The Betamax case in the Supreme Court was actually swung by Mr. Rogers. He argued to the justices that he did not mind parents taping his show to watch it with children later. A later episode of his show had him showing off a Betamax VCR and playing back clips of several old episodes.
Yep...Rogers testified that he supported technology which allowed parents to be more "in control" of their family's TV viewing, in keeping w/his philosophy that people were capable of making healthy decisions as they were.
Love your channel. I bought the first Sony Betamax in April 1977 so here's a few observations from someone who was there: It was so heavy it had to be delivered by two men in a truck. The pause button was a lever. Blank tapes were by then $15 for one hour. There were no video stores, no clubs, no pre-recorded tapes. The first video rentals, usually run out of TV stores, demanded an annual club fee of $50. By 1980, pre-recorded copies of Alien and Superman the Movie cost $80 a pop. The picture was the finest of any analog tape. What you didn't mention in the video was that slower tape speeds always meant a deterioration in picture. So VHS's 10 hours per tape was only great if you didn't care about the playback quality.
I learned about Beta from "Married...With Children" show. The kids were complaining about not getting to watch any "good movies" because they were the "last family" with Beta....then Steve & Marcy came in from the video store with some VHS tapes...
4 years late here, but the shifting of audio between channels is probably since the linear stereo tracks are on top of each other. Basically the linear audio track is split in 2. If the recording VCR audio head was slightly misaligned, it could cause it to be shifted, or if the tape rode up on the head due to a worn pinch roller, it could move between the channels. Linear stereo was super uncommon on Betamax. The only non-professional VCR to have it was a Marantz model.
I always loved that "Porn killed Beta" theory, because even the porn industry seemed to believe it. That fell apart when the biggest companies agreed on supporting HD-DVD, thanks to Blu-ray's superior capabilities and umm, not being so lazily encrypted.
Awesome screen name, I just saw a story in the National Enquirer last week (may 2017) where Ross Perot and aliens have taken her hostage. Couldn't her parents just have had good old Munchowsen's syndrome by proxy? Or recorded the murder on Betamax? Batamax EP can record up three murders on one tape!
In the UK comedian Lenny Henry speeded up Betamax's demise with the joke. "If your house gets burgled the first thing the thieves always go for is the VCR. Well no one is going steal my VCR. I was smart. I bought a Betamax".
In Australia, we maxed out at 15 hours with some BASF 300 minute tapes. 5 hours at standard was, admittedly, usually plenty, but you could pretty much fit a whole season of off-air recorded Friends onto one tape - that was pretty nifty.
You forgot to mention one Beta format. It was intended for use in teaching various aspects of movie making. As such, it was called the Master Format. Yes, it was Master Beta.
Funny enough, I first heard of beta from an episode of Cowboy Bebop where Faye getsa beta tape in the post, and Spike and Jet go in search of a deck to play it.
Funny you mention it, that episode had an abandoned "Electronics Museum", which vaguely reminds me of the OA in hindsight. There is also a beta nerd character that could be Ben as well...
James Laidler Well, to be fair, if the only other Betamax decks could be found at the bottom of a ruined, partially submerged skyscraper on post-apocalyptic Earth, you would be upset too.
True. And they got a bloody VHS one anyway, lol. A deck arrived in the post later anyway. And Spike tore the damn thing open just as Jet was yelling to the delivery guy about not wanting to pay for the delivery.
Once again I MUST correct you, Ben! Beta emerge in 1972 world-wide(except Australia). In Australia's case, we weren't yet ready for Beta or any other consumer-based video recording equipment because colour TV was still roughly 3 years away. But there were some Beta decks in Australia for display and demonstration purposes in 1972. I actually saw one at a Hi-Fi shop in my then-home city of Newcastle in 1972. There was a colour TV hooked up to it(yes, it WAS a deck only) but it could only play back colour stuff because there was no colour signals to record. If an attempt to record was made from the local station, NBN-Newcastle, it would only be black & white(monochrome). There you have it!
Great vid! The history part wasn't redundant! It was well made and even I, a vintage tech fanatic, learned a bunch of things. How ironic is it that Sony ended up creating the best VHS decks ever? Indeed, the professional "SVO" line of VHS decks are a cut above even the best consumer decks. Even the ones with S-video output and TBC built in. So grab yourself a Sony SVO VHS deck today and enjoy the best that VHS has to offer! :)
For me, the first time I ever heard about Beta was on an old VHS tape of Starrcade 1988, at the start when it was showing ads for other Jim Crockett tapes, and it mentioned to specify whether you wanted your tapes in VHS or Beta format.
Another good episode...had no idea that prerecorded Beta tapes were released until 1992 (always thought it ceased sometime in the late 80s), or that blanks remained in production until earlier this year!
We definitely had one by 1983 because badly taped Bugs Bunny videos that cut off in the middle of the cartoon to play something live action are one of my lasting memories from toddlerhood.
