The Dead Media Notebook (83 page)

One imagines a version of Orwell’s 1984 where Winston Smith is not a political ideologue, but a software salesman.

No return on investment? Into the memory hole.

What does this nightmare look like in detail? It looks like this. Our heritage is no longer the heritage of mankind, but a commercial part of the heritage business. An old castle is no longer an old castle, but a painted simulacrum for the tourist trade.

Universities become non-governmental organizations, or, even scarier, post-governmental organizations. We no longer sympathize with the thinking of the past, but merely try to retail its commercially attractive aspects.

Memory becomes a commodity. Cultural identity becomes a consumer choice. Bad archives are deliberately favored by the market, because they are the culture-industry’s version of planned obsolescence.

A computer that swiftly breaks and decays can be sold to us again. We will buy the same music again and again, in different formats, on tape, vinyl, CD and DVD.

In this media-saturated world, the archives of the twentieth century might still be visible, like scratch marks on old bone. But the motivation behind them would be lost, no longer understood.

There would be no past and no future, just the flow of data and the rise and fall of the market. In that imaginary society, in that dystopia of commodity totalitarianism, the media of liberal democracy would have no meaning.

Just as we ourselves see no meaning in the long-lost media devices of Athenian democracy, such as the kleroterion, the ostraka, and the clepsydra.

Would history end? No. History does not end.

But speeches must end. This speech has ended. Thank you for your attention.

From Trevor Black

My dad’s announcement, in the early 80s, that he had signed up for the Open University was a truly joyous event - because it meant our house got a video recorder.

The time he spent at the kitchen table doing sums was fully exploited by his kids - showcasing our newly-rented video to the world. Friends gaped in wonder as we knowingly pushed massive buttons on its ‘remote’ control, nonchalantly stepping over the yards of flex attaching it to the machine.

The excitement of being able to make screen people walk backwards and forwards at high speed was of the Christmas morning variety. A short time later, being allowed to take possession of the video rental club card to hire a film was the height of playground sophistication.

The burning question on everyone’s lips was: ‘Have you got VHS or Betamax?’ Already, ownership of one or the other was a test of cool. The garage, after all, had five or six shelves of VHS tapes - and only one of Betamax.

A couple of years earlier, they might also have asked about the third format to chance its arm in the home video market.

Philips’ Video 2000 uniquely required the user to turn the tape over half way through its eight hour play time, just like an audio cassette. But despite its innovation and high quality, the V2000 was the first casualty of the Format Wars.

The battle for video recording machine supremacy is as synonymous with the early 80s as cerise lipstick and Miami Vice. Nick Thomas of Philips, says: “It is often said that VHS won the day because of its software, but that’s rubbish.

“I lived through it all, and what really happened was that some Japanese manufacturers could produce far greater quantities of video recorders.

“The dealers were desperate to get their hands on video recorders, and so took them from anyone who could supply them.

“What people like JVC then did was to say, yes we’ve got 80 video recorders, but you’ll have to take 100 of our TVs as well. It also represented a sea change in the high street electrical industry.

“At the time, names like Pye and Bush were still well-known and respected, but the Japanese grip on the electronics market came off the back of video recorders.”

The video recording adventure had in fact kicked off a couple of decades before the height of the format wars. In 1956, the American company Ampex produced a machine called the Quadraplex. Standing at 6ft tall, the Quadraplex was intended for the professional market, but it represented a revolution in recording - its tape could be recorded over again and again.

It was another 10 years before manufacturers attempted to market machines for the home - Sony had a model called the CV2000 for sale in 1965 - but they were expensive and complex and they flopped. A couple of years before that, even, a small valve company in Nottingham produced a reel-to-reel system called the Telecan, which could manage to tape 10 minutes of low-resolution black and white TV. It never went on sale, although a similar system later did.

By the end of the decade, however, the push was on. TV manufacturers could see the possibility of the bottom falling out of their market, and needed to be able to produce new consumer items.

