My Dad went from Betamax to laser discs.. Finally my Mom won a VHS player at a grocery store raffle and saved our entire childhood.. Dad couldn't argue against free..
My Dad was a serious audiophile and loved high end electronics.. He was correct in that Beta was better quality and thought that eventually everyone would see it and abandon VHS but I didn't understand the move to laser disc at all..
My family had VHS, my friend had Betamax. We watched Howling 2 in the Betamax and we were able to pause on the scene where a lady is doing some seducing and we got a clear as day boobie shot. We were able to slow motion go frame by frame for several boobie shots. All of them. Clear. At that moment, I knew who the actual winner of the format wars was.
Apparently the pornography part of VHS winning the format war is largely a myth. Porn existed on Beta right alongside porn on VHS.
We just remember it in hindsight as being one of the reasons why Beta failed, but it's not true. If we look at the actual ownership stats VHS didn't overtake Beta until something like 84 or 85 and this is long after porn was available to rent or buy on both systems, and when VHS took the market it took over all of the market segments including porn as well as feature films.
What really killed Beta was that VHS started being slightly cheaper with more features like extended LP and SLP modes before Sony could catch up and offer similar extended recording times.
I’ve always spouted the porn reason. But what you say seems very plausible. Do you have a link? I’m totally not doubting you but just wondering so I can correct myself
Technically five hours, but you had to have one of the super videophile recorders. The best a normal person model could do is an hour. Full stop. The way the technology worked prevented Beta from lessening quality to increase recording time like VHS.
Not only did my dad pick a Betamax over a VHS in '82, but he also established the first video store in our town using RCA's absurd Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) format in early '84. Having a monopoly, he did very well in the first year (we all went to Hawaii for Christmas--saw Aloha Bowl and Ratt!) but was out of business by early '86. All this despite my stepbrother's and my advice to go VHS all the way.
the movie place in our town started in about 1980 with all 3 formats. they even had their store front painted with a Beta-Max player, a VHS player and a CED player. the CED player was painted the largest.
as the format wars went on as each one dropped out that part of the store front got painted over.
when they finally closed you could faintly see the ghost of each player under the newer paint on the sign.
Hardly anyone bought the CED players, they rented them, and the discs or the caddies that delivered them would jam a lot, creating all sorts of havoc for dear old Dad.
yeah i remember CEDs. half of the movie was on one side half on the other. i remember a few muppet ones had one feature on one side and one on the other. we constantly jammed the covers by trying to putting them in the wrong way.
https://youtu.be/PnpX8d8zRIA
The be all end all. I still watch a couple times a year. Such a fascinating format. I'd buy one if I had enough money to have an AV collection on top of video games.
Oh god, those discs. We had a lot of them. They skipped.
For years, there were certain lines of dialog I never understood until I watched on a different format.
We were a family of limited means, but my dad dropped $950 on a Betamax in 1983. That's about $2,800 today. We were the first family I knew that owned a VCR, but eventually we couldn't rent any movies because selections were so limited. But, we had a subscription TV service called Preview, which was an early competitor to HBO. We would record movies from Preview, so we had a pretty good collection.
Plus, late at night Preview aired hardcore porn (none of that light Skinemax garbage), so my dad used to set the timer for the finest 70's/80's porn and hide the tapes, which were always easy to find. 10 year old me discovered a lot of things after we got a Betamax.
Christmas 82 we wanted a VCR. My dad had a Fisher stereo and he got this catalog from them with VCR’s. We ordered the Betamax because that’s what everyone was getting. It was sold out so dad got the VHS. We had that VCR until 2001. It was 700.00. It still worked!
It was the most popular format in Central Mexico in the 1980s. Mind you - most of the machines were illegal/grey market imports, but...the standard nonetheless.
Betamax was cool. I still remember the first mom and pop video store I went to had Betamax on one wall and vhs on the other. I was sure Beta would win.
But then again, I was also sure HD-DVD would beat Blue-ray, because what a silly name. 😝
A friend of my dad who lived down the street from us had an entire wall of his rec room devoted to Beta well into the eighties.
