Picked up from EngadgetHD.

My answers below.

I thought I was pretty savvy, but I don’t think I’d ever heard of format’s 1-6. I did know about Betamax, LaserDisc, CED, and DIVX. And I still own a couple of LaserDisc players and several LaserDiscs. It was a decent format for its day, but flipping & swapping discs mid-movie was a huge down-side. Even with an auto-flip player, which I have, you’d still often have to swap discs mid-movie. And they’re big, of course. I was not reluctant to switch to DVD, that’s for sure.

As for the switch to DVD, I was always vehemently opposed to DIVX – as many of my then co-workers could attest to, given my lunchtime rants on the subject. Such a stupid idea. I can’t decide which DVD-related idea is worse – DIVX or the ‘disposable’ DVDs that were supposed to self-destruct after a couple of days via a dye layer that would turn opaque once exposed to the air. Surprise – they bombed in test marketing.

Makes me wonder how many failed audio media formats I’ve never heard of. Jokes about 8-track aside, there’s DAT, DCC (Digital Compact Cassette), and, arguably, MiniDisc. MD is iffy as it found a niche as a recordable format, and it was fairly successful in Japan with pre-recorded music. Hmm, I suppose SACD and DVD Audio have pretty much been failures too. Reel-to-reel, LP (vinyl of all stripes really), compact cassette, and CD have all been successful. Hmm, were wax cylinders a big success in their day?