Betamax Video Recorders

Nowadays, whenever most people consider home video, there is only one format - VHS. In fact, those three letters have become almost synonymous with home video recorders and pre-recorded movies. But it wasn't always so.

In the late 1970s / early 1980s, a myriad of confusing and incompatible video formats were on the marketplace. Philips offered VCR and VCR Long Play, Grundig offered SV (Super Video) and both companies later got together to make Video2000. Toshiba developed LVR (Longitudinal video recording) that worked in a similar way to 8-track audio tapes. Most of these obscure formats disappeared very quickly. The only early systems that had a lasting impact were VHS (invented by JVC) and Betamax, invented by Sony.

Betamax is technically superior to VHS yet surprisingly it lost the battle in an intensely competitive market. The reasons for this are many and varied; you can read about them in some of the links but it basically boils down to marketing mistakes and bad luck on Sony's part.

Most people assume that Betamax is dead, but it isn't. New Beta-format VCRs are still on sale in Japan. In the U.K. no new machines or pre-recorded tapes have been available for the last few years but Beta is far from useless. Blank tapes and essential spares like belt kits and video heads can still be bought. With an ever-growing choice of TV channels to record from, who needs pre-recorded tapes anyway?

I got all my Beta machines secondhand when the format was losing popularity. At first they were being sold off cheaply in 2nd hand shops and junk sales. Later on, I salvaged large numbers of (usually faulty) machines and used cassettes from dealers and people who no longer wanted them. I learned to repair broken Betas by cannibalizing others for spares and hence ended up with superior-quality home video equipment for a fraction of the price.

Some people thought I was crazy for collecting this 'old junk', but I could say the same about those who threw out top-quality Betamax equipment only to replace it with inferior VHS gear. Although the public no longer favours Beta, TV broadcasting stations still use an enhanced form of Beta in preference to anything VHS has to offer. That should tell you something about the quality and performance of the format.

Have also owned Toshiba V33B, Sanyo VTC-5400 and a couple of NEC models.

This site is a member of the Betamax Webring.

[Prev] [Next] [Random] [List Sites]

Home Electronics Heaven
My Home Page