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When will I ever learn? Technology is never going to stop progressing, so why do I bother even trying to keep up? Probably because I have always been a sucker for any new electronic goodies that come out. If I was smart I would just ignore it and let each new wave just pass me by instead of catching it and surfing it until I end up head long in the beach.
But I have never claimed to be smart, especially in this arena. Ever since I was very young all it would take is one convincing commercial and I would have to have it. It started with my first record player, which wasn’t even a stereo. Once I had it, I dove head long into the medium. Just like kids today do with CD’s, DVD’s, and video games, every present giving holiday would be another chance to ask for more records.
I would go to sleep every night with a stack of Bill Cosby records on that little fold down turntable right next to my bed. The sound was turned way down so my parents couldn’t hear it, or so I thought. Many nights they would come in and tell me to turn it off, but most nights I would drift to sleep to the sound of the Coz’s voice.
Next I got a real stereo from my grandparents, just in time for the British invasion, and I was in heaven. Not just a stereo, but one with detachable speakers so you could get the “full effect” of what The Beatles had recorded. It was impossible to turn it down low enough to go to sleep to, so I had to reserve my listening to daytime hours, but that was OK. I had a stereo and in my room!
Then out of nowhere came this little novelty item. It was a little handheld portable stereo that allowed you to take your music with you. But it was different. It wasn’t a record, it was tape and not a reel-to-reel type. This tape was in a plastic container that they called a “cartridge”. It was like a thin mini version of the 8 track, which hadn’t arrived yet, and worked the same way. It didn’t hold much music, only about four songs, but who cared. With this gadget I could take the soundtrack of my life with me.
Well “soundtrack of my life” might be a bit strong. The selections of music available were limited to say the least. Ray Charles and Herman’s Hermits were not exactly what was on my hit list at the time, but I learned to appreciate their music. But bigger and better things lay ahead and I was what the electronics industry was looking for, a guinea pig willing to go down any path they led me.
Next up were the high school years and the aforementioned 8 Track. Mounted under the dashboard of my 1963 customized VW beetle, it was the technology of the teenage day. Now that I was working, I could buy every new 8 Track that came out, and I did. I developed quite the collection, that I still have by the way, and why not. I mean where could they go from here?
Cassettes that’s where. They were smaller and they didn’t have those annoying breaks in the songs that 8 Tracks did so every song was complete and uninterrupted. Plus you could record your own music! No more at the mercy of the record companies, I could truly make tapes that were the “soundtrack of my life”. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin on the same tape, who could have imagined that a few years before? But damn, now I have to start all over again rebuilding my music collection again. But this will be the last time. I mean where could they…
CD’s, that’s where! By this point in time I was a confirmed music aficionado, at least in my mind, so now I would have to start all over again. In the beginning they weren’t recordable, so the record companies had me back in their clutches once again, but not for long. Soon the ultimate gadget would arrive, the computer, which would allow me to record once again. This, of course, would be after I had invested in an entire new CD library.
Somewhere between the cassettes and the CD’s, another “must have” bit of technology popped up, the ability to record and view movies. Oh my god, could this be true? Had I died and gone to heaven? For a movie fiend like myself this was a dream come true. I was already armed with the latest in pay television, ON TV. Considering there wasn’t any cable or satellite at the time it was the only pay television available.
The writing was on the wall and I had to move fast if I wanted to capitalize on this new medium. Armed with my ON TV, once I had a video recorder, I could build an awesome movie library in no time. There were two video formats available, Beta and VHS, so, which was best? I thought I had the inside track because many of my customers were video production professionals who used tape to record TV shows. So of course they had to know which was best.
They all used Beta and touted its superior quality, so that’s what I went with. Unfortunately, despite its superiority, nobody told me about the war going on between the manufacturers of the Japanese Beta and the American produced VHS. As we all know, just like in World War II, America won. I had backed the wrong horse, but boy what a Beta library I had amassed, which I also still have, before the last shots were fired. Sometimes you play the ponies and sometimes the ponies play you.
So while I am rebuilding my music library I am also transitioning to VHS. By this point in time I am feeling rather limp, eaten up by the monster that was technology, all in what I thought was my simple desire to have music and video libraries. Was this ever going to stop?
Of course not. While things had seemed to have stabilized on the music front, the movie movement was still charging ahead and changing more radically than gas prices. Then just when I thought I could catch my breath, along came the DVD and once again, beaten and bloody, the change of format began, yet again.
In the movie “Men In Black” Tommy Lee Jones is showing Will Smith all of the new technologies the aliens have brought to earth. When he picks up what looks like a mini CD about the size of a fifty cent piece he says, “Well it looks like I have to buy The Beatles White Album again”. That’s exactly how I was feeling with the arrival of the DVD, thinking, well I guess I have to buy “The Godfather” again.
Just like the LP record, 8 Track, cassette, and Beta before it, the VHS is poised to become yet another dinosaur of the electronic age, if it isn’t already. The DVD, now that it is recordable and the movie studios are allowing you to download movies off the internet, has us all believing that this is the ultimate in technology and we all have settled into the groove of renting and buying DVD’s. I felt like we had reached the pinnacle and that it would never become completely extinct. With its ties to the computer world how could it?
I am sure many of you who have experienced the same thing I have, at least to one degree or another, felt the same way I did. You felt that investing in this format was a safe bet. How could there be another change on the near horizon that would eclipse it?
Then last week my latest addition of “Premiere” magazine came in the mail. Premiere is dedicated to the movies both in what is coming out in the theatres and on DVD. In the new issue there was an article and numerous ads for two new DVD formats, the High Definition DVD (or HD DVD) and the Blu-ray
It will not only require a special player, but in order to get the true benefit, of course you must have a HD TV. I should have know that something like this was coming because all of the TV stations have been slowly making the transition to HD TV but who needs to watch the news in High Definition? It’s already depressing enough as it is, I don’t think I need to see it any clearer.
Besides, as it stands right now, the costs on everything involved with this new format are outrageous. Not only that, I have yet to see any HD TV set that I thought warranted the price tag. So I know when enough is enough and this is it. I am not going there unless the price drops dramatically or the technology warrants it. Maybe when the 3-D or hologram versions come out I will think about it.
Until the day that it looks like Marlon Brando and Al Pacino are standing in my living room I won’t be buying ‘The Godfather” again.
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