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Sony hits a snag.. — Parallax Forums

Sony hits a snag..

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  • mindrobotsmindrobots Posts: 6,506
    edited 2014-02-07 22:40
    Too_Many_Tools wrote: »
    FYI...

    http://news.yahoo.com/sony-announces-huge-round-layoffs-breaks-off-tv-122543079.html

    Your thoughts?

    Oh well, business changes.

    I feel sorry for the employees that are impacted by this. No feelings ar all for Sony or the management, they won't be impacted at all.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-02-08 00:32
    Sony has been universally hated in Geekdom ever since they distributed root kits on their music CD's.

    They don't seem to have done anything interesting since the good old days of he Trinitron TV's, except that is make the RaspberryPi under contract in England!
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2014-02-08 06:37
    Sony lost its mojo before the root kit. This is a company that made some of the best TV's around, they invented and perfected portable tape and CD players. When you bought Sony products they would last and had some of the best human factors engineering. But then they completely lost it in the late 90's. They never embraced the MP3 player and let Apple walk all over them in that market. In the e-reader market Amazon is cleaning up. In TV's and phones Samsung is now king of the hill. In video games Nintendo and Microsoft are thumping them.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2014-02-08 06:57
    Interesting article. Like Rick I am sorry for the employees that are impacted by this, but feel Sony and it's management are getting what they deserve. Still don't trust Sony as a result of the root kit fiasco.

    I found this link in the article led to an even more interesting one.

    http://bgr.com/2014/02/05/microsoft-office-ipad-android-tablets/
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2014-02-08 07:54
    I hope sony won't ditch it's CCD/CMOS/Camera businesses too. Sony currently produces major part of large sensors used in cameras, and pioneered in many areas for digital imaging.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2014-02-08 12:03
    It's a shame. Sony were the good guys in the VCR wars of the early 1990's when the RIAA was trying to make VCR's illegal. But then they failed to understand how the "inferior" VHS format undercut them in the market, and lost the market war, and kind of totally went off the rails.
  • Too_Many_ToolsToo_Many_Tools Posts: 765
    edited 2014-02-08 16:38
    Martin_H wrote: »
    Sony lost its mojo before the root kit. This is a company that made some of the best TV's around, they invented and perfected portable tape and CD players. When you bought Sony products they would last and had some of the best human factors engineering. But then they completely lost it in the late 90's. They never embraced the MP3 player and let Apple walk all over them in that market. In the e-reader market Amazon is cleaning up. In TV's and phones Samsung is now king of the hill. In video games Nintendo and Microsoft are thumping them.

    In the 90's Sony was what Apple is today....and Apple was on life support.

    And Samsung...it was Samsung who?

    Yeah...times can change...
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2014-02-08 17:14
    CuriousOne wrote: »
    I hope sony won't ditch it's CCD/CMOS/Camera businesses too. Sony currently produces major part of large sensors used in cameras, and pioneered in many areas for digital imaging.

    This is probably one area where they're still world class. The Sony Ex-view HAD ccd sensor is used in nearly every lowlight camera made. I have one for astronomy and it's considered a great product.

    The
  • Buck RogersBuck Rogers Posts: 2,185
    edited 2014-02-09 14:27
    localroger wrote: »
    It's a shame. Sony were the good guys in the VCR wars of the early 1990's when the RIAA was trying to make VCR's illegal. But then they failed to understand how the "inferior" VHS format undercut them in the market, and lost the market war, and kind of totally went off the rails.

    Interestingly enough people do not recall that the first video recorder was developed by Ampex, and ostensibly aimed at the home market. They even bamboozled RCA to make a camera for them. And this was using a videocon tube for it. That recorder was using reel to reel tape. And it was based on the studio recorders they made.

    The Sony U-matic commercial rig was based on their annoying Betamax ones.

    I actually used one of each before moving to Queens to start off being more like what all of you see here.

    No I will not be sorry as Sony reorganizes. Every time I see someone using their computers I have to stop and think and not say that inappropriate phrase. Shutting down that division is appropriate. Now if we can only get them to do something about the video game market they don't understand........
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2014-02-09 18:23
    Buck Rogers wrote: »
    Interestingly enough people do not recall that the first video recorder was developed by Ampex, and ostensibly aimed at the home market.

    Not sure about this one. Ampex's first commercial video recorder was a 2" quad unit, definitely not for the home market. Ampex had formerly been in the 1/4-inch audio tape machine business, and some of those were directed to high-end consumers. In the early 1960s Ampex did demonstrate various high-speed video recorders (later using helical scan) for the home market, as did RCA and several Japanese manufacturers. These came well after the VR1000 was in use.
    They even bamboozled RCA to make a camera for them. And this was using a videocon tube for it.

    The first VR1000 quads were for the Bing Crosby show, as he was an investor in the company for both audio and video products. More than likely they used an image orthicon tube for this television production, common in mid-1950s television studios. A camera for the home using a vidicon would have been the natural choice, since it was much simpler and cheaper than an IO tube. RCA was by then making numerous small-format cameras with standard video outputs, so I'd be pretty sure anything for use with the later Ampex home and industrial video recorders were products RCA had already developed.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2014-02-09 20:43
    First commercially available video recorder (using magnetic discs), were developed by Nazis in late 30s. Were used as instant replay devices for sporting events.
  • bill190bill190 Posts: 769
    edited 2014-02-10 08:05
    At one time Sony meant excellent quality and the best. If there was a choice, I went with Sony and would be assured of a trouble free quality product which would last for years...

    But the last few Sony products I purchased broke in a few months or in under a year. I quit buying Sony.

    It seems that Samsung is now the quality product for video?

    Also for computers it was DEC, then Compaq, then HP, and now Dell seems to be the one?

    Sony, DEC, Compaq, HP - all "quality product" names! What went wrong?
  • GenetixGenetix Posts: 1,754
    edited 2014-02-10 18:30
    Sony was once a great company which made great products that would endure for years. Now they make over-priced junk that always seems to break after only a few years. Japanese companies used to focus on the customer but now like many companies it's all about making money.
  • Too_Many_ToolsToo_Many_Tools Posts: 765
    edited 2014-02-11 16:50
    Genetix wrote: »
    Sony was once a great company which made great products that would endure for years. Now they make over-priced junk that always seems to break after only a few years. Japanese companies used to focus on the customer but now like many companies it's all about making money.

    I think you have a good point...you can only squeeze the Golden Goose so much before it quits laying its eggs.
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2014-02-11 18:36
    CuriousOne wrote: »
    First commercially available video recorder (using magnetic discs), were developed by Nazis in late 30s. Were used as instant replay devices for sporting events.

    This is, to put it as politely as possible, Smile. The Nazis broadcast a few crude early TV transmissions via the scanning disk technique (including the one made famous by Carl Sagan's novel and the movie of it Contact) but there were no distribution networks, few receivers, and no recorders.

    The Nazis did invent audio magnetic recording though, and had developed it to a higher art than anyone else before the war ended and everyone else got access to their secret research. In particular they introduced AC biasing, tape medium instead of wire, and the ring-style head, which was necessary because the previous needle-head designs used in wire recorders tended to shred tape.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-02-11 23:56
    A bit off topic, but I was surprised to find that when Hitler visited Finland in 1942 to meet with General Mannerheim the railway carriage in which they met was bugged and the private discussion recorded. The surprise to me was that they had tape recorders at all in 1942.

    This is the only recording of Hitler speaking "off air" as it were. You can listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8raDPASvq0
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2014-02-14 20:12
    Calls out for a HITLER FINDS OUT HE WAS SECRETLY RECORDED Downfall parody.
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