Philips is generally regarded by enthusiasts as the producer of the first true home video recorder. Other video recorders had been made for use in colleges and institutions - but were complicated and hugely expensive. But Philips’ N1500 model, complete with an analogue clock like a cooker timer, was relatively small and had its tape enclosed in cassettes.

At £750-£800 - at the time, roughly the price of a new Mini - they were far from cheap, however, and did not sell in any great volume. Laser disc recorders put in an appearance. Sony, meanwhile, were marketing the ultimately doomed Betamax machines.

Lauded by enthusiasts for their quality, their manufacturers are thought to have spent too much time thinking about perfecting their product, and not enough about making a lot of them. Joint curator of the virtual video recorder museum, Total Rewind, David Browne, explains: “As the Japanese formats arrived in this country, the Thorn-EMI group backed VHS and flooded their many high-street TV rental shops with low-cost VHS machines.

“Sony, meanwhile, were concentrating on quality, and so Beta became a format to buy while VHS was the format to rent. Unfortunately, most people preferred to rent, particularly when the simplest machine cost around ÔøΩ700.

“This process was then self-reinforcing, because the presence of two formats made people reluctant to commit to one and risk picking the eventual loser - and so they rented and waited to see what would happen.

“By 1980, out of an estimated 100,000 homes with VCRs, 70% were rented.” From all camps, model followed model - until VCRs became the video victors in the late 80s. The old machines are now becoming collectible - and the video adventure looks set to continue. Mr Thomas said: “We are working on VCRs which will be able to understand spoken commands.

“And they will be able to work in an anecdotal way as well, so you will be able to say to the video recorder - ‘you know that film with Charlton Heston and chariots, can you record it please?’ and the machine will be able to work out that you mean Ben Hur.

“It could talk back to you. But we have to be led by what people want, and people want to be in control, they don’t want machines bossing them around, which is fair enough.

“That is one of the main thing video achieved for people - it put them in control of television for the first time.

“We are approaching a point where people will be able to have My TV, a completely personalised video recording system which will learn what the individual likes to watch. Consumers may not see anything in real time ever again.” So a video/TV combo which uniquely records Open University programmes could be just around the corner.

Source: BBC News, Friday, April 16, 1999 Published at 11:21 GMT 12:21 UK

From Bruce Sterling

DIGITAL VIDEO EXPRESS, LP TO DISCONTINUE OPERATIONS Herndon, Va., June 16, 1999 -- Digital Video Express, LP announced today that it will cease marketing of the Divx home video system and discontinue operations...

The museum of failed consumer products is filled with exhibits such as the Betamax videocassette player, the eight-track tape and New Coke. And now there’s Divx video-rental technology. Circuit City Stores Inc. and its partner conceded yesterday that their plan to replace videocassette rentals with video disks that don’t have to be returned was a resounding failure. From the start, Divx has been mired in problems. In a battle much like the one in the 1970s and early 1980s between the Betamax and VHS formats for VCRs, Divx competed with the standard DVD format for consumers looking to play digital video disks.

Although Divx, unlike Betamax, was able to play videos encoded in its rival’s format, it met the same fate.

The Divx format was designed to be a solution to the hassle of returning videos to the store. A Divx disk, which looks like a CD and whose quality of picture and sound is superior to that of a videocassette, costs $4.50 for unlimited viewings during a 48-hour period. After that, the disk won’t play unless it is “recharged” for another two days at the cost of $3.25. Billing is done through the phone line that connects to the Divx player. And that, as it turned out, was a major consumer complaint.

“That was the main thing: I did not want someone keeping track of what I watched and when,” said Christopher Blount, an Air Force electronics technician who lives in San Antonio. The Divx technology ran into resistence from movie studios, even though Richmond-based Circuit City’s partner—the Los Angeles law firm Ziffren Brittenham Branca & Fischer—specialized in the entertainment industry. Retailers also balked.