2:48 The first time I’ve ever heard of Beta (along with 8-Track tapes) was probably someone on a sitcom making fun of the format. Vinyl was also the subject of mockery during the 90s.
Betamax stopped selling pre-recorded tapes in the US in about 1992. But it was popular in some South American countries to the early 2000's. The Fugitive had a Betamax release, but that might have been outside the US only.
I know you never read comments or interact with your fans, but that "Also Available On beta" sticker does exist. I've seen several on VHS tapes I've seen on eBay. Not all movies had it, and you have better odds at finding it by looking for movies that came out in the early 80's and were during the prime of Beta. "
The wood and metal top loading VCRs with the twist knobs were works of art man lol! I remember when one of the neighbor families got one when I was maybe 6 years old. They were the mist popular people in the neighborhood lol.
My first memories of the video store (in the early 80s) were a store with a giant wall of shelving partitioning straight down the middle and equal shelf space for VHS (left side) and Beta (right side). The first VCR I heard about was a Sony one, so I guess that was Beta, although I still don't think I've ever seen one in person...
I don't know about America but in Australia what killed Betamax was Sony was too slow in releasing prerecorded movies, there was always a massive selection of VHS and only a handful of Betamax movies available in video rental stores, so when someone asked what is better, Betamax or VHS the answer was always VHS, when in fact Betamax was actually the superior recording format as approximately 2/3rds of Tape surface touches the Betamax video head drum and only 1/2 on a VHS. I still have my Sony SL-F1UB portapack, TT-F1UB and HVC 2000-PE camera and it all still works except obviously I can't use the Tuner Timer anymore.
My folks were teachers and the Hawaii education market was solidly Sony Betamax for decades. I think my father had access to the open reel Beta, but the first Betamax that came home was a 2500 series unit in the 1980's. We stayed with the 2500 through the Beta HiFi years, but finally bought a SuperBeta SLHF-400 and things looked as sharp as broadcast TV! The old 400 bit the dust years ago, and I found a SuperBeta SLHF-360 that I used to tape TV for a time, until the cycle between "OK to tape" and "back to Sony for repairs" got too short. By the 1990's, the first Hitachi VHS unit showed up, and the Sony Beta tapes were put away as The Mighty T-120 ruled the land. These days, I do "TV time shifting" with a Panasonic DVD recorder, which is nearing it's mechanical expiration date. There were some Beta and SuperBeta tapes that I'd kept, but termites attacked the cardboard box, so "VH-1 New Visions" of the 1980's had to be tossed in the trash. Then there were the Laserdisc years...but that's another story.;)
I remember early video rental stores in my area ca. 1984 having Beta titles, albeit a smaller selection, but I remember being kind of fascinated by the smaller packaging. I wondered how Star Trek 3 looked on Beta versus my VHS. I've always been fascinated by alternate media formats. Fast forward 9 years and I'm working for a local television production company, and all of their field work was filmed in BetaMax. BetaMax enjoyed a much longer life than most realize via the professional market. To the contrary of your statement, porn has had a major impact and have always been one of the first industries to embrace new media formats. They embraced VHS, and then DVD almost right out of the gate. Porn also shares some of the credit for advances in the Internet. Fact.
Beta really stayed on in broadcast into the 90s - even the late 90s as they were used for HD/Digital Video storage. You weren't kidding about the price in 1965. Shorthand It's safe to add a zero to those prices for today - and sure enough, it's well over 6k in (today's money) when that would get you a really nice car. Lessie - commute to work or record crappy TV shows in BW. Decisions .... * and you forgot to note at 06:50 - not only did you have to buy a TV console, you had to get a LOT of dry ice. Buckets and buckets of it.
Sony also had problems with its digital audio recorder DAT. For the record companies did not like DAT. The record companies said it would ruin the entire music industry
That is if you recorded it yourself, but if you got it from someone else or from rental store. It was fun forwarding to the end of the movie to see what was previously recorded on the tape.
I purchased the first Hi-fi Betamax at great expense back in 1984 and loved it, for a year or two, but it quickly was clear I should have chosen the VHS version because Beta was slowly dying, something I was not aware of in 1984. It was 700 dollars, and that was a ton of money for me, but what an audio revelation to hear it pumping Raiders of the Lost Ark through my two stereo speakers! No subwoofers, but it sounded amazing to me, and it was literally the first time I stepped into the realm of home theater, and I loved it.
My dads side of my family briefly used Betamax in the 1980s. The first Vcr was a Sony,likey from the late 70s. After that they got a Sanyo vcr-4400 from 1984,which I still have.
I was the only kid on my block with a Beta player. A mid 80's Sanyo one. I never knew anyone else with one. We didn't even pay for ours. My father's friend owned it and had isssues with it. When my father learned he was tossing it out and my father took it home to repair. It worked perfectly after that and still does the rare time I power it up these days. Ironically, I had no idea they even released movies on Beta back then. All my parents ever bought for it were blank tapes for it and used it as their primary recording device until they bought a new VCR for the living room. They used that VCR to record shows all the way until they got a plasma in 2013!
