Format war

19th century

• Rail gauge. The Gauge War in Britain pitted the Great Western Railway, which used broad gauge, against other rail companies, which used what would come to be known as standard gauge. Ultimately standard gauge prevailed.
• Similarly, in the United States there was incompatibility between railroads built to the standard gauge and those built to the so-called Russian gauge. During the initial period of railroad building, standard gauge was adopted in most of the northeastern United States, while the wider gauge, later called "Russian", was preferred in most of the southern states. In 1886, the Southern railroads agreed to coordinate changing gauge on all their tracks. By June 1886, all major railroads in North America were using what was effectively the same gauge.
• Direct current vs. alternating current: The 1880s saw the spread of electric lighting with large utilities and manufacturing companies supplying it. The systems initially ran on direct current and alternating current with low voltage DC used for interior lighting and high voltage DC and AC running very bright exterior arc lighting. With the invention of the AC transformer in the mid 1880s, alternating current could be stepped up in voltage for long range transmission and stepped down again for domestic use, making it a much more efficient transmission standard now directly competing with DC for the indoor lighting market. In the U.S. Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Light Company tried to protect its patent controlled DC market by playing on the public's fears of the dangers of high voltage AC, portraying their main AC competitor, George Westinghouse's Westinghouse Electric Company, as purveyors of an unsafe system, a back and forth financial and propaganda competition that came to be known as the war of the currents, even promoting AC for the Electric chair execution device. AC, with its more economic transmission would prevail, supplanting DC.
• Musical boxes: Several manufacturers introduced musical boxes that utilised interchangeable steel disks that carried the tune. The principal players were Polyphon, Symphonion and Regina. Each manufacturer used its own unique set of disc sizes. This assured that once the purchaser had bought a music box, they had to buy the music discs from the same manufacturer.

  1900s

• Player pianos: In stark contrast to almost every other entertainment medium of the 20th century and beyond, a looming format war involving paper roll music for player pianos was averted when industry leaders agreed upon a common format at the Buffalo Convention held in Buffalo, New York in 1908. The agreed-upon format was a roll wide. This allowed any roll of music to be played in any player piano, regardless of who manufactured it. As the music played, the paper winds onto the lower roll from the upper roll, which means any text or song lyrics printed on the rolls is read from the bottom to the top.

  1910s

• Early recording media formats: cylinder records versus disc records. In 1877 Thomas Edison invented sound recording and reproduction using tinfoil wrapped around a pre-grooved cylinder, and in 1888 he introduced the wax "Edison cylinder" as the standard record format. In the 1890s Emile Berliner began marketing disc records and players. By the late 1890s cylinders and discs were in competition. Cylinders were more expensive to manufacture and the wax was fragile, but most cylinder players could make recordings. Discs saved space and were cheaper and sturdier, but due to the constant angular velocity of their rotation, the sound quality varied noticeably from the groove near the outer edge to the inner portion nearest the center; and disc record players could not make recordings.

  1920s

• Gramophone record formats: lateral versus vertical "hill-and-dale" groove cutting. When Edison introduced his "Diamond Disc" record in 1912, it was cut "hill-and-dale", meaning that the groove was modulated along its vertical axis, as it had been on all cylinders—unlike other manufacturers' discs, which were cut laterally, meaning that their grooves were of constant depth and modulated along the horizontal axis. Machines designed to play lateral-cut discs could not play vertical-cut ones and vice versa. Pathé Records also adopted the hill-and-dale format for their discs, first issued in 1906, but they used a very wide, shallow groove, played with a small sapphire ball, which was incompatible with Edison products. In 1929 Thomas Edison quit the record industry, ceasing all production of both discs and cylinders. Pathé had been making a transition to the lateral format during the 1920s and in 1932 decisively abandoned the vertical format. There was no standard speed for all disc records until 78 rpm was settled on during the latter half of the 1920s, although because most turntables could be adjusted to run at a fairly wide range of speeds that did not really constitute a format war. Some Berliner Gramophone discs played at about 60 rpm. Some of Pathé's largest discs, which were 50 cm in diameter, played at 120 rpm. Diamond Discs were 80 rpm. Those makers aside, speeds in the mid-70s were more usual.

