Talk:Betamax

South America

≈Beta might actually have been more popular in South American than North: A Chilean film from 2004 had a Beta version, and this two years after Sony had stopped making them evenin Japan.Flake11 17:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC) ---- The entire section on Umatic and Betamax is completely wrong. Umatic was developed as a consensus standard that involved JVC [1]. It was a similar situation to the Unix industry rejecting AT&T/Sun "System V" UNIX. Sony licensed Umatic to various companies, so there was nothing new or different about JVC licensing VHS to multiple makers, nor was it any less "proprietary" than Betamax.[reply]

That part of the article is false and misleading, isn't supported by any facts, and should be removed. Danieleran 23:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

U-format

The "u" format was developed mainly by Sony, with Matsushita contributing their expertise, typically in the area of cost reduction and manufacturing. JVC was involved via Matsushita. Sony saw this format as a home format, and wanted to establish it as such. So they got involved with Matsushita, knowing the big players can be helpful. This is typical of Japanese business practices.

Due to the cost (IIRC, $30 for a cassette in 1969) it went nowhere in the home entertainment market. But the pros loved Sony's U-matic, so it was rebranded as a professional format. JVC and Matshushita also sold their versions, but Sony was the dominant one in the professional market. Sony would be the last maker, announcing the end-of-life in the mid 80s, yet keeping U-matics in production another 10 years to meet the demand from the professional and industrial markets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.84.218 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These claims are reported as "Many people believe..." because I have no hard facts other than having heard both sets of rumors many times. Does anyone have the facts? -- Anon.

165.121.129.41, the anime reference you removed was on-topic, and quite interesting; I enjoyed reading it when I first came across this article. I suggest putting it back.
--tsca 10:01, 2004 May 7 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone could explain the "electronic trick that could easily have been applied to VHS", which made the picture of betamax tapes better. - Xorx77 18:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Betamax recorders incorporated an electronic circuit known as a 'corer'. It operated a little bit like the treble filters that radiograms of the 1970's had. They filtered out the hiss and made the radiogram have a more 'mellow' sound. Something users expected having become to bandwidth limited AM broadcasts. The side effect was that they also filtered out the high frequency contaent of anything played.

In a parallel manner, the 'corer' circuit sharpened up the rise times of the edges of video signals. This had the visual effect of making the picture appear sharper. However the downside was the circuit removed fine detail. It is hotly debated whether Betamax with its apparently sharper picture, or VHS with its greater detail was preferable. The sharper picture was usually to credited to the Betamax format, but in fact there was nothing to prevent the VHS manufacturers fitting a similar circuit and benefiting by VHSs slightly greater (but not significantly so) bandwidth. However, they chose no to do so. 20.133.0.13 14:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am rather skeptical of the claim in the article that VHS eventually equalled the technical superiority of Beta, based on my own experience. In late 1997, I purchased new a Betamax SL-HF 2000 VCR (the last consumer model sold in the US; introduced in 1993) and a Panasonic PV-S7670 S-VHS VCR. At that time, S-VHS had been available for a few years. While the visual quality produced by the S-VHS VCR was vastly superior to VHS quality in the 1980s, it was still noticably inferior to the Betamax, albeit slightly. Also, like Xorx77, I would be curious to know what the "electronic trick" was, and why VHS VCR manufacturers waited so long to use it (if indeed they ever did). Edeans 19:33, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

They didn't.

Porn industry

Regarding this paragraph:

One claim which has been made is that the failure of Betamax was driven by the porn industry's preference for VHS. Whilst claims that this was because Sony disallowed the sex industry from licensing the format are unlikely since the licenses applied to the production of equipment, it is certainly true that Sony persued an anti-porn policy which may have been offputting. Other reasons given for the sex industries reluctance to use Betamax have been the too short, 1 hour, time limit on the original Betamax tapes with the porn industry preferring the cheap convenient VHS.

