode sound on
celluloid and a new era in film making was born. It would still be
some decades though before color was added to the capabilities of
video recording, but when it did, it made a huge difference to the
quality of the entertainment.
Of course technology eventually emerged that allowed people to make
their own home movies on 35 millimeter film, but it wasn't until the
invention of the video cassette that consumers really got control
over how they recorded and watched video. The video cassette was
(and is) basically a reel to reel magnetic tape that's enclosed in a
casing to protect it from damage. The video cassette player turned
the wheels and dragged the tape over heads that read the information
encoded on the tape and then converted that information into video
and audio. Video cassette tapes came in both VHS and Betamax
formats, but the principle of how they worked was basically the
same. Video cassette technology allowed people to record their own
video either off of TV signals or using video cameras. This
technology also gave rise to stores that rented and sold movies that
were prerecorded on video cassettes.
With exception of a little noticed and failed video disc format that
used laser technology and that was marketed in the late nineteen
seventies, the VHS video cassette format was the dominant technology
until nineteen ninety eight when the DVD- or digital video disc- was
introduced. The DVD was the successful descendant of the older laser
disc format. DVD's were much smaller than the older laser discs,
being the same size as CD's, and encoded information much more
efficiently. DVD's gradually replaced VHS as the preferred video
storage format of consumers.
Now, high definition DVD's are the latest consumer video storage
technology. Unfortunately though High Def DVD's have yet to be
accepted by the mainstream because of an ugly war between the two
formats that arrived on the scene virtually simultaneously. Both
formats are capable of storing huge amounts of data- enough to
render an entire full length movie in movie theater quality from a
single disc the same size as the older DVD format.
There has been speculation that another video storage format could
make high def DVD's obsolete before they really have a chance to
take hold. For example, some insiders predict that in the near
future people will purchase terabyte sized hard disks that contain a
huge number of movie titles. As the owners of these hard disks want
to watch the movies stored on them, they can pay a fee to the
distributor in order to unlock and view each movie. This would
certainly eliminate a lot of the difficulties associated with
distributing individual videos, and as surprising as it may seem,
current technology is close to being ready for such a development.
The Internet is another alternative source of video to look out for.
We may be looking at an interesting phenomenon where an entire video
storage format becomes obsolete before it gets adopted by the
mainstream.
E.Sanderson writes articles about the latest developments in
technology, electronics, and satellite TV. She'd like to inform you
about the latest
Dish TV services and how you
can find the best
Dishnet Network Offers.
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