DVD - Twenty Three years ago (Patreon Extra) (Patreon)

I thought you might enjoy this clip of audio I found on an old cassette. 

It talks about DVD just prior to the launch in the UK. There's a spectacularly inaccurate analyst prediction of DVD's potential towards the end of the recording. 

The audio cuts off abruptly because that's the end of the tape - that's all there is. 

Backstory:

A few years ago I bought a box of ten cassettes purely to use as props because I like the clear design of the shells. They aren't good tapes - budget, Type 1, branded as Bush on the box - but with no writing or markings at all on the shells - which is why I liked them. The thumbnail for my 2016 video 'Cassettes better than you don't remember' used one of these tapes.

Today I needed a cassette to record a test tone on (I was adjusting a record level pot of an old deck). I picked one of these tapes because they were handy, but I noticed it wasn't wound to the end. I did a quick check to see if anything was on it, and it was a really dull Radio play. I flipped the tape over and at the end of side B was a consumer reports program talking about DVD.

There was a section earlier in the program where they'd supposedly asked a few shop staff if they knew what DVDs were - however this was only a few seconds in length and re-voiced by actors. The section you hear in this five minute snippet is the part of the show where they are trying to explain the Digital Versatile Disc to UK listeners. 

It can be dated to August 1997 as the news was also on the tape before the show.  There's a bit of bleed-through as well as hiss - but I'm sure you can put up with it for five minutes of nostalgia.