The provided reference simply mentions that the porn industry preferred VHS over Beta, and says nothing about an anti-porn policy by Sony.

" US pornographers' decision to adopt the cheap convenient VHS - rather than rival Betamax - when the two systems were introduced in the 1970s killed off Betamax while sales of pornographic films drove take-up of video recorders."

Can we get a reference for the Sony anti-porn statement? Cheers, -Willmcw 23:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This whole section needs some citation or it needs to be axed. It's presenting (what amounts to be) opinion as fact. Mratzloff 00:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've cut it. It admitted that sources say the porn industry was a factor, but advanced a novel argument to prove them wrong, which is blatant original research. (For what it's worth, I didn't find the argument very convincing, either.) If someone can write a better section on this subject, that would be great. —Cel ithemis 02:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Head speed

"Technically, the Betamax format has an improved bandwidth over the VHS format, due to a tape path design which gives Betamax a faster video head writing speed, despite the tape itself moving slower than VHS."

Huh? How does that work? - Omegatron 02:03, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

He/she means the spinning drum moves over the tape faster, while the tape is fed past more slowly. Although, since the rotational speed of the drum is fixed to the field rate of the video, the only way to increase the video head writing speed is to use a larger drum, which Betamax does (77 vs 62 mm). I've reworded accordingly. (also, both a really another way of saying the tracks are much closer together on Beta) --Dtcdthingy 02:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Writing speed is determined by two factors: the highest frequency you wish to playback, and the head gap. If you move the tape faster, you get better high frequency response on playback. When the wavelength of the signal is equal to twice that of the head gap, you get maximum output from the head. As the wavelength gets shorter, the output drops dramatically. Equalization can only help so much.

When Sony was designing the Beta system, head technology was pretty crude compared to today. To get the needed writing speeds, they made the head drum 74.5 mm in diameter. This gave them about 6.98 metres/sec in terms of writing speed (60Hz, less the 40 mm linear tape speed.) This gave them the speed they needed for the head gap available. In terms of track width, they needed 40 mm/sec to move the tape fast enough while maximizing the recorded track width. (Due to leakage, the recorded track is apparently wider than the head itself, which will cause some issues.)

Any time analog signals are recorded on tape, faster, and wider is better. Frequency response is directly related to tape speed and head gap, and the signal to noise ratio is related to tape speed and track width. When recording, you write with the trailing edge of the gap, and this will erase some of the previously recorded signal, so a faster speed helps to reduce that effect too.

Beta tape uses a formulation similar to chromium dioxide, because it's frequency responses are better than ferric oxide. That helps with higher frequencies a video recorder uses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.84.62 (talk • contribs) 01:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Struggle and failure in the home market

Three theories are presented here. Which one is most entrusted today? Should all three get equal emphasize, as they do now?

The idea that the porn industry is the main reason for Betamax's failure seems a bit far fetched to me.
That Betamax format's shorter recording time is the reasons seems like a minor technical issue.
The theory from Sony's founder (Sony's difficulties in licensing the format to other companies) should be the most credible since he is a person who should know what he is talking about.

I think we don't have to give people the idea that the porn industry clearly had something to do with it unless the evidence really point to it...

Comments? I was rather young at the time and know little about the subject myself. --Fred chessplayer 23:54, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sony had actually attempted the license Betamax before VHS even came on to market, and I believe that JVC developed VHS avoid paying licence fees, becuase they didn't want to support their rival. Is my imformation correct

How could anyone possibly argue in good faith that shorter recording time is a minor technical issue !?!? We're talking bang for the buck here, folks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.251.149.248 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This an illustration of the confusion that can be caused by the current mess that the page is in, in that there is no dating of the introduction of the various Beta speeds in relation to each other, let alone to VHS. The first Betmax machines came out in 1975, while VHS went on the NTSC market in Sept 1976. The first X2/BII NTSC machine appeared in 1977, with BIII in 1979. Before VHS, what we would now regard as "shorter" recording times were the norm, e.g. the Phillips Video Cassette Recording system introduced in Europe in 1972 also had a maximum record time of one-hour. VHS marked a breakthrough by effectively doubling the capacity of existing home systems, but really only had a narrow window of opportunity to exploit it before X2/BII (and Philips VCR-LP, for that matter) appeared.

