WEBVTT - The Sony Story: Part Three 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.560 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:19.200 And today is the conclusion of the Sony story and epic, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.079 if ever there was one, And just to peek behind 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.560 the curtain, the last couple of episodes I recorded, we're 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:29.720 from a couple of weeks ago. Episodes one and two 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.319 I recorded in one go in the studio, and then 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.360 I had a whole bunch of trips two different locations 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.800 to give presentations, and I ended up uh putting off 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.760 recording till today, which is a couple of weeks later. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.200 So if a sound remarkably different from parts one and two, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.919 that's why. So let's talk about Sony and let's kind 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.600 of bring ourselves up to current day. I promise that 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.760 as we get closer to current day, I get less 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.920 and less detailed dates, because otherwise there'd be four parts 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.039 to this and I think that's stretching it even for me. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.600 So in the last episode, I concluded the show by 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.080 talking about Sony's battle in the VCR Wars. But during 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.600 that same time, the company was doing some other stuff, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.520 So some of this is going to overlap with the 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:22.720 end of the previous episode. Back in nineteen seventy, Sony 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.560 became listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It also 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.760 opened up Sony in Germany. It was eventually called Sony 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.800 Deutschland UH in nineteen eighty. Sony would also open businesses 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.560 in Spain and France and other nations over the next 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.280 few years and would become a truly global company. So 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.720 this was a big move. Remember, this whole company started 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:49.160 out as a small Japanese organization and now had become 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:55.240 a multinational global entity. Nineteen seventy nine also saw the 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.760 introduction of one of the most iconic Sony products of 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.720 all time, one of their most successful products, the Walkman. 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.640 Now officially it was called the TPS dash L two, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.520 and it lacked a recording function. It could play and 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.760 it could fast forward and rewind and stop, and that's 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.440 about it. But some people were saying, well, because there's 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.760 no record function, it's not gonna sell very well. But 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.560 it ended up becoming an insanely popular product, and it 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:31.920 launched an entire new product line of portable tape recorders 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.480 or really tape players because they couldn't record. The company 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:41.080 also introduced lightweight headphones, very important along with the invention 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.840 of the portable tape player, and these lightweight headphone headphones 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.399 were called the m d R DASH three or h 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:55.080 dash ai r hair headphones. C Sony knew that if 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.480 they were to rely upon traditional, big, clunky headphones, no 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.200 one was going to buy a portable tape player. It 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.400 would just not be practical. So they had to invent 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.480 very lightweight headphones that would work with their new product. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.600 So they did, and that together they ended up being 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.800 a big success. Now, the next line, or the next 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:23.280 evolution of the portable tape player was the w M two. 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.480 This is the traditional, the classic Walkman we think about, 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.320 which launched in one. This was the one that really 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.359 hit it big. They Sony knew from the tps L 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.920 two that they were onto something, but it wasn't until 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:42.680 the w M two in the Walkman too, that they 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.600 really realized that this was a huge hit. It was 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.400 smaller than its predecessor and also had some other features 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.720 to help improve performance quality, and it became the standard 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.880 portable cassette player. So essentially you either had a Walkman 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.200 or you had some sort of uh portable tape player 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:07.000 that was essentially a Walkman knockoff. That's really what it 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:11.240 boiled down to. Also in two, Sony introduced the MP 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.600 d R E two five two, which it doesn't really 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.560 have a very catchy name, but they were the first 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.720 in ear headphones or earbuds as we would call them. Again, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.000 that's a standard that you see everywhere today, but at 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.520 the time was completely unheard of. And uh, I really 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.880 can't stress how big a game changer this was in 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.159 the field of music. Suddenly you could take your music 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.560 with you. You didn't have to have a tape deck 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.920 in your car. Most cars didn't have tape decks. In fact, 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.440 some of them still had eight track players. Um, he 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.360 didn't have to carry around a big, clunky tape recorder 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.159 that had one lousy speaker, so you would get everything 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.960 in Monto. You can actually have stereo cassettes played in 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.840 a portable cassette player. You could do things like go 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:00.680 jogging or workout, stuff that we take for granted now 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:02.520 because we can do all this stuff with our phones 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.760 these days, or or MP three players if you're still 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:09.400 sporting one of those, But back at two that was 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.520 unheard of. It was huge, and it really changed the 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.000 