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Thursday, September 27, 1984/The Battalion/Page 7
8mm Japanese exports
VCR rocks market
United Press International
ICHNOMIYA, Japan — Less
than 10 years after Sony intro
duced the first home videocas
sette recorder, VCR makers are
poised on a springboard that
could send the vigorous industry
into the stratosphere — or trigger
a bloody video war.
Overall production in Japan
reached 18.2 million units last
year and a record 15.2 million
VCRs were exported, a 43 per
cent increase over the previous
year.
The pace shows no sign of
slackening. August exports set a
new record at 1.996 million units,
an increase of 51.5 percent, with
shipments to the United Sates up
89.6 percent to $305 million.
The VHS-format group led by
Matsushita and Victor Co. of Ja
pan (JVC) controls some 70 per
cent of the multibillion dollar
world market while Sony (Beta-
format) controls the remaining
30 percent.
With this record of success, the
industry leaders are naturally re
luctant to rock the boat, but ob
servers agree the VHS and Beta-
dominated half-inch VCR market
is about to be vigorously shaken
up — if not blown sky high.
The troublemaker is light
weight 8nim format “mini-VCR.”
Videocassettes for this system
are roughly the same size as a
standard audio cassette. Some 97
Japanese and 25 overseas man
ufacturers reached an industry
wide standardization agreement
last year with far-reaching impli
cations.
The first to enter the new mar
ket will be Eastman Kodak. Mat
sushita has agreed to supply 8mm
Japanese production
was 18.2 million VCRs
last year, 15.2 million
were exported.
camera-recorder VCR systems to
Kodak, which is selling them in
North America under its Kodavi-
sion label.
A Kodak spokesman said the
five-pound camera-recorder unit
is aimed at the consumer who
wants to make home movies using
videotape technology. Kodak will
have the machines in stores this
month. The smaller of two mod
els has a list price of $ 1,599.
Canon Inc., Japan’s No. I cam
era maker, and Sanyo Electric,
the nation’s No. 4 home appli
ance maker, have developed
mini-VCR systems and are ex
pected to begin marketing them
in Japan within the next few
months.
Toshiba signed an agreement
with Polaroid Corp. to develop
and market a similar system, ex
pected to be on the market in
time for Christmas.
Although conventional VCR
systems may survive indefinitely
alongside the smaller, portable
systems, for different purposes,
like conventional and “micro” au
dio cassettes, industry analysts are
unanimous: mini-VCR is the
wave of the future.
Takao Kanaoka, the engineer
responsible for developing Sony’s
revolutionary Trinitron TV,
agrees.
“Sony has done extensive re
search and we’re waiting for the
time to be right to introduce our
product. We have the technol
ogy,” said Kanaoka, president of
Sony Ichinomiya Corp., a subsid
iary that makes televisions, VCRs
and half-inch “Betamovie” cam-
era-recorders.
Several companies also have
developed erasable videodiscs
and research is underway to
bring the quality up to the level of
conventional, non-erasable discs.
Innovations in the recording
mechanism naturally will be
matched by innovations in the
viewing mechanism. The so-
called “fiat TV” — a very thin
screen that might be hung on a
wall — is not far away.
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BE ALL YOU CAN BE.
A&M gets $500,000
for business college
University News Service
The Cullen Trust for Higher Ed
ucation has awarded a $500,000 en
dowment to Texas A&M’s College of
Business Administration to establish
an academic chair in honor of Sid
ney V. Smith.
Smith is a 1944 Texas A&M grad
uate and vice chairman of the board
of the Horne Co. in Houston.
The Houston-based trust stip
ulated that the funds be matched by
the University’s Endowed Scholars
Program to establish a second chair,
the Hugh Roy Cullen Chair in Busi
ness Administration.
The Texas A&M System Board of
Regents appropriated an additional
$10 million earlier this week for
United Press International
CORPUS CHRISTI —U.S. District
Judge Hayden Head Jr. Wednesday
granted Jack Elder’s defense extra
time to seek dismissal of felony
charges against the Sanctuary
Movement leader.
Elder, 41, is the director of Casa
Oscar Romero, a church-sponsored
refugee center for Central Ameri
cans at San Benito near the Texas-
Mexico border. The Vietnam vet
eran is charged in a three-count in
dictment with transporting a group
of Salvadorans from the center to a
matching funds for such gifts.
Dr. William Mobley, dean of
Texas A&M’s College of Business
Administration, said the Cullen gift
could be instrumental in building
new international ties beneficial to
Houston, and the nation.
The gift may be used to provide
strong leadership for the business
college by employing a prominent
international business professor, he
said.
The chairs made possible by the
Cullen trust bring to 26 the number
of endowed faculty positions in the
College of Business Administration.
The endowments total more than $5
million, Mobley said.
bus station in Harlingen.
Defense attorney Stephen Cooper
said he asked for the extension
Wednesday because typing the
court-ordered statements was taking
longer than expected.
Among the 21 depositions sub
mitted Wednesday were statements
from Robert White, former U.S. am
bassador to El Salvador, and Bill
Ford, brother of Ita Ford, one of
four churchwomen assassinated by
Salvadoran national guardsmen.
Cooper said nine more deposi
tions will be submitted.
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