FORMATTERS

Is the consumer entirely at the mercy of manufacturers regarding the introduction of new program formats for home use? Basically, yes; few standards have been promulgated by impartial engineering committees before product introductions, and most official standards are simply rubber stampings of what has already come to pass.

Consider the LP and 45-rpm war of the late '40s. Peter Goldmark of Columbia had great foresight in promoting a medium that combined low rpm (extended playing time) with reduced stylus size and quiet vinyl material in making records. Curiously enough, RCA had invented basically the same thing in the early '30s. What Goldmark did was to convince the consumer electronics industry to form a united front of software and hardware manufacturers so that marketplace success would be ensured. Rather than applaud his efforts, RCA chose to counter Columbia with a different format, the 45-rpm 7 inch disc-which failed miserably in its intended mission but became a substitute for the 78-rpm 10-inch record instead. The ancient conflicts go back to disc versus cylinder and vertical versus lateral groove modulation. More recent battles can be cited: The 8-track cartridge versus the Philips Compact Cassette, Beta versus VHS for home video use, and lately, the impact of 8 mm videotape on both VHS and Beta.

In open technological societies, companies are encouraged to develop new consumer formats on their own, and in the United States anything resembling collusion between companies is quite suspect, even if it is for the public good. The primary driving force is economic, and the rationale is often little more than developing a new format to prime a lagging marketplace.

The secondary driving force is technology itself, and it is paced by the rate of progress in materials science and in manufacturing methods.

Let's first consider tape-based audio formats. Open-reel tape was a big thing in the '50s and was, for a number of years, the only way to hear stereo at home. As tape manufacturing improved significantly, it became possible to double the number of tracks and even cut the speed in half. New formats were introduced without regard for compatibility, and new machines were required. The Philips Compact Cassette put an end to the compatibility problem, and all developments through its remarkable 25-year history have had both backward and forward compatibility. That is, old tapes will play on new machines, and vice versa.

With the strides made in tape quality and noise reduction, it is no wonder that the cassette has become the world's most successful medium for recorded sound. If it is to be supplanted, I don't think it will be by R-DAT but rather by the scarcely talked about Philips Digital Compact Cassette, which promises backward compatibility via machines that will play and record the new digital cassettes as well as play back the old analog ones.

When it comes to home video formats, things have not been very orderly. The war between Sony (Beta) and JVC (VHS) has been costly for all concerned, and in the end neither one will win. I believe both will fall to the 8-mm cassette, which has taken advantage of newer tape technology. And VHS-C, in my opinion, has about the same chance against 8 mm as the 45-rpm 7 inch disc had against the LP. Even on the professional side of video, there has been little long-range standardization in operating formats.

The original quad machines which used 2-inch tape are long gone, and the helical scan C-format, with 1-inch reel-to-reel tape, is now considered old. What has replaced these machines are the cassette formats, which are much easier to use and which have benefited from improved tape formulations. Of course, what really is standard in video is the NTSC signal format (in North America, Japan, and a few other places), which makes it possible to go back and forth between recording formats. Since the signal format is defined electrically, it is not inherent in any given recording format. (Much the same can be said for computers and their operating systems. While program conversion may be difficult, data files can be transferred easily between computers via ASCII characters.) The motion picture industry has a different set of problems. For much of its existence the industry has had two film sizes, 35 and 70 mm. Since the medium is photographic, the "signal" is inherent in the medium and cannot be transferred from one form to another without loss. But even with the two film sizes, there are perhaps seven different projection standards, depending on aspect ratios (screen masking) and optical requirements. That industry changes relatively slowly, and although high-definition video will offer major economic improvements in post production, the original "shooting" as well as public exhibition will remain film-based for a long time. With the advent of digital sound in the movie theater, the 35-mm format will become the standard; 70 mm will find its home in special applications such as Shows can and IMAX, where the greater "real estate" of the larger film frame can be used to advantage.

For a consumer format to be viable in the long run, it should be economical to manufacture and should keep pace with the state of the art in quality; improvements in performance should be compatible with older playback equipment. The LP enjoyed these advantages for many years, but it eventually became obvious that the quality objectives were not being met. It had come to the point about 15 years ago where the costs of manufacturing an audiophile-quality LP demanded a list price of $18! While some may not agree, the CD is of audiophile quality if its producers and engineers make the right decisions-and the price tag is about $13. The stunning success of the CD is clearly a case where century old technology had not been able to keep up with current quality demands.

In video, the rapid pace of technology has produced equally rapid changes in format, compatibility be damned. This is inevitable, since compatibility often becomes victim when weighed against improvements in manufacturing economy. In the long run, the consumer has benefited from rapid format changes--and I certainly don't feel that anyone can honestly look upon a collection of 2,000 LPs or VHS cassettes as ever being obsolete.

Corporate greed and engineering ego have had relatively little impact on the overall progress of format development. Only a few cases need be cited: The quadraphonic debacle of the '70s, the feud between RCA and CBS in both records and TV standards, and the Beta/VHS standoff are the prominent ones. These are more than offset by Philips' skillful handling of the Compact Cassette standard for more than a quarter century and the cooperation between Philips and Sony in promulgating the standard for the CD.

(adapted from Audio magazine, Mar. 1991)

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