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Alysia Derry-Chavez
29 September 2013
Format Wars: How Social Change Effected How We Watch Movies at Home
According to Judy Wajcman in her article Addressing Technological Change: The
Challenge to Social Theory, “technological change is itself shaped by the social circumstance within which it takes place”. This is the belief of a theory known as STS or the social studies of science and technology, which was developed in the
1970s. Wajcman goes on to explain that the technological artifacts are socially shaped in their usage, design, and technical content and “will triumph over competitors because it is intrinsically the best”.
Technologically is then a socio technical product that is
“patterned by the conditions of its creation and use” Top: Betamax Bottom: VHS (Wajcman, 107). With this in mind, it is easy to see that this theory has been proven through several format wars that have taken place over the years.
The Betamax, marketed by Sony, was one side of a format war that started in the late
1970s. Betamax competed against the VHS, or Video Home System, for consumer support.
While the Betamax was technologically superior in most ways, including higher definition video quality, VHS ended up winning societies support. According to Brad Williams, Sony’s biggest mistake lied in their advertisements. Sony made sure to let the public know about Betamax’s technical superiority in their commercials. In one commercial from 1983 the viewer is given several details of the product including “high-writing speed”, “convenient front-loading”, and
“programmability”. Afterwards the viewer is told they are speaking about the Sony Betamax. Derry-Chavez 2
While this commercial does a good job at highlighting the Betamax’s features, it’s telling consumers things they don’t really care about.
By doing this, Sony was “misjudging the frugality of the American consumer” (Williams).
The VHS sold for a much cheaper price, and
America buyers didn’t care if Sony’s product was higher quality.
Priced at $2,300, the Betamax was reserved mostly for luxury owners. The VHS systems, however, were almost a third of the Betamax’s starting price and offered double the recording time (VHS vs. Betamax). When RCA, Radio Corporation of America, noticed American consumers didn’t want to pay Sony’s high prices for the Betamax they adjusted their commercials to broadcast lower prices and longer recording time. Even though they didn’t have the technological advantages of the Betamax, they began to takeover sales. In one advertisement,
RCA offered four free blank VHS tapes with their Selectavision devices saying “fourteen hours of blank tape, worth almost $100, free”.
As the VHS gained popularity with video rentals, Betamax owners began to replace their old systems with VHS systems. This was because rental stores and consumers supported VHS over Betamax. After Betamax’s defeat, Sony began to manufacture VHS players.
Several years ago consumers were caught up in another format war between Toshiba’s
HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray devices. Although Sony was unable to come out on top during the
VHS vs. Betamax competition, they won with their Blu-ray devices. Even though Blu-ray was more expensive than the HD-DVDs, several different factors made it the victor. According to one article, the sales of the PlayStation 3 had a major impact on the success of Blu-ray devices. Derry-Chavez 3
“Everyone who had a PlayStation 3 in his or her household no longer needed to make a choice”
(Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD). With a Blu-ray player built in, PlayStation 3’s became gaming and movie-watching devices. According to
Tracy Wilson, Sony placed Blu-ray players in its PlayStation 3 for exactly that purpose. Because Blu-ray sales weren’t very high in 2007, placing the Blu-ray technology in the PlayStation 3’s promoted the format (Wilson).
Microsoft, who backed the HD-DVD technology, also made movie watching easier intergrading HD-DVD players in their Xbox 360. However, by this time Blu-ray was already in popular demand. Today the new PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One, soon to be released, both support Blu-ray technologies (PS4 vs. Xbox One vs. Wii U Comparison Chart).
While Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have very similar technological advancements, Blu-ray discs have a higher storage capacity and are produced with different equipment. One of the main reasons motion picture companies decided to back Blu-ray discs was because “the need for new manufacturing equipment might cut down on piracy” (Wilson). Despite the fact that HD-DVD devices were cheaper to produce and therefore sold at a lower price, the technology with the higher storage capacity won consumer support, with Blu-ray coming out on top.
According to Tracy Wilson, critics pointed out that Blu-Ray devices had more storage capacity than any movie could ever use. However, the storage capacity really effected video game production. Games that were produced for the Xbox 360 that were over a certain length required multiple disks to play, but the same game on a PlayStation 3 only required one disk. In Derry-Chavez 4 the end Blu-ray won the format war, even though the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 enjoyed similar success.
The two winning devices in the format wars won because they had higher storage capacity. According to Judy The game pictured (Final Fantasy XIII) required only one Blu-Ray disk Wajcman, this is a sign of certain but needed three HD-DVD disks. technologies winning over their competitors because they are the best at what society demands.
These technologies came about because consumers wish to view what they want, whenever they want, and without interruption. It’s the reason wan VHS was eventually overtaken by DVDs and why DVDs had to step aside for Blu-ray.
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Works Cited:
1983 Betamax Commercial. YouTube. YouTube, 19 Feb. 2007. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
Betamax vs. VHS. Digital image. Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
Betamax Image vs. VHS image. Digital image. YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
"Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD." Networks. Cornell University, 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
Blu-ray vs. HD DVD Disk. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.
ages/3/3d/Bluray-vs-hddvd.jpg>. Final Fantasy XIII Xbox 360. Digital image. Kotaki. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. "PS4 vs. Xbox One vs. Wii U Comparison Chart." IGN. IGN Entertainment, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. one/PS4_vs._Xbox_One_vs._Wii_U_Comparison_Chart>. RCA Selectavision VHS 1979 TV Ad. YouTube. YouTube, 28 May 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. "VHS vs. Betamax." The VHS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. vs-betamax/>. Derry-Chavez 6 Williams, Brad. "VHS versus Betamax: The Great Format War of Our Time." VHS versus Betamax: The Great Format War of Our Time on Like Totally 80s. Like Totally 80s, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013. Wilson, Tracy V. "How HD-DVD Works." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2013.