Diogen- since you said you weren't really around when these early development days of video happened. Here's an observation of mine that you may find interesting- Sony was responsible for most all the video formats except for the M wrap and its derivations... that is VHS, SVHS, MII. Sony developed so many beta formats that lacked cross format compatibility, pushed them all hard on the public and then just dropped them with a short life. The long lasting ones were 3/4Umatic a beta wrap format, actually the first I recall. True that Ampex also had a big hand in the development but Sony not only refined the format but marketed it in a big way, for awhile! Short lived versions were- formats like 8mm, Hi8, Betamax of course, betacam SX, and within some of these we had other formats, incompatible but close, like Single 8, DVC, SHB Betamax Metal, and dozens of others, all were beta wrap design. The point is that knowing Sony's history on video formats tells me that they have a long standing track record to push a new incompatible format hard and then just drop it in sometimes less than a year. Even when the format is a huge success, like 3/4Umatic SP and Betacam SP. I don't trust Sony to stick to any format regardless of market success. So if BluRay should win the war, Sony may just fall back on their history and kill it because they have developed a new way to do hiDef programming. In this respect I do believe history will repeat itself.
