What is past, is prologue. In life, truer words were never spoken. In video production, not so much. However, where we came from is as important as where we are going. Let's take a look at some instances where we as a media society learned from what didn't work, and compare it to what we have today. For only in doing so, dear videographer, can we understand where we are headed tomorrow.

What Didn't Work: CBS Color system

In 1950, the FCC approved a color television system that would have included a color wheel spinning inside your television. It would have had to spin perfectly in sync with the one at the transmission source. While this system actually would have offered more accurate color reproduction than the system we ended up with, it would have been incompatible with all the black and white TVs sold to that point.

Why It Failed:
Tests of the new system failed to spark public interest. Not surprising when you consider not one household had a television capable of receiving the picture. Manufacturers at the time had absolutely no interest in producing proposed hybrid TVs meant to ease transition to the new format. Meanwhile, RCA had continued to refine its own system, fully backwards compatible, which became the NTSC color standard we all know and...er...sometimes loved.

What We Have Today:
While it's easy to see why the RCA system was eventually accepted, the inaccurate color reproduction issue, along with other quirks have caused years of headaches for many a video professional. The recent transition to the ATSC color system and digital transmission has been welcomed as a refreshing change, giving hope to many that there is a color accurate light at the end of the tunnel.

Little Known Facts:
Can you imagine actually having a television based on mechanical parts? Would oiling the television have become commonplace? Oddly enough this system was used for decades by NASA for the space program.

What Didn't Work: Closed box edit systems

In the beginning, there was razor blades and tape. With the advent of controllable tape decks came linear edit systems. Then a group of pioneers harnessed the power of the computer, giving way to non-linear edit systems, and the world saw that it was good. Avid, Premiere and Media 100 gave rise to a whole new level of quality, style and frustration. While these programs were grand sights to behold, they suffered from bugs and glitches, due not only to the infancy of the technology, but to the diverse equipment scattered throughout the editing world. Enter the "closed box edit system". These machines were not multifunction computers, but were single function systems, that only needed themselves to operate. Brands like the Stratosphere and Casablanca were released upon the world to drive out the non-conformist edit systems.

Why it Failed:
This system hasn't completely failed yet. While these machines worked well and for the most part achieved the stability sought, they were also rather inflexible. Closed box systems were all but incapable of integration with independent programs like After Effects, unless designed to be so from the start. They also took up the same amount of room as a full computer workstation, yet people still needed a computer anyway to work with these other programs. Further, major updates were few and far between and usually entailed hardware replacement. So the money that might have been saved going with a closed system was mitigated. This coupled with the speed at which computer-based systems could pump out software updates, thus stabilizing their systems, could not be kept up with. They are still used mostly in school systems where the students can't go onto the internet during use.

What We Have Today:
While it's all but impossible to even find an Internet mention of the Stratosphere or other systems, the Casablanca remains in production. With new models released less than a year ago, they still attract a good amount of users in the prosumer and niche markets, primarily because they offer a superior class of editing capability while still being simple enough to be understood by those outside of the video industry. Clearly there is still a place for these systems in a world dominated by Final Cut Pro, Avid, Premiere Pro, and Vegas, but closed box edit systems are fading into the background, becoming a blip in history.

Little Known Facts:
While most people remember the Avid as the first commercially widespread non-linear edit system, it was not by any means the first non-linear editor. Early non-linear editing machines were actually systems composed of multiple identical sources that could be played back in any order. Probably the best known example of this was Lucasfilm's EditDroid. More of a stepping stone than a failure, this system introduced many concepts used in most contemporary edit systems.

What Didn't Work: Betamax

We all know the story of how two major formats competed for a place in homes across the world. We also know that VHS quickly won the war. What's interesting is that Betamax was the first on the scene, and was a superior quality product in many ways. So what happened?

Why It Failed:
Essentially, higher pricing drove most consumers to adopt the lesser quality of VHS. Additionally, a custom video signal in their early camcorders meant Betamax video could not be played back in the field. Combine this with a very restrictive record-time-per-tape and you've got key elements that ensured this system never achieved legendary status (well not the way it was meant to anyway).

What We Have Today:
Every time my VHS machine ate a tape, I wondered what could have been. Would Betamax have given me such heartache? All I know is I had a hard time finding enough storage room for my library of 300+ VHS tapes. With Betamax, I would have had to rent a storage facility. I know I'm not alone when I say how thankful I am for how small today's recordable media is.

Little Known Facts:
The Laser Disc, the leading format pushed as the logical successor to these home systems never quite caught on anywhere outside of Southeast Asia (where it was huge, by the way). Discs were more expensive than most wanted to spend and easily damaged. Personally, I think they also reminded consumers too much of LP records, which in light of the new CD format, everyone was really trying to forget. And they never did work out that home recording Laser Disc, did they?