In its earlier days, the Museum of Broadcasting in NYC (now the Paley Center) would show its collection of television programs to visitors via Beta cassettes.
Yeah, you might get some hate from both the VHS & Beta lot...But the LD crowd are gonna love ya! ;-) The first video recorder my parents owned (and, therefore, the first I owned when they 'upgraded' to VHS), was a consumer Betamax (BII IIRC) in about 1986. Surprised you only found Betamax recently - You seem to have the same fondness for the format, which I'm gonna take as validation for my nostalgia ;-) Keep up the good work, 'Benny-Boy'!
The ejection issue with your machine is a known problem with several models of Superbeta from that era. The problem comes down, as I recall, to a weak motor on the left hand side of the ejection rails. You might be able to find a replacement somewhere, but getting parts for these machines is very tricky at this point. You may be better off replacing it if you can.
What about Video8/Hi8/Digital8 as being a part of the Beta offspring? The tape stock is the same as Beta's, IIRC with some of the technology being carried over from Betamax.
I remember my first memory of Beta was in the early 90's during elementary school. We were learning how to look up books and movies on library computers and card catalogs, and our teacher had some old library reference worksheet that had been copied a thousand times. I distinctly remember someone in class asking her what the hell a betamax was because it was on the paper. I was glad they asked because I didn't know what this strange word on our handout paper was either 😂
There is a video format you may have never heard of its called CVC or Funai its was out around 1984 or so it was Small tapes like 8MM but not the same I think the tape was smaller I have 1 working deck a 2 piece unit power-supply and deck and i have a non working (lazy to fix it ) 5 in crt deck Not shure if the tv has a tuner just some thing for you to look up
I used Beta longer than most people for the reasons mentioned at the end, It was superior to VHS for recording, and my primary use for a VCR was time shifting and "home movies". I had an Elcheapo VHS player for Blockbuster rentals 😜.
Fun fact, I actually found a copy of Mission: Impossible on Beta back in 2021. If the internet is true to its word, I think it is among the LAST titles released in a prerecorded format
When I was a kid, I only knew about Betamax due to commercials for videotapes that said "also available on Beta!" I never even saw a machine in real life until around 2010...
Am I the only one around here who was born in today's generation (early 2000s) and has used a vcr although I know of Betamax I never seen a player in person
This kid is young. I remember walking the video rental stores. There were hundreds of videos for beta and Vhs at the beginning of the eighties. But when you added all those porn videos, VHS had double. It seemed to triple before the mid eighties. Whether that was true or not, that's the way it looked. Even if you didn't watch porn (my family didn't), VHS just looked like there was more to watch. When these young kids in their twenties talk about the format war, they take an archaeologist's view of the past. The truth is, adult videos did have an impact. People just weren't THAT geeky when buying a VCR in the 80s so some of these differences weren't registering with buyers. The guy at the store told my dad VHS was going to win the war so he bought VHS. It just happens that store also had the rental store we used so that salesman was seeing the whole story I'm talking about.
I first heard about Beta when watching the DVD of Weird Al’s UHF with the commentary turned on. Al mentioned that the movie was released on home video in 1990 on VHS, Beta, and LaserDisc. I promptly paused the DVD, went upstairs, and asked my mother, “what was Beta?”
Some used them as the broadcast masters. Star Trek The Next Generation was shot on film, and then composited with the special effects onto Beta tape for broadcast.
@TGOTR, I'm 99.9% sure that would have been Betacam, not Betamax, Betacam was a slightly different format that was made for more professional environments.
The reason why it was bad for betamax was that JVC got an agreement with the big movie companies. It was difficult to find renting movies for betamax and at that time Sony did not own a movie company
Interestingly, recording length was never quite so much of an issue in PAL countries, as an L-750 tape lasted for 3.25 hours. I have never understood why NTSC recording took up more than twice the length of tape. However, Beta died out here too as a result of its failure in North America.
Are you saying the tape on that one unit won't eject properly? I had the same issue with my VCR. It turned out that it wouldn't eject when I had something sitting on the top of it. I took the item off and it ejected fine, put it back on, wouldn't eject.
Beta or VHS, I always felt both were not very good for viewing movies. Remember D-VHS? Just as DVD was entering the market they upped the factory recording quality of videotape. My favorite formats are laserdisc and Blu ray.