way people interacted with their technology. In fact, I would 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.320 argue that the Walkman is kind of the beginning of 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:25.039 this portable technology craze that has carried up through mobile phones, smartphones, 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.720 handheld gaming devices, all of that sort of stuff. I 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.760 think the Walkman kind of proved that people really wanted 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.359 technology they could take with themselves on the go, and 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.880 so Sony was a pioneer, not to be confused with 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:45.600 pioneer the sound company in this space. In Sony engineers 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.600 began to work on developing a video camera recorder using 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.080 a new type of semiconductor new at that time called 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.120 the charge coupled device or cc D. That's something that's 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.200 still an important component in many, but not all, digital cameras. 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.919 There's actually a couple different sensors that are used in 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.520 digital cameras. Some u c c D and some use others. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.600 This camera was meant to record directly to cassette in 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:13.040 the camera itself. That was also huge in Sony launched 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.880 the BMC one camera, which recorded straight to Beta max tape. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.760 Is a larger camera like one of those shoulder mounted 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.200 type cameras. The colloquial term for this type of video 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.919 camera recorder is the camcorder, meaning that you use the 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:32.640 same gadget to both shoot the video and record the video. Again, 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.960 this is something we take for granted today, but before cancorders, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.760 the way it would work is you used a video 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:43.760 camera two to convert light into a signal, which then 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.799 you would send over a cable to a recording device, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.719 which really limited how you could use cameras right a 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.880 video camera. You couldn't just take a video camera out 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.920 on the go. It had to have a cable attaching 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.520 itself to some sort of storage device that it would 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.360 record to the signal to a medium like magnetic tape, 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.840 and that would also have to have its own power supply. 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.880 So createing a cam quorter that could do all of 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:15.400 this in one unit was a big deal. Now. The 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.160 BMC one hundred cost fifteen hundred dollars at launch in 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.240 nineteen eighty three, and I adjusted that for inflation, so 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.360 in today's dollars that's around thirty six hundred dollars, so 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.600 twice more than twice as much what it went for 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.560 in nineteen eighty three, so cost fiftellars. If you were 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:35.120 to buy it today, it would be like buying something 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.520 for thirty six hundred dollars. And it was large and bulky, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.560 but switching to the c c D system is what 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:46.200 would allow Sony to make things a bit smaller. Sony's 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.400 team was able to create a smaller camcorder using cc 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.960 D technology, but it wouldn't be until before Sony could 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.280 market one to consumers, and it was the eight millimeter 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.240 cam quorder called the c c D V eight. Now, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.840 one of the reasons for the delay was not purely technological. 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.440 Sony wanted to work with other companies to establish a 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.520 standard format so that way they wouldn't enter into another 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.560 VCR like battle on the video camera front. They were 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:20.080 already fighting Beta Max versus VHS, and they thought, well, 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:24.520 we don't really want to have thirty different video cassette 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.280 formats out there, because that'll just confuse the marketplace. It 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.440 will mean that consumers will get very upset because they 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.040 can't just buy what they want to buy. They would 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.719 be forced to buy all in one system, and if 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:40.320 that system ultimately failed, then it's wasted money. In other words, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.440 if I buy Sony's camera and it means I have 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.439 to buy Sony's player in order to watch the cassettes 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.800 that I record, and then Sony were to go out 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.360 of business. I would never be able to buy more 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.520 cassettes for the player I have, I'd never be able 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.840 to shoot more footage, and I would be stuck with 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.560 technology that was obsolete eat. So in order to avoid that, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.200 Sony said, let's all get together and establish a standard 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.600 so that way, no matter who does well or who 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.559 doesn't do well, people will still be able to buy 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.000 this technology with confidence. They won't they won't hold back 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.560 out of fear that a company might go under and 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.080 you'd be stuck with an obsolete piece of equipment. Pretty 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.720 forward thinking. As a result, Sony and a hundred twenty 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.439 six other companies collaborated on the eight Millimeter Video Conference 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.720 to hash things out. Now, I don't want you to 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:39.200 think that this charge couple device was super advanced. I mean, 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.200 it was definitely a big step forward at the time, 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:47.520 but it's pretty primitive compared to today's standards. The c 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.679 c D and Sony's camera had a resolution of just 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:54.439 two hundred fifty thousand pixels, not megapixels. Two hundred fifty 0:09:54.559 --> 0:10:00.000 thousand pixels megapixel means million, essentially million pixels. The color 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.840 are captured by c c ds was vibrant, but the 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.800 resolution was fairly primitive. Now you're looking at a much 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:09.360 smaller screen, so it didn't matter as much. You know, 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.720 there weren't many people who had very big TVs back 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.560 in the early eighties, so even if you're showing it 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.960 on a television, chances are the resolution wasn't that big 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.600 a deal because you weren't looking at a huge screen, 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.760 and the smaller screen meant that the lower resolution didn't 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.560 show up as much switching back over to audio. So 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.720 in nine we had to backtrack just a bit. Here. 