It notable that Beta was introduced in Europe and other PAL/SECAM territories in the only speed it had there, getting 3h 15m out of an L-750 cassette, contemporary with (or ahead of) VHS with 3h on an E-180 (PAL designation of approximate T-120 equivalent). If anything, Beta had the edge in these countries time-wise, but ultimately still failed. Nick Cooper

Video 2000

There should be a link to Video 2000 somewhere I think, because of all the parallels. Shinobu 20:13, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MGM v. Grokster

Updated this text to concisely reflect the content of the decision. Noticed I was accidentally not logged in; removed and re-added this change so it would be properly attributed.

Option 30 June 2005 16:51 (UTC)

I restored this again after most of the comment was removed. I really don't think it makes any sense to mention Grokster here in passing (as opposed to any other Betamax-related case) unless you give at least 1 sentence of context. I'd say if you're going to cut it down again, cut any mention of MGM v. Grokster completely. Option 18:32, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If people are interested they can surely click the link? (Though I agree it might not belong here at all) --Dtcdthingy 23:41, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

References

Would anybody mind me changing the title of this section to References in pop culture, as the section is not a repository of reference material, rather references to the Betamax's portrayal in pop culture? I'd like to change the section to include reference that the portrayals of the characters on the shows The Simpsons and Married with Children are intended to portray the Betamax as an outmoded or obsolete technology. The title References is normally used as a header for a section containing reference links or descriptions of reference materials used to compose an entry, and as it stands it is both confusing and misleading. Glowimperial 01:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Homevid box.

I added the Homevid box, as it seemed to be missing, and a Betamax entry was in it. --65.146.18.161 05:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Likely error.

"Beastie Boys music video Sabotage was filmed with Betamax cameras." Unless this can be confirmed, we should assume that this is another case of mistaken identity, whereby the recording was actually done with Betacam equipment. Colin99 21:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

quality?

do we have any numbers on how good beta was? i've heard beta had higher quality than vhs, but this isn't really mentioned in the article. has anything like this ever shown up here?

Justforasecond 05:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this normal?

Is it normal for a Betamax VCR to emit a buzzing noise when loading or unloading a tape? --71.162.21.183 22:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The magic trick Beta used

The vhs format uses a lot of nasty tricks to make it work.

For tape run time, the easiest way to increase that is slow the tape down.

Doing so means narrower tracks will be needed. To maintain a wider track, they made the head drum smaller and tilted it at a more severe angle. Doing so they reduced the writing speed. To maintain a good S/N ratio, you need wide tracks with a fast writing speed. They made some tradeoffs to maintain a reasonable sized cassette with a 2 hour run time.

As well, their bandwidth isn't as great, since the writing speed enters into this. Part of the solution was to reduce the carrier deviation to allow more spectrum for the sideband (where all the real information is carried: a large sideband means more resolution). Deviation is related to contrast.

Sony designed the original Beta machines with 1.3Mhz Carrier deviation, but reduced it to 1.2MHz for BII. VHS has always used 1MHz.

For comparison, BI had a 60 micron track width (38um was the narrowest possible for the introduction of BII). jvc used 38um for vhs SP mode. Beta I still can produce the best picture quality possible for a half inch format, due to the long track, wider track, and the higher writing speed.

Greek or Japanese?

according to the Total Rewind site (www.totalrewind.org - I can't link the sub-page from here because the whole site is set in frames) the name "beta" actually comes from the Japanese word for quality, not the second letter of the Greek alaphbet, which the tape spooling is supposed to resemble. Can somone look into this? -Litefantastic 21:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The name "Beta"

Actually, it's a Japanese calligraphy term, meaning to cover with a broad stoke, or cover completely with a stroke.

