While I still haven’t found the info from my first CES in 2000, I’ve found an interesting magazine from 1997 discussing the CES show that year. There were a few notables from that show that have already disappeared into the tech ether-world of obsolescence. I am struggling to remember ANY new tech from that period that still is produced today.
At this time, the standard-def (SD), not-truly-digital, LaserDisc (LD) was the dominant format for videophiles, with prospective SD DVD companies still trying to figure out the remainder of the specs for the new format standards. At the peak of LD sales, there were more than 8,000 titles. Absolutely no one had any idea when HD DVDs were arriving as the SD DVD standards weren’t even close to being finalized. And to make matters worse for the LD format, just the talk of “DVDs” caused the sales of the LD to plummet by a third. Personally, I loved the LaserDisc picture while watching a Sony 1020Q projector stretched out to 100”. Sadly, that was the same Sony 1020Q I was watching when the Space Shuttle exploded after takeoff … I knew what had happened before the news folks covering the launch, as the cameras were zoomed in on Shuttle, and consequently, it completely filled the giant screen with scenes of that horrible moment I’ll never be able to forget.
Sony could see that the “MiniDisc” was popular in Japan for portable music, so they decided to bring it to the US. Does anyone even remember it now? There was a far better and sensible interim solution for portable music from Philips and Matsushita called the Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) that could play analog compact cassettes AND the new digital version … all in one machine. So, that format had to die. Sony felt the US needed a fragile, expensive, vibration sensitive format with almost zero music for American tastes to replace it. As completely expected, it quickly went the way of the CD-i, CD-3, and the 3-inch CD …
The music industry was totally freaked out by lossless digital music and was doing everything it could to destroy it as well … fortunately for us all, they failed and the US courts legalized owning digital copies provided the music was encrypted. That tech-ignorant government absurdity, predictably, led directly to creating truly enormous, widespread unencrypted online filesharing, from sites like Napster, Grokster and BearShare.
A bit of good news from the show was the almighty FCC had finally approved the HD TV standard for the US called simply enough, “HDTV”. Although the first TV HD channels were barely “HD”, the 720p image was better than the same quality/standard of picture (480i) that televisions used since first introduced. I still remember having people come to our house to see HDTV for the first time in the media room … the only HD on broadcast TV where we lived, was an hour long show about animals/plants on PBS once a night. Even so, these folks were amazed. Bear in mind … this was 2003, not 1997. It took that long before any TV channels in our area, finally figured out that people actually wanted HDTV. I had a pro-grade 720p Hitachi (a rebranded Pioneer) that had to be ordered from a commercial TV station supplier in Seattle. Even though it was only a 50″ plasma, it cost over $8,000 with a mandatory special plug-in card that allowed external sources such as a HD tuner (another $750). The TV got so hot, it’d actually heat the room up.
Will the 2024 CES show be relevant 25+ years from today?
The only guess that I’d stake money on, is … no.
But it may be a yardstick for the future generations to see what their futures may look like, and show them that tech is never stagnant …