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.920 Sony partnered with another electronics company, Phillips, and Sony and 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.120 Phillips worked together to create a new medium for music, 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.800 and that was the compact disc or c D. Now, 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.480 earlier storage media had relied on analog methods, such as 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.840 the grooves in a vinyl album or the magnetic information 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.839 stored on a cassette tape, but compact discs were to 0:10:55.920 --> 0:11:01.160 store information optically digitally in bits, zeros, and ones on 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:05.360 a shiny disk. A laser would read the information off 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.559 the disc, and a converter would change the digital information 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.920 into an analog signal to be played back on speakers. 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.480 You have to have your analog speakers. Phillips and Sony 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.440 worked to create a standard so there wouldn't be competing 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.640 formats in the marketplace. And originally the CD was only 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.880 meant for sound files. The engineers didn't intend for this 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.360 to be a storage medium for all sorts of data. 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.200 They just thought, oh, this is kind of like a 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.080 vinyl album is for for music. So it came as 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.440 a bit of surprise to them when engineers began to 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.680 use CDs to store computer data and not just music. 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:45.040 That was a big change, and uh really excited the 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:49.679 engineers quite a bit because they just had not anticipated that. Now, 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.720 the original goal when they were coming up, when Sony 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.040 and Phillips were cooperating in order to create the CD 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:58.880 was create a disc that would be capable of storing 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.920 one hour's worth of music on it. Now, later they 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.839 decided one hour wasn't sufficient. They wanted to go up 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.480 to seventy four minutes. So sixty minutes to seventy four minutes. 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:12.800 So what was the reason why why go from sixty 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.640 minutes to seventy four Well, the story is, and I 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.760 cannot verify that this is correct, but this is how 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:27.240 it's reported. The story is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is seventy 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.400 four minutes long, and they felt that a CD should 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.720 be able to hold the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth on 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.719 one side. So CDs can hold seventy four minutes of 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.440 music because of Beethoven. Now that also meant that it 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.560 dictated how big the discs had to be, because it 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.960 wasn't like they could cram more information on the same space. 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.960 They actually used the physical space of the disk to 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.880 encode information onto it. So to go from sixty minutes 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.319 to seventy four minutes meant that the discs actually had 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.840 to be physice a little larger than they originally hadn't 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.400 had planned on being. So you could say that the 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.480 reason as standard c D is the size that it 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.520 is is because of Beethoven. And I thought that was 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.640 pretty cool, not only because I'm a technology nerd, but 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.480 also because it happened to like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:22.560 awful lot that's the one that has owed to joy 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:28.400 in it. In two, Sony introduced the world's first CD player, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:33.079 the c d P one oh one two. I was 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.800 actually surprised to learn the CD player dates all the 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.200 way back to two probably because I didn't get my 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.839 first CD player until I was a teenager, so we're 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:47.920 talking maybe nine, so it had been out for quite 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:49.520 some time, which is actually a good thing, because when 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.079 CD players first came out, they were pretty expensive. Uh, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.760 and so c d P one oh one it's sold 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.240 for about seven thirty dollars when it went on sale 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.959 two today, that would be around one thousand, eight hundred dollars. 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.840 So you'd be spending the equivalent of just under two 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.240 grand to buy just a CD player when it first 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.040 came out. Uh, that's a lot of money. Was the 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.800 reason why I did not have a CD player until 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.920 much later, when the prices had gone down dramatically. But 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.160 I wasn't even aware that c d s were a 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.960 thing in the early eighties. To me, music was all 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.280 vinyl and cassette tape, mostly cassette tape at that point. Um, 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.360 if I went into a music shop, there'd be a 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.680 vinyl section and then a larger tape section. And it 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.280 was years before I started seeing CDs pop up, and 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.240 then of course eventually they replaced everything else. Now these days, 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.320 we're starting to see vinyl comeback as sort of an 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.000 answer to the all digital model that we've been in 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.280 for the past couple of years anyway. Two, we get 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.640 that first CD player. About a month after the CD 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.680 P one oh one launched, Phillips would launch its own 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.360 CD player, but it also can hang some components that 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:04.120 were designed and built by Sony, so there were even 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.640 Sony parts in the second CD player to ever launch, 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.000 even though it was under the Phillips brand name. In 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.440 Sony introduced the world's first portable CD player. So just 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:18.800 two years after the first CD player comes out, Sony 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:21.800 introduces the portable one. It was called the D five hundred. 