As someone who owns both VHS and Beta, I can say I love Beta but the recordings (on my SL C9) start to stick and slow down at the end of the tapes - literally all of them. I don’t know if it’s the tapes or my deck (I only have the one because they cost a fortune in the UK) but none of my VHS tapes do it (even ones recorded a decade earlier than some Betas). Essentially what happens is it will play fine for a while but then a line of static flickers down the screen and the audio warbles. The tape counter also slows down to compensate. Does anyone else have this issue? Is it a tape or deck problem? Can I do anything about it? Any help would be appreciated
I've had several Betamax units, and they've all had issues. Especially the plastic Super Beta loading mechanism. Toshiba VM-411 Sony SL-HF600 Sony SL-HF750 Sony SL-HF900
Just bought new 3D printed loading gears to fix my loading mechanisms, and now have fixed working SL-HF900, SL-HF600, and two SL-HF300's. The SL-HF750 I was able to fix be re-capping the power supply and replacing the voltage regulator STK5441, also fixed the SL-HF300's.
I saw a real Betamax TV console at Olum's furniture store in Binghamton, NY in 2015. Being born into a middle class Jewish family in the 1970s, I surmised that Olums' clientele were rich socialite Jews and that Olum comes from Eluheinu Melech Ha'Olam. But I digress. And the balding Jewish men at B&H photo? Don't get me started.
i understand that VHS won the battle not for being better or cheaper BUT because the porn industry took it up as their format of choice , i worked for a few years in a production company and they kept all their shows etc on beta , when i asked the head tech he said it was because the quality was far better and you could copy from it many more times without degradation but it was also smaller so you could keep more on the shelves thus saving money in storage space
The Betamax case in the Supreme Court was actually swung by Mr. Rogers. He argued to the justices that he did not mind parents taping his show to watch it with children later. A later episode of his show had him showing off a Betamax VCR and playing back clips of several old episodes.
Bless that man. RIP, Fred.
spiltsoymilk won't you be my neighbor? Lol
And this my friends is why that man is a legend.
Yep...Rogers testified that he supported technology which allowed parents to be more "in control" of their family's TV viewing, in keeping w/his philosophy that people were capable of making healthy decisions as they were.
I have a Beta tape recorded in 84 with Mr. Rogers on it.
Love your channel. I bought the first Sony Betamax in April 1977 so here's a few observations from someone who was there: It was so heavy it had to be delivered by two men in a truck. The pause button was a lever. Blank tapes were by then $15 for one hour. There were no video stores, no clubs, no pre-recorded tapes. The first video rentals, usually run out of TV stores, demanded an annual club fee of $50. By 1980, pre-recorded copies of Alien and Superman the Movie cost $80 a pop. The picture was the finest of any analog tape. What you didn't mention in the video was that slower tape speeds always meant a deterioration in picture. So VHS's 10 hours per tape was only great if you didn't care about the playback quality.
I didn't know you were a fan of Oddity Archive. What a small world! 🌎
@@luisreyes1963 $20.00 Each For The Format And The $100.00 Each For The Player
I learned about Beta from "Married...With Children" show. The kids were complaining about not getting to watch any "good movies" because they were the "last family" with Beta....then Steve & Marcy came in from the video store with some VHS tapes...
I don't recall ever seeing that episode. I first heard of it from That 70s Show when Red got one from his job.
4 years late here, but the shifting of audio between channels is probably since the linear stereo tracks are on top of each other. Basically the linear audio track is split in 2. If the recording VCR audio head was slightly misaligned, it could cause it to be shifted, or if the tape rode up on the head due to a worn pinch roller, it could move between the channels.
Linear stereo was super uncommon on Betamax. The only non-professional VCR to have it was a Marantz model.
I always loved that "Porn killed Beta" theory, because even the porn industry seemed to believe it. That fell apart when the biggest companies agreed on supporting HD-DVD, thanks to Blu-ray's superior capabilities and umm, not being so lazily encrypted.
I saw Ben's face at a King Sooper's in Ft. Collins last week. He is an almost spitting image of a young Steve Guttenburg.
Did he digress?
you could see his face in episode 9 for a brief second
Awesome screen name, I just saw a story in the National Enquirer last week (may 2017) where Ross Perot and aliens have taken her hostage. Couldn't her parents just have had good old Munchowsen's syndrome by proxy? Or recorded the murder on Betamax? Batamax EP can record up three murders on one tape!
@Jeff Webb Safety.
"Oh NO........Beta!"
Snake (Jailbird) from "The Simpsons"--
I saw that exact line last night on The Simpsons. It's was great timing seeing this.
In the UK comedian Lenny Henry speeded up Betamax's demise with the joke. "If your house gets burgled the first thing the thieves always go for is the VCR. Well no one is going steal my VCR. I was smart. I bought a Betamax".
I discovered your channel the other day as a recommend from an LGR Oddware vid & now I'm on my 4th night of binge-watching. Love your content!!!
dude nice
I had my teeth pulled today, so I'm just sittin' back and binging on Archive.
In Australia, we maxed out at 15 hours with some BASF 300 minute tapes. 5 hours at standard was, admittedly, usually plenty, but you could pretty much fit a whole season of off-air recorded Friends onto one tape - that was pretty nifty.
You forgot to mention one Beta format. It was intended for use in teaching various aspects of movie making. As such, it was called the Master Format. Yes, it was Master Beta.