“Despite the significant consumer enthusiasm, we cannot create a viable business without support in these essential areas,” said Richard Sharp, chief executive of Circuit City. But attempts to woo retailers were doomed even before they started, said analyst Kenneth M. Gassman Jr. of Davenport & Co. in Richmond.

“Why didn’t more retailers carry it, especially Best Buy?” Gassman said.

“The answer is: Would you put profits in the pockets of your arch competitor?” In the spring, rumors that Divx had inked a deal with Viacom Inc.’s Blockbuster video unit in which the movie-rental firm would rent its disks sent shares of Circuit City stock soaring.

A company official familiar with the discussions said the agreement was quashed at the last minute. Blockbuster, he said, wanted to purchase the entire Divx business. But two movie studios, whose approval was required to seal any deal, nixed the idea. They “said no because they thought Blockbuster was already too powerful,” he said. Industry observers expressed skepticism about a possible deal between the two retailers.

“It’s like mixing oil and water,” said Mark Mandel, a retail analyst with the brokerage ABN Amro in New York.

“The Divx technology was really an affront to the rental model.”

The intense emotional response to Divx has surprised many industry observers.

Over the past two years, the video format has inspired jeers, intense hostility and a host of Divx-bashing Web sites. Consumers who bought the first DVD players were upset because the standard players do not play Divx disks.

“The reaction has been consistent from the start, and it was consistently negative and visceral,” said Mark Fleischmann, senior writer with Etown.com, an Internet site that follows consumer electronics issues.

“I have never seen such a negative to any new consumer electronics product since I began writing about this in 1980.” Consumers just didn’t like Divx as much as the competition. Often, DVD offers extra goodies such as director commentary, mini- documentaries about the film’s creation and wide-screen format, customers said.

“If you’re going to market this new concept, at least make it competitive,” said Tom Longo, a retired Foreign Service officer who lives in Ocean City. Longo and other consumers who purchased Divx players won’t entirely lose out, because the machines were built to also accommodate DVD disks, Divx officials said. Additionally, Circuit City is offering $100 rebates to consumers who have recently purchased Divx players.

Source: Washington Post

THE ACOUSTIC TELEPHONE. The Willard acoustic telephone was an instrument invented and patented by Henderson Willard, and in November, 1880, The American Private Line Telephone Company was organized in this city for its manufacture and sale. It is not electric; is used only in short, independent lines, and depends upon molecular vibration for the transmission of sound. Thomas W. Peck was President, E. F. Harrington Vice President, and M. S. Crosby Secretary and Treasurer of the Company. It has not been pushed. The management was afterward placed in the hands of C. R. Brown, of St. Ignace. “

Old Phone Cables Open Sea Bed to Science
Making use of thousands of miles of discarded telephone cables, scientists have begun to wire remote regions of deep ocean floor to create an undersea network of geological observatories.

The old cables will serve as deep-sea extension cords running thousands of miles from land-based power stations to sensors, some of which are already sending back continuous flows of data from the ocean floor.

One such line is a coaxial cable (similar to the cable that carries television programs into private homes) that was laid across the deep Pacific Ocean floor by AT&T in 1964 from San Luis Obispo, Calif., to Makaha, Hawaii—a distance of nearly 3,000 miles.

At the time, it was among the most advanced phone lines in the world, equipped with powered vacuum-tube repeaters every 20 miles to refresh the telephone signals as they traveled along it.

The cable, called Hawaii-2, could simultaneously carry as many as 138 conversations. But in 1989 a fishing trawler working in shallow water near the California coast accidentally cut the $30 million cable.

The telephone company could probably have repaired the break, but decided instead to abandon the cable; by then, optical-fiber cables had come into use, and the new cables could carry up to a half million conversations with greatly improved sound quality.

AT&T announced that it would make the abandoned coaxial cable available to scientists who could find a use for it.