Sony used the term to describe the method by which a "beta" recorder works, in this case, there are no guard bands and the video portion of the tape is completely covered, as if by that of a broad stroke. Unlike U-matic, which has guard bands. By this definition, vhs machines can be technically (and correctly) called a "beta recorder".

Sony took the term and added "max", to emphasize the recording method. Easier to say than "Zero Guard Band Videocassette Recorder". Also one of the few trademarks to succeed with an "x" as the final letter, as it's believed that will jinx the product.

IIRC, this is explained in the book "Fast Forward".

WHOLE ARTICLE

This entire article needs a re-write. It has become rambling and disjointed Technically it's all jumbled up because so many NTSC references have been allowed to permeate the article as though NTSC is the only TV system in the world. So it wanders around talking about Beta speeds (not relevant to PAL) and RCA (no-one has ever heard of RCA in the UK), as though these things were somehow relevant to the whole world market. Furthermore there are statements like "recording time was everything" which is POV yet given as some kind of fact (once you can record more than 3 hours on a tape in one go, any more is increasingly unimportant). Pretty well the entire "Criticism" section could be deleted, along with references like "The real reason for the success of VHS is RCA" which is irrelevant outside USA.

It always seems such a contentious subject, but we really need to be level headed and throw out all the POV and USA-centric remarks. Perhaps an NTSC and PAL/SECAM section which covers all the fundamental differences between those markets and technologies, then the rest of the article can be left to talk about the tape format itself.

Any volunteers? Colin99 20:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reasons why the artical is "USA-centric" are because the population of Britain is 60,609,153 and the GDP is $1,903,000 million while the population of the United States is 298,444,215 and the GDP is $12,980,000 million, Hollywood is located in America, and nobody has worried about anything being UK-centric in the last 50 years (at least). All these factors mean that the economy is USA-centric.

I should also note that your never hearing of RCA may be because RCA was taken over by GE in 1986, so few people under 30 have heard of it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.118.1 (talk • contribs) 23:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your soapbox rant overlooks the fact that collectively the UK, Europe, Australasia and all the other countries using PAL are easily equal to - if not actually outnumbering - the USA, Canada, Japan and all the other NTSC territories. Don't let your blatent nationalistic prejudice get in the way of logic, i.e. that the PAL (and SECAM) side of the Betamax story is no less important than the NTSC side.Nick Cooper 00:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You may not have heard of RCA in the UK, but it'd be difficult to avoid their technology if you've been using consumer electronics for more than a few years.

I "added" to the article's rewrite by removing an entirely duplicated paragraph. Whelkman (talk) 06:28, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the battle was fought and lost in North America, period. European versions of Beta and VHS appeared years after their launch in North America. They may have even launched within months of each other in Europe, meaning that no one really got a head start. The slower frame rates meant longer run times to begin with, reducing that issue.

By that point, the number of VHS OEMs, and their manufacturing capability, allowed a flood of VHS decks with European and Japanese brand names to overwhelm the much smaller Beta Group. Matsushita is at least ten times the size of Sony, and add in Hitachi's capacity too.

In North America, RCA, and Matsushita have large dealer networks. Not everyone carries Sony products. Even though Sony was usually number two in sales volume, RCA was selling at least twice as many, with Matsushita (Panasonic and Quasar) and Hitachi weighing in too. Plus the private brands manufactured by them.

Besides, you cannot swap tapes if you don't own the same format as your friends.

Pop Culture Reference Discrepancy

Regarding this reference:

A gag made in a 1990 stand show by UK comic Jasper Carrott goes "People are asking me which am I going to buy the Philips Compact Cassette system or the Sony Minidisc system. Which ever I choose will be obsolete by easter, you are looking at Betamax man"

I'm not sure the date on this is accurate; the article on Minidisc states:

The technology was announced by Sony in 1991 and introduced January 12, 1992, and is capable of storing any kind of binary data.