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.040 CDs were still very young in nineteen eighty four, however, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:26.440 and it would take a few years for the format 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.520 to really gain traction on the more established cassette market. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:35.600 So while the portable model was out, CDs just had 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.000 not quite caught on in a big way yet, not 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.720 in nineteen eighty four. It would take a couple more years. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.440 It was already pretty clear that they were going to 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.200 be a strong competitor against cassettes and vinyl, but the 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.360 cassette tape market was just so entrenched at that point 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:55.000 that it took a while for CDs to undermine it. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.400 We're gonna get back to more about Sony in just 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.880 a min it, But first let's take a quick break 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:14.160 to thank our sponsor. All right, and we're back, and 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:17.080 now let's get into something really juicy. We're at nineteen 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.359 eighty nine. That's the year that Sony would acquire Columbia 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:24.520 Pictures Entertainment and would rename it Sony Pictures Entertainment Incorporated 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:31.000 in Now, Columbia Pictures Entertainment also has a very long 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.880 history that predates the founding of Sony. You remember in 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.120 the last episode I talked about CBS and how when 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:42.440 Sony purchased CBS Records that that actually predated Sony itself 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.320 the company. Same is true with Columbia Pictures. Columbia Pictures 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.160 was founded in nineteen eighteen as the Cone Brandt Cone 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.960 Film Sales or CBC Film Sales Company. It became Columbia 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.800 Pictures in nineteen four And yes, I could do a 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:05.320 full episode just about Sony Pictures in Entertainment, no problem. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:12.879 It would be a full episode complete with drama, betrayal, triumph, tragedy. 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.120 But do you know what that would mean? Fourteen more 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.679 Sony episodes? And I think you guys would kill me 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:21.400 at that point. But if you want me to do 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.359 an episode or two about Sony Pictures specifically, please let 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.320 me know send me a message. In the meantime, I'll 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.120 give you kind of the cliffs Notes version of what 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.960 Sony Pictures is all about. So Columbia had changed hands 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:43.160 several times before Sony purchased it. In Coca Cola purchased 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:47.560 the company, but then in Coca Cola spun the company off, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.120 and then that was bought by TriStar Pictures to become 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.800 Columbia Pictures Entertainment before Sony scooped it up. Now, some 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:58.240 of the famous stuff Columbia Pictures made before Sony bought 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:03.919 them included nearly two hundred three Stooges shorts. The company 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.600 also distributed Mickey Mouse cartoons for Disney. It was also 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.560 a player in the classic television world through its division 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:16.040 that was called Screen Gems. Because of Columbia, we got 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.760 shows like The Monkeys, I Dream of Genie, The Partridge Family, 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.760 and Bewitched. Famous movies produced by the company include The 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.480 Bridge Over the River, Kuai, Oliver, which is the musical 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:33.920 adaptation of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Easy Rider, Stir 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:40.800 Crazy Stripes, Twittsie, The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters, the original version, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:45.359 and more. Sony spent four point nine billion dollars to 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.879 buy the studio and millions more to get it up 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:53.040 to speed. Besides Sony Pictures, the company also created a 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:56.560 another company to handle more art house style cinema and 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:00.600 they called that one, Columbia TriStar Pictures, and Sony spent 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.119 another four point eight billion dollars and a leveraged buyout 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.800 of Metro Metro Goldwyn Meyer or MGM Studio. Now, this 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:10.919 was also the division of Sony that was hit by 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.359 the infamous hack in two thousand and fourteen, in which 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.240 an enormous amount of data was stolen from Sony and 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:22.040 distributed on the web, revealing company strategies, employee salaries and more. 