When Toshiba Corp. said in February that it would no longer produce the HD DVD format, making the Blu-ray Disc the likely format of the future for movies and other programming, it was another example of how swiftly a new technology can reshape the economic landscape.
Ampex Corp. in the past had been able to keep up with those technological shifts. But past successes don't guarantee future ones, as the company's bankruptcy filing on Sunday attests.
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Ampex, one of Hollywood's original reel-to-reel tape players (pictured above) when it was formed in 1944, had managed to keep pace with the times by developing the slow-motion replay and even the digital video recording, or DVR, as television replaced radio and movies moved into the home. For example, Ampex's Model 200 audio recorder was instrumental in launching American Broadcasting Co.'s "The Bing Crosby Show" in 1948 on a spanking-new tape delay radio broadcast.
As entertainment tastes evolved, so did Ampex, which introduced the videotape recorder in 1986. Ampex even added a technical Grammy Award on Feb. 10 to put on the shelf next to a dozen past Emmy Awards it had won.
Winning awards and pioneering the DVR, however, couldn't keep Ampex from defaulting on notes held by a unit of New York private investment firm Brookside Group. Ampex filed a prenegotiated Chapter 11 plan and hopes to quickly restructure its notes. If it does, it can then get back to what it's done before: figuring out how to be part of the Next Big Thing technologically. - Terry Brennan
See earlier story about possible bankruptcy from TheDeal.com