Was Jasper Carrott prescient? --Chaos95 00:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Porn revisited

This was stuck into the popular culture section:

It has been said that when the adult film industry adopted the VHS format, that decision sounded the death knell for Betamax.

It definitely didn't belong there, but does it belong somewhere else? I've seen similar claims in recent stories about Blu-Ray, so even if it's not true it may be worth bringing up in order to refute it. —Cel ithemis 02:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I work at Sarnoff Corporation, which used to be RCA Labs. I've heard this from co-workers who were there in the day. I'll poke around the corporate library and see if there is any verifiable info regarding the Porn/VHS connection. 70.106.123.197 04:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The porn issue seems to appear from time to time, perpetuated by people who know nothing of the early days of home video. Just look at any early 80's copy of Video magazine, and there is no shortage of porn in either format.

In those days, anything that appeared on VHS also appeared on Beta. The market was too small to prefer one over the other, as a VCR was an expensive luxury in those days. Most machines had a suggested retail price of over $1000, which was a lot of money in the 1970s. The people who were interested in porn on tape could buy either format, as they were equally available in terms of equipment and tapes. Many times, the guy you rented tapes from was the same guy you bought the VCR from.

It wasn't until the mid-80s that video rental outlets began rationalize their inventories, as Beta had slipped to about 10% of the market for new decks by that time. If three-quarters of their rentals were VHS, they could afford to alienate a portion of the customer base by not stocking as many Beta titles, because tapes were expensive in those days and duplicating the inventory was costly. Not to mention the big chains that began to appear, and only stocked VHS. Many Beta owners bought a VHS deck for that very reason: the local rental store was VHS only.

In the early part of the 1980's (in North America) the street price of a VCR had dropped to the point where the "early" and then "late majourity" began to climb onboard, and they were not really interested in porn, just the latest Hollywood flicks. Some of them were horrified to learn that this "new hobby" was being "invaded" by smut pedlars!

Then there are those who claim that "Sony wouldn't allow porn on Betamax". Which is entirely baseless, as Sony only sold the equipment, they were not involved with duplication. They had no control over what you did with your Beta equipment.

Saying that is almost the same as saying Matsushita and JVC actively encouraged the adult entertainment industry to release their product onto videotape, in particular, VHS. Although JVC recognized that movies would be important to the success of VHS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.84.218 (talk • contribs) 00:06, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The porn situation was much the same in the UK - for many years product was available on both VHS and Beta, and even Video 2000 for a while. Nick Cooper 14:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back in those days, your typical porn film (remember, this was done on film!) ran anywhere from 60 to 70 minutes. It's not like there were a lot of complex plot elements that needed to be explained. Due to the cost of production on film, there were not a lot of movies made annually, and only a few people were making them. Many of those productions were short loops, with few "feature length" movies, due to the costs, and distribution channels. So the two hour capacity of a VHS tape isn't really an advantage.

I would also like to note for the pop culture references that a Beta tape was a major plot device in Episode 18 (Speak Like a Child) of Shinichiro Wanatabe's Cowboy Bebop. A character receives a package containing a Beta.

The reason VHS dominated the United Kingdom

The Thorn EMI company chose VHS for their range of Ferguson Videostar recorders, which were basically rebadged JVC machines. Thorn EMI also owned three major national chain stores, Rumbelows, DER and Radio Rentals and of course it was Thorn's Ferguson VHS machines that got shelf and window space in those shops at the expense of Sony and Sanyo. Chris Longley 21:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DVHS

DVHS has no place here. It never was a competitor to Beta, as it showed up long after Beta decks disappeared from the shelves.

Well since the article mentions ED Betamax, it should also mention DVHS (which was developed at approximately the same time, and in response to ED Betamax). Theaveng 16:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tape Consumption

In the early days, tape consumption was a big issue.

The thing that killed U-matic as a home system was a large, expensive cassette that ran for 1 hour. Too costly for the late 1960s.