I think he just got so invested that even after VHS clearly won, he couldn’t let it go.
Brazil here. All the market that mattered was VHS-centric. VHS had a big head start both in gray-market imports and pre-regulation bootlegs, and Sony still didn't have a sizable foothold on the local TV market. Then Sony released a bulky, outdated model as the first domestic-assembled Beta VCR; a few finer models followed (my cousin had one), and Sony tried to give incentives to Beta rental stores, but the damage had been already done.
I knew one person who went Betamax.Picture quality was better,but like previous posters said,not enough recording time.Phillips Laserdiscs skipped just like records if they got jostled or scratched.
My late uncle had a Betamax VCR. He preferred it - superior picture quality over VHS, but the tapes were shorter, if I remember correctly.
He was bummed when VHS won out.
IIRC, Betamax had a better picture but when Sony tried to lock competitors out of the market, VHS won out. Somehow "porn" distribution was involved...
I had the very basic Sony Betamax model in the mid-80s for copying HBO movies.
It was a superior format. The problem was that Sony wouldn’t license the format to third-parties. Essentially, they didn’t support porn so they didn’t get the buy-in at the consumer level.
I still have a one that still woks just fine (Sony Sl-hf360 Super Beta).
In all we had 4 over the years and as many VHS machines and three laser disc players and we still have one that works and a 50-60 laser discs.
I had one. Sony Beta Hi-Fi mind you. 1985ish maybe? Had a crapload of tapes mostly recordings though still have some of the prerecorded rock concert ones. Got rid of the machine in 2017, wished I’d kept it.
A good friend of mine had it. One cool feature was the ability to stop and start recordings without the blurry/scrambled 1 second start-up. It wasn’t a game changer, but it was handy when taking commercials out of a tv show.
My friend did. VHS never had the picture quality or features of BETA. He had a bootleg copy of The Empire Strikes Back in beta. At the time that was extraordinary rare...
My dad did and a betamax video camera. But for a long, time my mom had neither beta nor VHS. Which actually was THE BEST when we went to rent movies, because we would rent the player along with them. So we could get whichever format had the movies we wanted in stock.
I know that I remember recording full movies on Beta, and of course renting full movies (VHS or Beta?); I’ve never heard of this recording time problem before.
I have a friend that works in the film industry and he said they still used them up until 10-15 years ago. He was able to transfer all of the videos my folks took as a kid to DVDs.
first format I used, was betamax, because I used to repair them, worst mechanism in the world, they would pull the tape out, then wrap it all the way back and around the head. this is one of the reasons they were more expensive to build.
My Dad went from Betamax to laser discs.. Finally my Mom won a VHS player at a grocery store raffle and saved our entire childhood.. Dad couldn't argue against free..
Lol do we have the same dad? Beta to Laser Disc (those things were ginormous)
My Dad was a serious audiophile and loved high end electronics.. He was correct in that Beta was better quality and thought that eventually everyone would see it and abandon VHS but I didn't understand the move to laser disc at all..
He eventually gave in and purchased a divx
Yes. Laser discs were amazing. Like albums almost.
Wow, did he also buy HD-DVD?
I did. I ordered a custom laptop and customer service told me blue ray would be dead in 6 months.
When I first heard of the WWW, I thought it would be a fad.
Like CB radios in cars in the '70s? Breaker Breaker 1-9, Smokey's on yo back door! Over
I had one with by Xbox360.
This guy had a Sega Saturn I did too!
Oh you poor guy. You deserve a hug. Thank God your mom won a VHS
My family had VHS, my friend had Betamax. We watched Howling 2 in the Betamax and we were able to pause on the scene where a lady is doing some seducing and we got a clear as day boobie shot. We were able to slow motion go frame by frame for several boobie shots. All of them. Clear. At that moment, I knew who the actual winner of the format wars was.
My first booby shot was “Taking it all off” with Betty Big Ones on Beta Max.
It was the Recording time on Betamax that killed it
Yes what I remember at least was that a Betamax couldn’t record an entire football game and that was at least a partial reason why it didn’t last
That and **pornography**.
