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> And yet any media player beats it at its core functionality: video playback.

And at it's core, BetMax is better than VHS. HD-DVD is better than Blu-Ray.

Often, it's not about what is "better". It's about who has the most moment, is easier, less encumbered by DRM, etc.

Sometimes it's better to download Youtube... more often than not, Youtube "just works".



I don't think that you can call BetaMax's somewhat superior picture quality objectively better than VHS's factor of two advantage in storage.


How is HD DVD better than Blu-Ray?


Maybe because it doesn't use Java for some people, :)


"uses Java" tends to be synonymous with "bloated and poorly performant", so I can understand that preference.


In the hands of bad coders, which if they would be writing C would just make their code commit suicide with their pointer handling.


HD-DVD was cheaper and required less immediate infrastructure changes, but rather allowed a staged switch from DVD. Blu-Ray is the one that was better.

Actually this is exact reverse of a Betamax story - better and more expensive long term improvement won over short term and cheaper one.




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