With Beta, Sony made the same mistake, but in a smaller cassette, with one hour run time. Sony saw Beta as a mechanism to accomplish time shifting. They didn't foresee the sale or rental of Hollywood movies on videocassettes.

When you are talking about a Beta cassette, costing $30 or more, holding one hour of tape, versus a VHS cassette costing a few dollars more but holding 2 hours of tape, that is a majour issue. Basically, one episode of Star Trek versus two. After a few episodes, it starts getting costly.

With VHS LP, you can record 4 episodes on one VHS cassette. Less than $10 of tape per episode. SLP/EP will drive that down to about $5. An L-750 running at BIII would yield enough run time for 4 episodes.

Into the early eighties tapes were still costly. For example, an L750 at $30 costs $20 per hour at BI, $10/hour at BII, and less than $7 at BIII. A VHS T120 would be $15/hr (SP), $7.50 at LP, and $5 at SLP. (For the EU: L750 is 90/180/270 minutes, T120 is 120/240/360 minutes).

When the price of tapes dropped, the cost per hour favoured an L750 (BII), giving the user 50% more recording time compared to a T120 at SP. VHS still won at SLP, by a small margin.

And as history has shown in North America, the typical VHS owner was more interested in recording 6 hours of video at 200 lines of resolution than anything else. Better picture quality offered by Beta wasn't an issue, they wanted 6 hours of video at tolerable quality on one cassette. If they really wanted a better picture, SVHS wouldn't have been the spectacular dud it was.

(Having worked at Kmart, I can tell you that the only difference the consumer saw between a knock-off and brand name VHS cassette was that one was half the price. Which one do you think sold well, prematurely wearing out millions of heads....) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.84.62 (talk • contribs) 16:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A few corrections:

There was never a European equivalent of BI speed; the first PAL and SECAM machines appeared with the equivalent of BII, with which an L-750 ran for 195 minutes, not 180. Similarly, there was no equivalent to BIII in Europe. Maximum tape time was eventually 215 minutes with an L-830.

A T-120 runs for approximately 172 minutes on PAL/SECAM equiment, since it has a nominal length of 246 metres, compared to the 258 metres of a three-hour E-180, which in turn runs to 126 minutes in NTSC SP. PAL/SECAM VHS LP doubles a tape's duration, so an E-180 runs for 360 minutes, while a T-120 would run to around 343 minutes. PAL/SECAM VHS EP only appeared in the last five years or so, and triples the duration, giving 540 minutes with an E-180 or 514 minutes with a T-120.

As to relative tape costs in the early-1980s, in the UK L-750s were selling for an average of £8.30 compared to £8.50 for an E-180 in March 1980. This was before the introduction of VHS LP, so Beta tape was actually cheaper per hour than VHS. Nick Cooper 19:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Message to user:Theaveng

The "IMPORTANT" section I removed was a paragraph duplicated in its entirety. Apparently you agree as the article has since been re-consolidated. I suggest not using strong language such as "some vandal" when you do not know of what you speak. Whelkman (talk) 17:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps if you had explained that in the edit summary? Instead you just left it blank, thus it looked like vandalism. - Theaveng (talk) 20:51, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unintentional omission. Whelkman (talk) 01:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, a blank summary line is typical of how vandals operate. You can see why I thought, what I thought. - Theaveng (talk) 11:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hardware licensing

NEC built at least two Betamax VCRs (one was the V70) without using a single Sony made part. The V70 had never-seen-on-VHS features like a NiCd backup battery for the clock and program timer and a clear tape flap with a flip down mirror and light so people used to visual tape checking of the old top loaders could see how much tape was left. The V70 also had a digital counter. This VCR had over 30 buttons, knobs, meters (multi-segment LED level indicators), slide controls, input and output connectors on the front and rear panels. In contrast, NEC's Betamovie camcorder was merely a re-badged Sony Betamovie.