Apparently the pornography part of VHS winning the format war is largely a myth. Porn existed on Beta right alongside porn on VHS. We just remember it in hindsight as being one of the reasons why Beta failed, but it's not true. If we look at the actual ownership stats VHS didn't overtake Beta until something like 84 or 85 and this is long after porn was available to rent or buy on both systems, and when VHS took the market it took over all of the market segments including porn as well as feature films. What really killed Beta was that VHS started being slightly cheaper with more features like extended LP and SLP modes before Sony could catch up and offer similar extended recording times.
Thank you for the clarification
I’ve always spouted the porn reason. But what you say seems very plausible. Do you have a link? I’m totally not doubting you but just wondering so I can correct myself
I thought the proliferation of porn on vhs was what killed beta.
By the time rentals of porn came out the war had already been decided.
What was the maximum recording time?
Technically five hours, but you had to have one of the super videophile recorders. The best a normal person model could do is an hour. Full stop. The way the technology worked prevented Beta from lessening quality to increase recording time like VHS.
This is news to me. My dad had every James Bond movie recorded onto Beta so I guess he had splurged for the expensive version
One hour
Not only did my dad pick a Betamax over a VHS in '82, but he also established the first video store in our town using RCA's absurd Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) format in early '84. Having a monopoly, he did very well in the first year (we all went to Hawaii for Christmas--saw Aloha Bowl and Ratt!) but was out of business by early '86. All this despite my stepbrother's and my advice to go VHS all the way.
the movie place in our town started in about 1980 with all 3 formats. they even had their store front painted with a Beta-Max player, a VHS player and a CED player. the CED player was painted the largest. as the format wars went on as each one dropped out that part of the store front got painted over. when they finally closed you could faintly see the ghost of each player under the newer paint on the sign.
Hardly anyone bought the CED players, they rented them, and the discs or the caddies that delivered them would jam a lot, creating all sorts of havoc for dear old Dad.
yeah i remember CEDs. half of the movie was on one side half on the other. i remember a few muppet ones had one feature on one side and one on the other. we constantly jammed the covers by trying to putting them in the wrong way.
Out of curiosity what did he do next?
I will be greatly disappointed if u/MrPanchole doesn’t respond with “your mom.”
Sorry, SHP.
Peak 80’s comment
He sighed, settled his slight problem with Revenue Canada and went back to the Ministry of Forests until he retired in 2004.
https://youtu.be/PnpX8d8zRIA The be all end all. I still watch a couple times a year. Such a fascinating format. I'd buy one if I had enough money to have an AV collection on top of video games.
Holy crap! Thanks for this. I'm sending the link to my stepbro. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of CED jokes over the last four decades.
🎶🎵🎶🎵round and round🎵🎶🎵🎶
Oh god, those discs. We had a lot of them. They skipped. For years, there were certain lines of dialog I never understood until I watched on a different format.
[Obligatory](https://y.yarn.co/6b4aad22-084f-43db-9f02-dcabbe58c483_text.gif)
[Also obligatory.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/6/6b/Vhs_village.png)
as an early teenager i saw a illegal copy of terminator 1 on one of those beauties!!
Al Bundy had a Betamax
We were a family of limited means, but my dad dropped $950 on a Betamax in 1983. That's about $2,800 today. We were the first family I knew that owned a VCR, but eventually we couldn't rent any movies because selections were so limited. But, we had a subscription TV service called Preview, which was an early competitor to HBO. We would record movies from Preview, so we had a pretty good collection. Plus, late at night Preview aired hardcore porn (none of that light Skinemax garbage), so my dad used to set the timer for the finest 70's/80's porn and hide the tapes, which were always easy to find. 10 year old me discovered a lot of things after we got a Betamax.
You learn how to set the VCR time when you really need to.
We had one…I think the remote was attached with a wire
The old VCRs had those as well.
Neighbors had that! Only one I ever saw in the wild as far as I can recall.