Funny enough, I first heard of beta from an episode of Cowboy Bebop where Faye getsa beta tape in the post, and Spike and Jet go in search of a deck to play it.
Funny you mention it, that episode had an abandoned "Electronics Museum", which vaguely reminds me of the OA in hindsight. There is also a beta nerd character that could be Ben as well...
Well Ben is way less extreme. That guy was a bit of an ass. Though Spike was too for kicking the darn thing to death.
James Laidler
Well, to be fair, if the only other Betamax decks could be found at the bottom of a ruined, partially submerged skyscraper on post-apocalyptic Earth, you would be upset too.
True. And they got a bloody VHS one anyway, lol. A deck arrived in the post later anyway. And Spike tore the damn thing open just as Jet was yelling to the delivery guy about not wanting to pay for the delivery.
James Laidler
It was worth it though, but we'd best not go any farther and wander too far off topic regarding the plot of this episode.
Once again I MUST correct you, Ben! Beta emerge in 1972 world-wide(except Australia). In Australia's case, we weren't yet ready for Beta or any other consumer-based video recording equipment because colour TV was still roughly 3 years away. But there were some Beta decks in Australia for display and demonstration purposes in 1972. I actually saw one at a Hi-Fi shop in my then-home city of Newcastle in 1972. There was a colour TV hooked up to it(yes, it WAS a deck only) but it could only play back colour stuff because there was no colour signals to record. If an attempt to record was made from the local station, NBN-Newcastle, it would only be black & white(monochrome). There you have it!
Great vid! The history part wasn't redundant! It was well made and even I, a vintage tech fanatic, learned a bunch of things.
How ironic is it that Sony ended up creating the best VHS decks ever? Indeed, the professional "SVO" line of VHS decks are a cut above even the best consumer decks. Even the ones with S-video output and TBC built in. So grab yourself a Sony SVO VHS deck today and enjoy the best that VHS has to offer! :)
For me, the first time I ever heard about Beta was on an old VHS tape of Starrcade 1988, at the start when it was showing ads for other Jim Crockett tapes, and it mentioned to specify whether you wanted your tapes in VHS or Beta format.
Another good episode...had no idea that prerecorded Beta tapes were released until 1992 (always thought it ceased sometime in the late 80s), or that blanks remained in production until earlier this year!
my mom bought a VHS just to avoid renting a VHS machine every time she wanted to rent a movie and she probably was not alone
We definitely had one by 1983 because badly taped Bugs Bunny videos that cut off in the middle of the cartoon to play something live action are one of my lasting memories from toddlerhood.
2:48 The first time I’ve ever heard of Beta (along with 8-Track tapes) was probably someone on a sitcom making fun of the format. Vinyl was also the subject of mockery during the 90s.
That stinger is pure class! "Hey, here's some children, for some reason! Okay, kids, now fuck off."
Betamax stopped selling pre-recorded tapes in the US in about 1992. But it was popular in some South American countries to the early 2000's. The Fugitive had a Betamax release, but that might have been outside the US only.
I found out about Beta as a kid in the mid-80s...my local library's video section, while 95% VHS, had a very small portion devoted to Betamax tapes.
Another obscure format! The least obscure obscure one ever, though. It's surprising he's never devoted a whole episode until now.
I was about to go out with my friends but then I got a notification for this video... I didn't want to go anyway
The language of Betamax is universal.
I know you never read comments or interact with your fans, but that "Also Available On beta" sticker does exist. I've seen several on VHS tapes I've seen on eBay. Not all movies had it, and you have better odds at finding it by looking for movies that came out in the early 80's and were during the prime of Beta.
"
The wood and metal top loading VCRs with the twist knobs were works of art man lol! I remember when one of the neighbor families got one when I was maybe 6 years old. They were the mist popular people in the neighborhood lol.
My first memories of the video store (in the early 80s) were a store with a giant wall of shelving partitioning straight down the middle and equal shelf space for VHS (left side) and Beta (right side). The first VCR I heard about was a Sony one, so I guess that was Beta, although I still don't think I've ever seen one in person...
I don't know about America but in Australia what killed Betamax was Sony was too slow in releasing prerecorded movies, there was always a massive selection of VHS and only a handful of Betamax movies available in video rental stores, so when someone asked what is better, Betamax or VHS the answer was always VHS, when in fact Betamax was actually the superior recording format as approximately 2/3rds of Tape surface touches the Betamax video head drum and only 1/2 on a VHS. I still have my Sony SL-F1UB portapack, TT-F1UB and HVC 2000-PE camera and it all still works except obviously I can't use the Tuner Timer anymore.
Richard Bell According to what I heard, JVC signed an agreement with the major movie companies so that most of the films were released on VHS only
I hope the library of Congress archives every Oddity Archive episode and sub episode made. The best channel for old media nerds.
