Devialet at Oxford Audio 13th July

[Pim]

Wasn't Betamax OK technologically? We were a VHS household when I was at school, but my friend had Betamax, and I seem to remember watching a whole film without obvious dropouts or sudden unexpected blasts of 'bright screen'.

I believe that it was technically superior to VHS, but ultimately failed because VHS became more popular with consumers, for whatever reason. With so many viable alternatives out there, of which Roon is but one, I simply cannot understand the ostrich approach that Devialet are taking with regard to streaming.

Yes, your right, the analogy doesn't quite fit, Betamax was actually superb technology in it's day, but come on!  All credit Zappydev, his 'Good Ship AIR Stability' link was absolutely hilarious!  Made me smile!

Actually, you all left out the best video technology of that era. And I'm not just saying this because I'm Dutch (-ish) but Philips' Video 2000 was very good. I worked for an electronics repair company in the early 90's and was always flabbergasted that Video 2000 didn't make it on top of the list. Not only did it have a much better picture quality, you could also turn the tape around and record another 4 hours on the other side.

My assessment of picture quality would be Video 2000, Betamax and then VHS. The reason VHS made it was because they were the first to enter the video store market.