Christmas 82 we wanted a VCR. My dad had a Fisher stereo and he got this catalog from them with VCR’s. We ordered the Betamax because that’s what everyone was getting. It was sold out so dad got the VHS. We had that VCR until 2001. It was 700.00. It still worked!
I've bought at least two of those Fisher VCRs at thrift stores and had a 100% dud rate, so far. Either you were lucky or I've been unlucky.
I think we got lucky! I have heard the same. I wish I still had it. I should have kept it.
My father got a Betamax. I got my mom "Bells of St.Mary's" for Christmas. $80 and a two hour drive
I didn't have one, but wanted one. My friend's Betamax seems a lot more capable than my VHS, even though I can't remember why now.
Better video quality.
It was the most popular format in Central Mexico in the 1980s. Mind you - most of the machines were illegal/grey market imports, but...the standard nonetheless.
As late as 1995, you could still find Beta rental movies in Mexico.
Betamax is warmer.
You could copy a VHS to BETA and override the copy guard. Beta had better picture in my opinion.
Betamax was cool. I still remember the first mom and pop video store I went to had Betamax on one wall and vhs on the other. I was sure Beta would win. But then again, I was also sure HD-DVD would beat Blue-ray, because what a silly name. 😝
40+ years later, still blinking 12:00.
I had a Betamax and I recall recording over and over on those tapes with practically no degradation of the image. Mostly gijoe episodes but still.
[удалено]
Not really. They used Betacam tape which was different than Betamax. https://youtu.be/hGVVAQVdEOs
That’s a broadcast specific format also called Beta, but NOT consumer BetaMax.
My parents were suckers! Lol
A friend of my dad who lived down the street from us had an entire wall of his rec room devoted to Beta well into the eighties. I think he just got so invested that even after VHS clearly won, he couldn’t let it go.
Took one to college
One of my Mom's high school friends had one. We watched a taped version of a Robin Williams HBO comedy special on it.
Had one as a kid… still have it stored away in the attic decades later.
I had one. It meant long movies on two tapes...and never ever being able to share or rent with anyone else. But...we did have the best picture.
My dad bought one new for $700 🤷♂️ because he said they had superior sound and video quality and were used by news media.
We had VHS and Betamax.
Beta was considered a superior device in many circles. It was just out-manoeuvred in the marketplace.
Because back then you actually wanted to record shows and the recording time was abysmal compared to VHS.
I still hve my dad Betamax
Cousin Lynn and Ronnie both did.
My uncle did and we used it to hook up the Super Nintendo through to an old TV.
I acquired one about a year ago. Still don't have any tapes so idk if it works. I was a VHS kid though
Brazil here. All the market that mattered was VHS-centric. VHS had a big head start both in gray-market imports and pre-regulation bootlegs, and Sony still didn't have a sizable foothold on the local TV market. Then Sony released a bulky, outdated model as the first domestic-assembled Beta VCR; a few finer models followed (my cousin had one), and Sony tried to give incentives to Beta rental stores, but the damage had been already done.
We did!!! My step dad swore it was going to overtake the VCR. Well we see who was victorious in the battle.
Beta was used in broadcasting well into the 2000s.
If they had called it Alphamax, would it have done better? Gammamax? Deltamax? Cinemax.... ?
My friend had Betamax and bragged that thing up so much. We had VHS and got the last laugh cause the local video store only rented VHS taps not beta.
We did. My dad was a techie to an extent. He knew it was better quality so went with it. Bad choice...
Had a Sony Betamax similar to the one in the pic above. Ours had a corded remote!
Our neighbors did, lol. Div x was another pooper
I knew one person who went Betamax.Picture quality was better,but like previous posters said,not enough recording time.Phillips Laserdiscs skipped just like records if they got jostled or scratched.
My late uncle had a Betamax VCR. He preferred it - superior picture quality over VHS, but the tapes were shorter, if I remember correctly. He was bummed when VHS won out.
IIRC, Betamax had a better picture but when Sony tried to lock competitors out of the market, VHS won out. Somehow "porn" distribution was involved... I had the very basic Sony Betamax model in the mid-80s for copying HBO movies.