My folks were teachers and the Hawaii education market was solidly Sony Betamax for decades. I think my father had access to the open reel Beta, but the first Betamax that came home was a 2500 series unit in the 1980's. We stayed with the 2500 through the Beta HiFi years, but finally bought a SuperBeta SLHF-400 and things looked as sharp as broadcast TV! The old 400 bit the dust years ago, and I found a SuperBeta SLHF-360 that I used to tape TV for a time, until the cycle between "OK to tape" and "back to Sony for repairs" got too short. By the 1990's, the first Hitachi VHS unit showed up, and the Sony Beta tapes were put away as The Mighty T-120 ruled the land. These days, I do "TV time shifting" with a Panasonic DVD recorder, which is nearing it's mechanical expiration date. There were some Beta and SuperBeta tapes that I'd kept, but termites attacked the cardboard box, so "VH-1 New Visions" of the 1980's had to be tossed in the trash. Then there were the Laserdisc years...but that's another story.;)
I remember early video rental stores in my area ca. 1984 having Beta titles, albeit a smaller selection, but I remember being kind of fascinated by the smaller packaging. I wondered how Star Trek 3 looked on Beta versus my VHS. I've always been fascinated by alternate media formats. Fast forward 9 years and I'm working for a local television production company, and all of their field work was filmed in BetaMax. BetaMax enjoyed a much longer life than most realize via the professional market.
To the contrary of your statement, porn has had a major impact and have always been one of the first industries to embrace new media formats. They embraced VHS, and then DVD almost right out of the gate. Porn also shares some of the credit for advances in the Internet. Fact.
Beta really stayed on in broadcast into the 90s - even the late 90s as they were used for HD/Digital Video storage. You weren't kidding about the price in 1965. Shorthand It's safe to add a zero to those prices for today - and sure enough, it's well over 6k in (today's money) when that would get you a really nice car. Lessie - commute to work or record crappy TV shows in BW. Decisions ....
* and you forgot to note at 06:50 - not only did you have to buy a TV console, you had to get a LOT of dry ice. Buckets and buckets of it.
Sony also had problems with its digital audio recorder DAT. For the record companies did not like DAT. The record companies said it would ruin the entire music industry
Speaking of dead formats, I just bought my first Laserdisc!
My uncle had the original Sony Betamax with the tuner in 1976 or 77. I was about 10 or 11 and I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen.
10 hours on on one tape. Can you imagine 6 movies on one tape? must be a lot of fun "browsing" tapes especially that there was no chapter selection
Most VHS players had a tape length timer , so all that you had to do was know the approximate length of the movie & fast forward to that time.
That is if you recorded it yourself, but if you got it from someone else or from rental store.
It was fun forwarding to the end of the movie to see what was previously recorded on the tape.
maak It wouldn't matter if it was recorded by someone else. You might be correct about rental tapes though.
Iain Cowell I meant if you recorded it yourself, you know how long the movies, when they end and when the next starts
maak well if it was movies you can kind of estimate where the movies would end. If it was a bunch of home recordings though you'd be fucked
i still have hifi beta machines,as well as a huge collection of factory beta,classic 70s porn and rare horror
I purchased the first Hi-fi Betamax at great expense back in 1984 and loved it, for a year or two, but it quickly was clear I should have chosen the VHS version because Beta was slowly dying, something I was not aware of in 1984. It was 700 dollars, and that was a ton of money for me, but what an audio revelation to hear it pumping Raiders of the Lost Ark through my two stereo speakers! No subwoofers, but it sounded amazing to me, and it was literally the first time I stepped into the realm of home theater, and I loved it.
holy crap I love these type of videos!!!!!!!! love the history!!!!!
18:18 My grandparents had a VCR that looked exactly like that SuperBeta unit. So They reused the casing with there VCR products as well.
My dads side of my family briefly used Betamax in the 1980s. The first Vcr was a Sony,likey from the late 70s. After that they got a Sanyo vcr-4400 from 1984,which I still have.
I was the only kid on my block with a Beta player. A mid 80's Sanyo one. I never knew anyone else with one. We didn't even pay for ours. My father's friend owned it and had isssues with it. When my father learned he was tossing it out and my father took it home to repair. It worked perfectly after that and still does the rare time I power it up these days. Ironically, I had no idea they even released movies on Beta back then. All my parents ever bought for it were blank tapes for it and used it as their primary recording device until they bought a new VCR for the living room. They used that VCR to record shows all the way until they got a plasma in 2013!
In its earlier days, the Museum of Broadcasting in NYC (now the Paley Center) would show its collection of television programs to visitors via Beta cassettes.
Beta lasted longer than LaserDisc? What a travesty!
Yeah, you might get some hate from both the VHS & Beta lot...But the LD crowd are gonna love ya! ;-)
The first video recorder my parents owned (and, therefore, the first I owned when they 'upgraded' to VHS), was a consumer Betamax (BII IIRC) in about 1986.
Surprised you only found Betamax recently - You seem to have the same fondness for the format, which I'm gonna take as validation for my nostalgia ;-)
Keep up the good work, 'Benny-Boy'!
