In the late '70s and early '80s, a format
war ensued between two video cassette formats, VHS and Betamax. These two competing standards for recording video onto cassettes both tried to make their format look as good as possible. Betamax arguably had better picture quality, according to many experts, but VHS won mainly because of it's longer recording
time and cheaper recorder price.
So, Betamax
lost the format
war. But many professional recorders leaned toward Betamax because of its better picture quality compared to VHS. It didn't fade into obscurity right away, but when VHS achieved near total dominion, it was mostly forgotten. On a standard L-500 tape, a Betamax recorder could record 1 hour with
Beta 1 recording speed, and 2 hours with
Beta 2 speed. VHS, on the other hand, could record 2 hours on SP (the equivalent of
Beta 1) and 4 hours on
LP (the equivalent of
Beta 2). This
short recording
time, combined with a variety of other factors like less advanced timers, caused the downfall of Betamax.
Since the main purpose of owning a videocassette recorder was timeshifting, or recording programs to watch at a specific
time, the timer and recording length were very important. Betamax had neither of these going in their favor, so it lost the fairly drawn-out format
war.
Betamax was developed by Sony, and was first to market, but eventually, even though a very big company had a first-to-market advantage, they still lost because of the fatal flaws the product had.
In 1980, a customer has to decide between a Betamax or VHS VCR.
Customer: "Hmmm... Should I get the more expensive Betamax machine with a less advanced timer, more expensive tapes, less recording
time per tape, a smaller library, and better picture quality, or the VHS machine that is less expensive, has a larger movie library, cheaper tapes, more recording
time per tape, but worse picture quality?"
"Betamax is
dead, long live VHS!"
