Ever backed the wrong " Horse "

[Antiriad2097]

I liked my ST, it was good at being a computer, but since I got it around 1991 the Amiga was trouncing it in the gaming arena by then. It was better when I got the STE, but still no Amiga beater, since too many games failed to take advantage of it. Oh, how I hate that sound chip. Amiga games were belting out great soundtracks and effects, while the ST was blooping along horribly. That it didn't even better my ancient C64 really bugged me. Same with the horizontal scrolling. It was from Atari, they knew it would be used for games, yet they failed to allow for that.

Still, I programmed many a utility for myself on it and learned a lot in the process. Mostly that Amiga games were better. Having said that, I wouldn't want an Amiga for a computer, only the games, it has a horrid OS.

[crusto]

General summary of my shizbang over the years.

• Atari Woody - Right horse
  Atari 800xl - Wrong horse
  Amstrad CPC 464 - Wrong horse
  SMS - Right horse
  PCE - Right horse, wrong country
  SMD - Right horse
  SNES - Right horse
  PS1 - Right horse

I don't consider any purchases since my PS1 as a wrong horse, except every PC I bougt was an unreliable, glitchy lemon.

[Katzkatz]

Is anybody going to admit to backing Laserdisc and thinking it would be the next big thing?

I don't know - Laserdisc was sort of niche. I loved watching the demo machines in the local Sony Centre(when Sony were actually good). Watching things like Terminator 2 with surround sound was really impressive for the time. Likewise, some of the NTSC disks came with Dolby Digital sound and I remember seeing True Lies being played on one.

Sadly, I didn't know anyone who owned one. I know a few stores did sell those massive disks back in the day(e.g. Volume One and Tower Records).

I was always intrigued by the format.

[crusto]

My friends dad owned one, a Toshiba iirc. It was ace, plus he had it hooked up to an awesome surround sound system. Great bit of kit.

[paranoid marvin]

Laserdisc was far superior to VHS.DVD was better than LD. Blu-Ray is better than DVD. If you wait long enough, something better WILL come along; it all depends whether you're prepared to watch in inferior quality until that happens. LD and DVD were developed too far apart for anyone to say that there was a choice between the two formats. The only real choice was LD or VHS and LD won hands down. Then it all depends on whether you think it was worth paying the extra cash for the superior sound and picture quality. Personally I waited until DVD came along, but if I had the spare cash at the time I'd much rather have been watching Star Wars on LD than on VHS.

[RodimusPrime]

Laserdisc was far superior to VHS.DVD was better than LD. Blu-Ray is better than DVD. If you wait long enough, something better WILL come along; it all depends whether you're prepared to watch in inferior quality until that happens. LD and DVD were developed too far apart for anyone to say that there was a choice between the two formats. The only real choice was LD or VHS and LD won hands down. Then it all depends on whether you think it was worth paying the extra cash for the superior sound and picture quality. Personally I waited until DVD came along, but if I had the spare cash at the time I'd much rather have been watching Star Wars on LD than on VHS.

Betamax was a viable alternative for a while, so I owuld have said there was at least one more option, and a lot of asian countries took to VCD over both.

[Matt_B]

Yeah, LaserDisc did all right for a technology introduced in 1978. It might never have made much of an inroad into the mainstream but it held the videophile market globally for just shy of a couple of decades, which is a heck of a lot longer than DVD managed before Blu-ray came along.

ST vs Amiga depends a bit on when and how much money you had at the time. The ST was usually cheaper, but by a decreasing amount over time and after about 1991 wouldn't have been a good pick, but neither would the Amiga be after 1994 when Commodore went under.

[silvergunner]

Is anybody going to admit to backing Laserdisc and thinking it would be the next big thing?

I don't know - Laserdisc was sort of niche. I loved watching the demo machines in the local Sony Centre(when Sony were actually good). Watching things like Terminator 2 with surround sound was really impressive for the time. Likewise, some of the NTSC disks came with Dolby Digital sound and I remember seeing True Lies being played on one.

Sadly, I didn't know anyone who owned one. I know a few stores did sell those massive disks back in the day(e.g. Volume One and Tower Records).

I was always intrigued by the format.

I bought mine first player in 1997 and I don't see it as a failure.