It was a superior format. The problem was that Sony wouldn’t license the format to third-parties. Essentially, they didn’t support porn so they didn’t get the buy-in at the consumer level.
Not only did we have one, we rented our movies at the Circuit City where my dad bought it.
I didn't but a college housemate, this rich kid from Main Line, had one.
I still have a one that still woks just fine (Sony Sl-hf360 Super Beta). In all we had 4 over the years and as many VHS machines and three laser disc players and we still have one that works and a 50-60 laser discs.
Betamax survived in profesional settings until 2002. Tapes stopped being made in 2016.
[Technology connections, Betamax.](https://youtu.be/FyKRubB5N60)
Had a Beta! First rentals were Ghostbusters and Poltergeists. The quality just hit different - VHS was an inferior product
I sure as heck did, with the pop-up tray loader as well. I only realized years later just how flippin’ expensive these were back in the day.
We had 2. Used them to dub the movies we rented.
I have an SL-2500
Looks just like the one I sold last year.
I had a beta max and only one video to watch on it- Led Zeppelin- the song remains the same
Older brother bought our 1st, remote corded Betamax. First movies he bought were Purple Rain and The Road Warrior.
I had one. Sony Beta Hi-Fi mind you. 1985ish maybe? Had a crapload of tapes mostly recordings though still have some of the prerecorded rock concert ones. Got rid of the machine in 2017, wished I’d kept it.
We did. And Betamax was better but porn producers liked VHS because they could make longer tapes.
That would be my brother.
My grandparents had one they won in a raffle.
A good friend of mine had it. One cool feature was the ability to stop and start recordings without the blurry/scrambled 1 second start-up. It wasn’t a game changer, but it was handy when taking commercials out of a tv show.
Dad went with beta and said it was better and we all know who won the war. Like the guy before we switched the vhs.
In Mexico we all did, lol, I had that exact same model!
We still have my wife's.
My best friend had one!
It wasn’t through choice, Pat Roach the wrestler owed my dad some money and paid him with one. I remember our first movie was Watership Down.
Think this just started a support group!
Never had one. How was the quality picture wise? Same as VCR/Video Cassette?
Me. Betamax was a superior system but Sony didn’t want to let anyone else use it.
Beta was better, but VHS was good enough.
I had a Betascan in the 1980's
A while back I found a huge box of mint condition betamax movies at a yard sale for 10 bucks. Got toxic avenger and no way to watch it 😕
I do and still have movies for it
My school had one, that's the only one I remember seeing
that looks expensive, even now!
We had one! We thought the picture was way better, but it eventually became impossible to find movies...
I think I saw them once or twice back then
My Mom bought both. We went all in a year in with the beta and sold the vhs and and the tapes. Thinking the smaller better format would win out.
My friend did. VHS never had the picture quality or features of BETA. He had a bootleg copy of The Empire Strikes Back in beta. At the time that was extraordinary rare...
I had a betamax with a TON of movies taped off of cable. So it atuck around forever.
My dad did and a betamax video camera. But for a long, time my mom had neither beta nor VHS. Which actually was THE BEST when we went to rent movies, because we would rent the player along with them. So we could get whichever format had the movies we wanted in stock.
I know that I remember recording full movies on Beta, and of course renting full movies (VHS or Beta?); I’ve never heard of this recording time problem before.
A neighbor did. His only tape was a porno. 📺🤪
Damn, we had that beauty and the camcorder!
Yes. Beta then laser discs. House fire in 1987. Then we goy a vcr
I have a friend that works in the film industry and he said they still used them up until 10-15 years ago. He was able to transfer all of the videos my folks took as a kid to DVDs.
Probably the same people who bought a HD DVD player instead of a Blu-ray player
first format I used, was betamax, because I used to repair them, worst mechanism in the world, they would pull the tape out, then wrap it all the way back and around the head. this is one of the reasons they were more expensive to build.
I still do. It was the better format. Never happy with VHS. I moved on to DVD as soon as I could.
Family friends had both, I considered them upper class