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Honestly don't think my collection is going to be much better than what's out there now, sure I have a TBC and everything is broadcast quality but even with the edge U-Matic has over the consumer formats I'm not sure that's enough to stand out. My capture medium is a Newtek Tricaster TC-550 that does studio quality mpeg but with how YouTube squeezes everything down I'm not sure how good it is.
You tell me, go check out a short video I did using analog BetacamSP of threading up my Type-C deck or my other videos under the user name of Brhat Lee. Everything was shot & edited in SP then captured using the SDI output of my DVW-A500 into my Tricaster as studio quality mpeg. BTW yes that is me.
The question of why JVC didn't get into the MII format is an interesting one. JVC was owned by Matsushita the parent of Panasonic at the time but nothing was shared between the brands in terms of engineering or production. RCA sold the Victor name I think sometime in the later part of the 1960's and it became Japan Victor Company, I think it was Nivco who bought them and maybe someone here might know more on the historical facts.
JVC has always been their own company on the lunatic fringe making some very well built and designed electronics for both the consumer and professional arenas, I say lunatic fringe because they were not one to follow the other leaders and an example would be the cassette well of a stereo cassette recorder. JVC was on the right hand side while the others were on the left. That being said it may have contributed to the stellar sound of the better decks compared to the likes of Pioneer, Sony and Onkyo.
One theory is possibly JVC didn't want to front the investment in the layout & tooling to make their own MII equipment or maybe Panasonic was keeping it for themselves. Regardless of the reasons it was a wise decision on their part considering how fast MII flopped in the states. I know there was a short-lived allegiance to the format at both the BBC and NHK but they too seem to follow the beat of a different drummer, both of them have made excellent contributions to the technological advances of both analog and digital video over the years and while they drive on the wrong side of the road I have a lot of respect for them.
I will say it seems to me anyway that Panasonic had leaned more towards the industrial and educational markets during the 1980s while JVC was more of the "upscale hard-core" consumer underdog that did things on their own and this appealed to those who liked to think outside the box. It was really good stuff all around and honestly beat the pants off Panasonic in many aspects, their professional end was really good electrically but some of the mechanicals were not as robust. A third reason could be they were focused on the development of the SVHS format, hard to say or even speculate really. Despite having some technical advantages over BetacamSP MII needed a new form factor cassette and betacam made use of the existing beta cassette shell until SP when the large tape was introduced. This could be argued and debated both ways but I think it was the backing & support of the professional video arena by Sony that really sold the Betacam format.
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