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.720 So let's talk about this hack for a second. I 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.160 know this is jumping to just a couple of years ago, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.919 but it relates to the entertainment branch of Sony. So 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.359 a group called Guardians of Peace or GOP took credit 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.119 for the hack, and they said that their purpose for 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.119 the hack was because Sony had an upcoming film at 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.680 the time called The Interview. And if you don't remember 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.920 what the interview is about It's a comedy about two 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.639 uh documentary or slash filmmaker types, an actor and a 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:56.760 director who get pulled in to become assassins. Their job 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:02.800 is to assassinate North Korea's leader, Kim Jong and some 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:08.600 security experts said that the attack on Sony originated from 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.480 North Korea or agents working on behalf of North Korea, 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.320 and that this was all politically motivated. That in other words, 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.720 North Korea was insulted that this movie was going to 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.160 become a thing, and so set hackers on Sony, who 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:28.159 then penetrated Sony's security, ransacked the databasis for tons of information, 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:32.159 including things like people salary info, and then leaked it 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:36.520 to the media. Now North Korea denies these allegations and 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.479 says that while it thinks the hackers were brilliant and 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:44.000 wonderful people, they did not actually tell the hackers to 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.440 do this. So North Korea saying, hey, it wasn't us. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.760 We think it's awesome, but it wasn't us. Now that's 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.200 not the only opinion about the hack. There are other 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.600 security experts who think perhaps it was not North Korea 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.159 or agents working on behalf of North Krea, that perpetrated 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.760 the hacks. Some people say, no, it was probably someone 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.080 from the inside who already had access to all of 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:12.320 this stuff. They didn't break into Sony's database. They had 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.320 access to it because they were an employee for Sony 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.320 and for some reason they got upset at Sony. You know, 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.480 maybe something happened, maybe they were let go but still 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.600 had access to Sony systems, or maybe there was some 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.600 other perceived slight and that as a result, they stole 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.560 a ton of information and then leaked it to the press, 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.240 saying that, you know, maybe that was really like a 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.560 kind of internal revenge story and not an external hacker 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.159 at all. And then either someone else came forward to 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:48.199 claim responsibility a k a. Guardians of Peace, or the 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:50.720 person on the inside who did all the stealing created 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.400 Guardians of Peace in the first place, just to kind 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.280 of cover the tracks. We don't really know the answer 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:58.320 to this. There are a lot of security experts who 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:01.240 say it was definitely North Korea or someone working with 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.440 North Korea. There are some who say, I don't see 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:06.720 evidence of that. I think it was an inside job. 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.440 I was more of an inside job kind of person, 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.679 believing that narrative more than the North Korean narrative, but honestly, 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:19.480 completely objectively, I do not know what is the truth. 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.000 I do not know if it was in fact a 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.720 North Korean hacker or someone working under the direction of 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.280 North Korea, or if it was an inside job. I 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.399 have no way of knowing. And the only reason I 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:37.600 leaned towards inside job was just that the security experts 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.560 I follow, many of whom were you know, talking about 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.639 this at length when it happened. I thought that that 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.560 was the most likely of the possibilities, But honestly, it 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:50.800 could be either way, and I have no way of knowing. 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:53.440 Very interesting story, though. I would love to do a 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:57.200 full story about the Sony hack that goes into deep detail, 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.879 but to be perfectly honest, I don't have a whole 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:02.720 lot more information on it. I would have to see 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:05.080 if I could get in a security expert in to 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.159 talk about the investigation. It may very well be that 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:12.040 there's some evidence that has a much more definitive answer 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.639 to who perpetrated this, and I'm just not aware of it. 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:19.640 Entirely possible, but let's get back to the main timeline. 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:23.520 So Sony, that that hack caused Sony endless amounts of grief. 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:27.240 There were plans that were revealed that Sony had not 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:30.679 made public. The the salary things caused a lot of 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:37.159 issues internally. It was a huge demoralizing force within Sony pictures. Uh, 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:40.919 and it the ramifications of that are still being felt today. 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.359 All right back to the main timeline. This makes us 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:48.600 jump back to Sony launched an HD capable television set 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:56.360 with a sixteen by nine ratio. Now, televisions before, I'm 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:58.320 sure a lot of you remember this, maybe not all 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:03.040 of you. Uh, their standard ratio was four by three, 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.440 meaning that you know, you're talking about width versus height, 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:12.800 so four units by three units or sixteen units by 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:16.680 nine units. And then you you know, by figuring out 0:24:16.720 --> 0:24:18.440 the width, you know what the height is going to 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:21.560 be because of this ratio. So sixteen by nine is 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:24.720 what we usually call wide screen, right, that's the standard 0:24:24.720 --> 0:24:27.600 wide screen. They're also sixteen by ten there, you know 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.840 it's not sixty nine is not the only standard out there, 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:36.040 but it's the most common one. Now in launched it's 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:39.800 sixteen by nine ratio HD capable TV. It was a 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:44.399 thirty six inch television called the k W dasht h 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:49.760 D That was however, it wouldn't be until nine three 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:54.560 and the Digital HD TV Grand Alliance that HD signals 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:58.240