  1930s

• 240-line versus 405-line television broadcasts. In 1936, the BBC Television Service commenced television broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in North London. They began by using two different television standards broadcasting in alternate weeks. The 240-line Baird sequential system was broadcast using a mechanical scanning apparatus. In the intervening weeks, EMI-Marconi broadcast in 405-line interlaced using fully electronic cameras. Early sets had to support both systems, adding to their complexity. It was the BBC's intention to run the two systems side by side for a six-month trial to determine which would be finally adopted. The BBC quickly discovered that the fully electronic EMI system had a superior picture quality and less flicker, and the camera equipment was much more mobile and transportable. The trial concluded after only three months after Baird's studios had lost most of their equipment in a fire.

  1940s

• Vinyl records: Columbia Records' Long Play 33⅓ rpm microgroove record versus RCA Victor's 45 rpm record, from 1949 into c. 1951. The battle ended because each format found a separate marketing niche and most new record players were capable of playing both types.
• The National Television System Committee was formed to settle the existing format incompatibility between the original 441 scan line RCA system and systems designed by the DuMont Television Network and Philco. In March 1941 the committee issued its plan for what is now known as NTSC, which has been the standard for television signals in the United States and most countries influenced by the U.S. until the adoption of digital and HD television formats with the official adoption of ATSC on June 12, 2009.

  1950s

• The National Television System Committee was reconvened in January 1950 to decide the revision to their original format to allow for color broadcasting. There were competitive format options offered by the Columbia Broadcasting System that were not downwardly compatible with the existing NTSC format.
• In the early 1950s, 12 volt electric systems were introduced to automobiles in an effort to provide more starting power for big engines which were getting popular at the time; while reducing the current. Six volt systems were still popular since they were commonplace prior to the decade. However, 12 volt systems became the de facto standard.

  1960s

• Portable audio formats: 8-track and 4-track cartridges vs. Compact Cassette, vs the lesser known DC-International tape cassette. While rather successful into the mid-to-late 1970s, the 8-track eventually lost out due to technical limitations, including variable audio quality and inability to be rewound. Similarly the smaller formats of microcassette, developed by Olympus, and minicassette, developed by Sony, were manufactured for applications requiring lower audio fidelity such as dictation and telephone answering machines.
• FM radio stereo broadcast formats: The Crosby system and the GE/Zenith system. The Crosby system was technically superior, especially in transmitting clear stereo signals, due to its use of an FM subcarrier for stereo sound rather than the AM subcarrier employed by GE/Zenith. Many radios built in this period allowed the user to select Crosby or GE/Zenith listening modes. However the Crosby system was incompatible with the more lucrative SCA services such as in-store broadcasting and background music. FM station owners successfully lobbied the FCC to adopt the GE/Zenith system in 1961, which was SCA-compatible.

  1970s

• Quadraphonic encoding methods: CD-4, SQ, QS-Matrix, and others. The expense of quadraphonic, coupled with the competing formats requiring various demodulators and decoders, led to an early demise of quadraphonic, though 8-track tape experienced a temporary boost from the introduction of the Q8 form of 8-track cartridge. Quadraphonic sound returned in the 1990s substantially updated as surround sound, but incompatible with old hardware.
• Analog videotape formats: VHS vs. Betamax vs. Video 2000. The competition started in 1976 and by 1980, VHS controlled 70% of the North American market. VHS's main advantage was its longer recording time. From the consumer perspective, VHS blank media held more hours and therefore was less expensive.
• Reel-to-reel video formats: The first small format video recording devices were open reel-to-reel 1/2" "portable" EIAJ-1 recorders, most of which came with television tuners to record TV broadcasts. These never caught on in the consumer market but did find their way into educational television and were the mainstays of early public-access television stations. The uniformity of the EIAJ-1 format was the result of a developmental format war between Sony and Panasonic, each of whom were aiming at this market. The existence of the Electronic Industries Association of Japan was the Japanese electronics industry's answer to some potential format wars.
• Analog videodisc formats: Capacitance Electronic Disc vs. LaserDisc vs. VHD. All ultimately failed to achieve widespread acceptance, although LD found a considerable videophile niche market that appreciated its high-quality image, chapter select and widescreen presentation. The LaserDisc remained available until the DVD arrived. Mainstream consumers preferred the recordable videotape for capturing broadcast television and making home movies, and made VHS the de facto standard video format for almost 20 years.