Thursday 8 September 2016

488 The Risk Business



First viewed :  6  May  1981

I  didn't  normally  watch  this  documentary  series  about  business  ventures  but  this  episode  was  trailed  with  footage  from  the  video   for  Adam  and  the  Ants'  Stand  And  Deliver   ( the   UK  number  one  at  the  time )  and  promised  an  insight  into  the  new  video  disc. In  the  event  Adam's  part  in  the  programme  was  small, merely  an  illustration  of  one  potential  market  for  the  technology  but  it  was  a  fascinating  glimpse  into  the  future.

At  the  time  there  were  three  separate ,  completely  incompatible  VD  players  being  developed  by  Philips , Thorn  and  RCA, each  hoping  to  corner  a  market  that  may  not  even  exist  as  asserted  by  a  smug  idiot  from  Sony  placing  all  his  eggs  in  the  VCR  basket. As  it  turned  out,  none  of  them  took  off    whether  due  to  the  prohibitive  cost  or  perhaps  this  programme  highlighting  the  risk  of  picking  the  wrong  one  and  buying  into  instant  obsolescence.  History  will  record  that  the  Philips  model  came  closest  to  the  DVD  as  we  know  it  today  and  that independent  producer  Andrew  Maxwell-Hyslop  was  the  most  far-sighted  contributor  to  the  programme.

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