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Hardware

Sony Kills Betamax 373

Posted by Hemos from the beautiful-friend-the-end dept.
Hiawatha writes "Years after losing its grip on the consumer VCR market, Sony has announced that it will discontinue the Betamax format. "With digital machines and other new recording formats taking hold in the market, demand has continued to decline and it has become difficult to secure parts," Sony said in a statement." Finally. Although this is the prototypical example of good technology outdone by better marketing, it's an example of a company being stupidly obstinate about wanting to own a system, and shooting themselves in the foot. Update: 08/27 17:52 GMT by H : Yes, they were successful in broadcast, and to some degree overseas - but the commercial success was still severely limited to, say, VHS.
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Sony Kills Betamax More

Sony Kills Betamax

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  • Fooey (Score:3, Funny)

    by zapfie ( 560589 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:34PM (#4149937)
    I really thought Betamax was close to winning, too..

  • And in mor important news: (Score:3, Funny)

    by N3WBI3 ( 595976 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:35PM (#4149951) Homepage
    I stubbed my toe this morning, this will have an effect on a total of one more person than the end of sony betamax...

  • Dang... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:37PM (#4149969)
    No more Betamax? I guess I'll need to buy a new doorstop then.
    • No more Betamax? I guess I'll need to buy a new doorstop then.

      Doorstop? My Betamax machine is still in full working order. I figure I'll hang onto it for a few more years yet, and then make a killing by selling it as spare parts to those in need, now that Sony have discontinued them. After several failed attempts at amassing obscene amounts of wealth, this time my plan's foolproof. It has to work, right?

  • In other news: (Score:5, Funny)

    by xeroh ( 140121 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:38PM (#4149987)
    Phillips has decided to discontinue the 8-track tape.

  • Gah (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <RealityMaster101 ... NBSDom minus bsd> on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:38PM (#4149991) Homepage Journal

    Not the ol' Beta-superiority-undone-by-better-marketing myth.

    Beta was superior in ONE WAY: it had slightly better quality. Yes, I said slightly.

    VHS, on the other hand, had a LOT of advantages:

    a) Longer recording length, which is what really killed Beta
    b) Less expensive players
    c) Less expensive media
    d) Non-proprietary

    Bottom line, VHS was far superior in the areas that mattered.

    • Re:Gah (Score:3, Informative)

      by pthisis ( 27352 )
      True. See e.g. Urbanlegends.com's beta vs vhs [urbanlegends.com] page.

      Sumner

      • Re:Gah (Score:2)

        by Zoop ( 59907 )
        True. See e.g. Urbanlegends.com's beta vs vhs [urbanlegends.com] page.

        Horsehockey. We had a betamax player in '81-'82 or thereabouts, and for five years, its low speed was significantly better than the VHS, including the Hi Fi format. In particular, images didn't blur as much on playback. There was simply no comparison between it and standard VHS. Only HiFi came close, and yes, we did A/B comparisons on the same TV. At high speeds, the difference was less noticeable, but if you're taping off TV you don't use high quality except for a very few things.

        The area that it wasn't as good as HiFi VHS was in sound, since HiFi VHS adopted the spinning head, giving an effective 30 ips playback rate, whereas the Sony was doing it linearly, at something like 1 or 2 ips. Otherwise, HiFi VHS only had about the picture quality of mid-level betamax.

        This was obvious to anybody who had access to both, and it makes me really question their research and sources. Oh, yeah, Popular Electronics is their source. Well, that says it, man. I'm sure they can't hear the difference between Dahlquist and Pioneer speakers, either.

    • Re:Gah (Score:5, Informative)

      by Qrlx ( 258924 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:50PM (#4150134) Homepage Journal
      Actually, I think the biggest thing that Beta had going for it was that you could scan the tape while fast-forwarding. On VHS, you had to stop, wait for the moving parts to stop whirring, and then press play to see where you were on a tape.

      Eventually the VHS people figured out how to do it, but for the first ten years or so you had to get out of fast forward mode in order to get a picture on the screen. Beta could do that from the get-go, and it made working with the tape, a lot faster and easier.

      I'm sure someone who is really into video will take up the crusade of why beta is sooo much better than VHS, but eventually VHS more or less caught up, and the six hour tape thing was a really big deal, one in which Beta never could compete. Beta, while technologically superior, was cursed by poor political decisions on the part of Sony, and the tapes were too short anyway.

      VHS was to Beta what Microsoft was to IBM back in the 80s -- the open architecture alternative. (Sorry, I had to throw that analogy in just to be cantankerous.)

      Let's face it, DVD is a million times better than either VHS or Beta. And if you still need an old beta player, check your local thrift shops. There's more of them out there than you might think.

      • Re:Gah (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pthisis ( 27352 )
        Eventually the VHS people figured out how to do it, but for the first ten years or so you had to get out of fast forward mode in order to get a picture on the screen.

        Our VHS circa 1982 lets you see the picture while you fast-forward. It also has a remote control with a cord on it, which is less than useful.

        Still works, though mono audio forced it off the main TV long before DVD did the same for our newer VHS.

        Sumner

        • Our VHS circa 1982 lets you see the picture while you fast-forward. It also has a remote control with a cord on it, which is less than useful.

          More useful than you may think - betcha never lost it in the couch.

          • More useful than you may think - betcha never lost it in the couch.

            Nope, it didn't reach the couch. So it was always on a shelf in the closet.

            The VCR had huge multicoloured buttons, too. The stop button was about 3" by 3". Easily to operate by foot, even with shoes on. Just in case you didn't feel like leaning over.