Ok in Europe we got the thick end of the stick with no Dolby digital and DTS tracks but the import scene was huge. The choice was massive regarding the amount of titles. I still use mine to this day as there is still a lot of stuff that has never had a DVD/bluray release to this day.

Audio wise I have a lot of discs that beat the DVD version hands down which is saying something for the age of the tech.

[necronom]

I don't think I ever had what I would class as a bad choice. We had Betamax in the early '80s, but we didn't rent films much as it was 99% used to record from TV, and the tapes were more compact, which was better. When we did rent films, we always got what we were looking for.

Computers were all the right choices.

[HEAVYface]

got a CPC464 with a green screen. definitely wrong choice there.
got a lynx not a Gameboy - wrong again
some might say these are near misses:
got a Saturn not a psone, (very happy with the Saturn though)
got a dreamcast - didn't wait for ps2, (very happy with the DC)

[BennyTheGreek]

quite like backing unloved or unwanted tech.

I have a great hd dvd collection and I still cant see any advantage that blu ray has over it.

I think as long as you get enjoyment from something, it doesnt really matter if it made a fortune for the company. wii u is my current favourite console...

[Matt_B]

quite like backing unloved or unwanted tech.

I have a great hd dvd collection and I still cant see any advantage that blu ray has over it.

I think as long as you get enjoyment from something, it doesnt really matter if it made a fortune for the company. wii u is my current favourite console...

Blu-ray has considerable technical advantages over HD-DVD, with much higher capacities and data transfer rates. These have allowed support for 4K, and even 8K, content as well as more advanced surround sound formats such as Dolby Atmos.

Still, in terms of what you could watch in the home in 2006, HD-DVD certainly did the job. I'd suspect that the main reason Blu-ray won was because the consortium behind it were better at getting the Hollywood studios on board rather than any vision for the future.

[Treguard]

My parents were convinced by the man in Comet that the Phillips CD-i was going to be the next big thing. We all know what happened there. That said I played The Apprentice on one at Play Leeds on Sunday, if it had had more games like that it could have fared far better, it was just at that time where people couldn't really conceive of any benefit to CD formats besides FMV and better audio.

I was also one of the people who had ITV Digital over SKY back in the day. I remember coming down that morning and finding out I had no channels... still the Ondigital box was a nifty bit of kit for the time. I could program it to 'wake' at a certain point so I could set my VCR at the same time to record programs while I was out. That's genius up there with the TV with the built in teletext printer that is.

[Grizzly]

Interesting that people are considering SNES to be "the right horse" when it was outsold by the Mega Drive in the UK/ Europe. Sure, hindsight may favour it but the Mega Drive was the king!

[Katzkatz]

My parents were convinced by the man in Comet that the Phillips CD-i was going to be the next big thing. We all know what happened there. That said I played The Apprentice on one at Play Leeds on Sunday, if it had had more games like that it could have fared far better, it was just at that time where people couldn't really conceive of any benefit to CD formats besides FMV and better audio.

I was also one of the people who had ITV Digital over SKY back in the day. I remember coming down that morning and finding out I had no channels... still the Ondigital box was a nifty bit of kit for the time. I could program it to 'wake' at a certain point so I could set my VCR at the same time to record programs while I was out. That's genius up there with the TV with the built in teletext printer that is.

The CDi isn't too bad. I think 7th Guest was sort of its killer app game - with the FMV module. I always remember that the local Dixons had one and it was always playing the Video CD of Star Trek VI : The Undiscovered Country. That was one of the only Video CDs that I saw on sale in Dixons(I don't think anywhere really stocked them. Shocking, as I never saw them in Volume One or Our Price, back in the day) - the other Video CD on sale was Four Weddings and a Funeral. I did have an old schoolfriend who bought one. He also had a SNES. He used to play Chess and Tetris on his CDi a lot. Making full use of that FMV cartridge there! My local sixth form college had one in the library and used it for the CDROM encyclopedia thing - it was a different era, what with CDROM being the next big thing on all computer and console formats. Don't forget that CDi had the first motion control system.

On the subject of ITV Digital and Sky and "wrong horses" - did anyone have BSB? The squarial. Remember that? Programs like : Jupiter Moon and Heil Honey, I'm Home, etc. The Galaxy channel, etc. That had a higher quality signal system(D2MAC - I think) - so you could use an RGB scart to your TV.