Betamax vs. VHS
I've never owned Betamax hardware; our family opted for VHS, largely because that's what everybody else had (including the video rental stores). With the recent debate going on between HD-DVD and Blue Ray, some folks are remembering what it was like when Sony tried to screw up the home theater industry the first time around. My friend Russell Coover:
Regarding the Betamax / VHS question… Betamax was far, far superior in picture AND audio quality to VHS, but VHS had one advantage technically and another in the way they sold their product. When Betamax came out, it had a maximum tape time of 60 minutes. The tapes were very expensive. I remember paying about $13 for a 1 hour tape in 1976. When VHS came out a couple of years later, the tapes, which were a few dollars cheaper than the Beta tapes, had a maximum record time of 120 minutes. A time war developed, VHS always staying ahead of Beta in the amount of time a tape could hold. Eventually, VHS tapes could hold 6 hours of recorded tape while Beta got as high as 5 hours. But while the VHS tapes price dropped drastically, the Beta tapes price dropped much less. About 1985, a 4 + hour Beta tape cost about $5 while a 1985 6 hour VHS tape could be purchased for about $3. With more time available on a cheaper video tape, people bought VHS. Who could blame them?
It might be less of an issue with HD-DVD and Blue Ray, seeing as both are discs (so the form factor should not central in the fight). A dual-format player, however, might drive up the cost to where only Bill Gates and Paul Allen could afford to buy one. Sony's trying to get me to buy DVDs on UMD, but I'm not even close to being persuaded.
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2 Comments
Anonymous
October 8th, 2005
at 5:07pm
Sony didn't try to screw up the home theater industry the first time around–Sony helped make home theater a reality, with the development of Beta Hi-Fi audio in the early 80s. At long last, near CD-quality audio was available in home video recording, which had previously been mired in a web of noise, poor fidelity, and audible wow/flutter. The VHS camp merely copied Sony's idea and adapted it for VHS a couple of years later. As with home video recording in general, Beta was the innovator and VHS was the imitator.
Anonymous
October 11th, 2005
at 8:43am
There was another thing that helped drive VHS to the winner's circle as well… Pornography. Sony, with the proprietary technology, requiring tons of licensing fees, was too expensive for pronographers. JVC had opened it's technology to other companys, opening competition up, thereby driving costs for recording equipment and players trhough the floor. Pornographers liked that, and they went with VHS.John Arlidge, from the Observer has some more to say on the subject.