The ejection issue with your machine is a known problem with several models of Superbeta from that era. The problem comes down, as I recall, to a weak motor on the left hand side of the ejection rails. You might be able to find a replacement somewhere, but getting parts for these machines is very tricky at this point. You may be better off replacing it if you can.
One person in my family...ONE...swore by Betamax. My cousin Tom.
What about Video8/Hi8/Digital8 as being a part of the Beta offspring? The tape stock is the same as Beta's, IIRC with some of the technology being carried over from Betamax.
Those forms were based off Betacam
Nice song during the close. It sounds like it was sourced from a music library track, composed in the early 70s.
I remember my first memory of Beta was in the early 90's during elementary school. We were learning how to look up books and movies on library computers and card catalogs, and our teacher had some old library reference worksheet that had been copied a thousand times. I distinctly remember someone in class asking her what the hell a betamax was because it was on the paper. I was glad they asked because I didn't know what this strange word on our handout paper was either 😂
6:40 Gordon Johncock ....man what a name.
MrWolfSnack he came fast
pnkflyd66
He took the pole alright.
Not as bad as photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7708/2321/400/ws.jpg
along with such legendary sports names as Gay Brewer, Notah Begay and last but not least, Dicky Pride
ITILII
Don't forget Dick Felt.
There is a video format you may have never heard of its called CVC or Funai its was out around 1984 or so it was Small tapes like 8MM but not the same I think the tape was smaller I have 1 working deck a 2 piece unit power-supply and deck and i have a non working (lazy to fix it ) 5 in crt deck Not shure if the tv has a tuner just some thing for you to look up
I used Beta longer than most people for the reasons mentioned at the end, It was superior to VHS for recording, and my primary use for a VCR was time shifting and "home movies". I had an Elcheapo VHS player for Blockbuster rentals 😜.
Don't feel bad, Ben. I never even SAW a laserdisc player until I was in college - not even in Circuit City back in the 1990's.
Bingeing all the Oddity Archives.
Send help
same here..
Fun fact, I actually found a copy of Mission: Impossible on Beta back in 2021. If the internet is true to its word, I think it is among the LAST titles released in a prerecorded format
When I was a kid, I only knew about Betamax due to commercials for videotapes that said "also available on Beta!" I never even saw a machine in real life until around 2010...
Am I the only one around here who was born in today's generation (early 2000s) and has used a vcr although I know of Betamax I never seen a player in person
nope.
Mccree I've only heard of VHS during my childhood. (I was born in 2000, mind you)
No
Whelen wps-2909 Born in 1998, my parents didn't get rid of VHS until around 2007
I was born in '03. My parents had a VCR and we commonly watched tapes until about 2010/11 and my grandparents only chucked theirs out a year ago.
Beautiful presentation! Your SL-HF400 has at least 2 younger siblings: the SL-HF350 and 360, both Super Beta hifi ( I've owned both )
This kid is young. I remember walking the video rental stores. There were hundreds of videos for beta and Vhs at the beginning of the eighties. But when you added all those porn videos, VHS had double. It seemed to triple before the mid eighties. Whether that was true or not, that's the way it looked. Even if you didn't watch porn (my family didn't), VHS just looked like there was more to watch. When these young kids in their twenties talk about the format war, they take an archaeologist's view of the past. The truth is, adult videos did have an impact. People just weren't THAT geeky when buying a VCR in the 80s so some of these differences weren't registering with buyers. The guy at the store told my dad VHS was going to win the war so he bought VHS. It just happens that store also had the rental store we used so that salesman was seeing the whole story I'm talking about.
I first heard about Beta when watching the DVD of Weird Al’s UHF with the commentary turned on. Al mentioned that the movie was released on home video in 1990 on VHS, Beta, and LaserDisc. I promptly paused the DVD, went upstairs, and asked my mother, “what was Beta?”
Never owned a Betamax. My first VHS player was purchased in 1985 for $399 and had a wired remote control.
Didnt most TV-stations use the Beta-format as their main video-source for recording way into the late 90s?
Soren Sorensen In more advanced versions, but yes. They often used Betacam SP, or later, Digibeta.
U-Matic tapes as well.
Some used them as the broadcast masters. Star Trek The Next Generation was shot on film, and then composited with the special effects onto Beta tape for broadcast.
@TGOTR, I'm 99.9% sure that would have been Betacam, not Betamax, Betacam was a slightly different format that was made for more professional environments.
Kandi Gloss
Correct. Betamax was consumer grade and consumer priced. Betacam was drastically more expensive and higher grade.
Really informative video and entertaining as always . . Thanks
I loved beta-max, with hifi. Early days of Home Theater !!
Super Beta - with extra soy!
6:21 Never thought I'd see that on the Archive
*"Oh Nooo....BETA!"*
-Snake from The Simpsons (after burglarizing them and looking at the 'VCR' he stole)
"Nitch format"??? Niche (neesh).
Tomayto/tomahto. Bayta/beeta.
sorry but Behta/Beeta is a UK/US difference. Nitch vs. Neesh is not. Sorry bro.
True. When I heard it I thought nitch was the American variant.
American English compared to correct English. Just as there is no such word as Gotten in correct English.
It turned out that it was the best format as the quality as much better than VHS, I suppose you never had a SONY PROFEL SYSTEM.
betaMAX...headroom
Trex5046 ayyy
He's a freakin' nerd! Hehehehehehehe!
"I can still see the X!"
20:22 I always thought you were a Laserdisc sorta guy.
21:24 HA! Called it.
The reason why it was bad for betamax was that JVC got an agreement with the big movie companies. It was difficult to find renting movies for betamax and at that time Sony did not own a movie company
Interestingly, recording length was never quite so much of an issue in PAL countries, as an L-750 tape lasted for 3.25 hours. I have never understood why NTSC recording took up more than twice the length of tape. However, Beta died out here too as a result of its failure in North America.
Are you saying the tape on that one unit won't eject properly? I had the same issue with my VCR. It turned out that it wouldn't eject when I had something sitting on the top of it. I took the item off and it ejected fine, put it back on, wouldn't eject.
There is a 360 SuperBeta. I also have one of the industrial players.
Beta or VHS, I always felt both were not very good for viewing movies. Remember D-VHS? Just as DVD was entering the market they upped the factory recording quality of videotape. My favorite formats are laserdisc and Blu ray.
5:52 -- I thought that said "Betamax Blows"...
Did I see an advertisement that said “VD is for everybody!”?
As someone who owns both VHS and Beta, I can say I love Beta but the recordings (on my SL C9) start to stick and slow down at the end of the tapes - literally all of them. I don’t know if it’s the tapes or my deck (I only have the one because they cost a fortune in the UK) but none of my VHS tapes do it (even ones recorded a decade earlier than some Betas). Essentially what happens is it will play fine for a while but then a line of static flickers down the screen and the audio warbles. The tape counter also slows down to compensate. Does anyone else have this issue? Is it a tape or deck problem? Can I do anything about it? Any help would be appreciated
Think we'll ever see Betamax Karaoke Night on Archive?
I've had several Betamax units, and they've all had issues. Especially the plastic Super Beta loading mechanism.
Toshiba VM-411
Sony SL-HF600
Sony SL-HF750
Sony SL-HF900
Just bought new 3D printed loading gears to fix my loading mechanisms, and now have fixed working SL-HF900, SL-HF600, and two SL-HF300's. The SL-HF750 I was able to fix be re-capping the power supply and replacing the voltage regulator STK5441, also fixed the SL-HF300's.
Betamax was always the punchline to a joke round our way.
Have you ever had a video 2000 machine. that would be intersting
Didnt that only come out in Europe?
Oh and if we’re talking about Philips formats only us crazy Europeans had, how about the Philips N1500 from 1972? It even had success in homes
V2000 (VCC format) and N1500 (VCR format) was only in PAL, not NTSC. In PAL we also didn't deal with Beta I, II or III, just one flavour.
The (new) Browns had Ben Gay (yeah, he stunk) and the Indians have (for his second stint) Coco Crisp. NASCAR used to have Dick Trickle.
ayy new episodes!!!
U-matic had 280 lines of resolution, not 240 (VHS had 240). U-matic SP had 330 lines.
Don't feel left out. I think Redfoo did a song called "I'm a Beta Man"
3:05
something something nelson mandela.
Sony would later get their revenge with blu-ray
I saw a real Betamax TV console at Olum's furniture store in Binghamton, NY in 2015. Being born into a middle class Jewish family in the 1970s, I surmised that Olums' clientele were rich socialite Jews and that Olum comes from Eluheinu Melech Ha'Olam. But I digress. And the balding Jewish men at B&H photo? Don't get me started.
i understand that VHS won the battle not for being better or cheaper BUT because the porn industry took it up as their format of choice , i worked for a few years in a production company and they kept all their shows etc on beta , when i asked the head tech he said it was because the quality was far better and you could copy from it many more times without degradation but it was also smaller so you could keep more on the shelves thus saving money in storage space
That's Betacam, not consumer Beta.
30 for a blank? I would have went broke quick.
I'm too young to have a preference but it looks like Beta had better video quality than VHS wasn't it?
The audio in my head is betamax.
Betamax had higher prices and weighed more because of more advanced mechanics
I never saw a t200 in any store. Just 120 and 180.
VHS! VHS! VHS!
VHS is VH-Best
Swib TheMerc VHS or Beta
VHS Boiiii
Something tells me you like vhs tapes
Hell yeah, VHS was(and still is)awesome, if for no other reason than the nostalgia. That shit is my childhood...
Video started buffering at 12:52...
Another nice show, Ben :) HAve ya heard of the tuber Techmoan??? he shares your love for nostalgic electronics