            Sumner

      • "VHS was to Beta what Microsoft was to IBM back in the 80s -- the open architecture alternative"

        Here's another one: VHS was to Beta what IBM PC was to C64, Amiga, Atari ST, and Mac -- the open architecture alternative.

    • I think another thing that killed the Beta format was the fact that the originator of the VHS format (JVC) is a subsidiary of the giant Matsushita Electric electrical-goods conglomerate, and that meant Matsushita's powerful marketing muscle was able to convince the majority of Japanese electronics manufacturers to support VHS and to get licenses for the format; this is a huge reason why VHS prevailed.

      Small wonder why Sony decided to de-emphasize the fight with JVC/Matsushita over home VCR formats and concentrate on the 8 mm and MiniDV videocassette formats for camcorders, where Sony had much more marketing success.

      I do agree that VHS' longer recording times was a big factor in VHS' favor; remember on a T-120 tape VHS got there first with four-hour (LP mode) and six-hour (SLP or EP mode) recording. That proved to be a huge boon for folks who wanted to record an entire sporting event (baseball or American football) on one tape or record a whole week of shows on one tape (just in time for the rapid rise of David Letterman; NBC's Late Night with David Letterman was one of the most recorded-shows according to the Nielsen ratings during the 1980's).
    • I've read several times now that because VHS tapes themselves were cheaper than Beta tapes, the suddenly-revitalized (due to VCRs in general) porn industry had a preference for publishing on VHS tapes. With more porn titles available on VHS, VHS quickly became the format of choice for home VCRs.
      (Check out the book "Obscene Profits" by Frederick Lane.)

      -Mark
      • The simple fact is that VCR's (of whatever format) were expensive and so were the tapes and they needed a "killer app". enter porn. Sony, which controlled the whole ball of wax where Beta was concerned wanted nothing to do with porn. No licensing, no interest, no nothing. They didn't ever want to see the word Betamax on the cover of a porn movie and it seemed like a good idea. Trouble was that porn was the killer app for video recorders.

        Rebuffed by Sony the guys who wanted to sell porn tapes for people to view in their homes (visionaries that they were) turned to VHS and the rest is history. Sure after the fight was over Sony went ahead and let porn movies be released on their precious tapes but it was too late.

        That's the way it happened from someone old enough to remember it.

    • Re:Gah (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tgibbs ( 83782 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @02:28PM (#4150986)
      Not the ol' Beta-superiority-undone-by-better-marketing myth. Beta was superior in ONE WAY: it had slightly better quality. Yes, I said slightly.
      Actually, beta was superior in a number of ways at different times. Sony was ahead in technology by about 6 months, but VHS always caught up. For example, Sony had high fidelity sound about 6 months ahead of VHS. Similarly, when SuperBeta came in, beta was considerably more than slightly superior in terms of picture, but VHS HQ almost closed the gap within 6 months. The one area where betas seemed to remain consistently superior was in tape handling. Even the cheapest betas were superior to VHS in going, say from fast forward to play, although some of today's high-end VHS players are as good as the old betas.

      Both beta (Sony) and VHS (JVC) were proprietary formats, and both were licensed to other companies. Betas were made also by Zenith and Sanyo. However, Sony justifiably regarded their VCRs as a high-end product, and charged a premium (and presumably for licenses as well).

      I don't believe that shorter recording length killed beta. Long-play L750 tapes were available well before the decline of beta. VHS maintained a length advantage with their larger cassettes, but it was modest. Neither was there much difference in media cost, although with the decline of beta, beta blank tapes became more of a specialty item, and more costly.

      I think what really killed beta was the rise of videtape rental. And in fact, it the fall of beta coincided with the spread of video rental shops. As long as people bought VCRs to time-shift and archive shows for TV, Sony's high-end strategy was viable. But people began to use their players mainly for watching rented movies, and carrying both formats doubled the cost for video rental outlets. A store could do better by focusing on VHS tapes, since the cheaper VHS machines sold more widely. Greater availability of rentals for VHS encouraged sales of VHS players, widening the gap between beta and VHS--which encouraged video shops to cut back even further on beta stock in favor of VHS. By the time Sony finally gave up and started making VHS players, many rental outlets offered exclusively VHS tapes.

  • Coca-Cola, Inc. announces it is discontinuing its "New Coke" line of products.

  • "good technology outdone by better marketing" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PaschalNee ( 451912 ) <pnee@toomb e o la.com> on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:39PM (#4150003) Homepage
    This is one that is always quoted by marketing heads. Anybody have any good evidence to back this up? Why was beta better? What was the marketing campaign that won it for VHS?

    I don't necessarily doubt this but I'd love to see the detail.

    • Re:"good technology outdone by better marketing" (Score:4, Informative)

      by pthisis ( 27352 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:44PM (#4150062) Homepage Journal
      It isn't really true. See e.g. http://www.urbanlegends.com/products/beta_vs_vhs.h tml

      "True, except for the recording length, Sony pioneered most of the improvements over the years, but the VHS manufacturers caught up to each improvement, usually in less than a year. So, for instance, within a month of Sony's announcement of Beta Hi-Fi, JVC and Panasonsic announced VHS Hi-Fi formats...Comparisons between VCRs with similar features showed no significant differences in performance. In fact, most of the differences could only be seen with sensitive instruments, and likely would never show up on most consumer grade television sets. [5] In particular, the qualitative differences between the two formats were less than the differences between any two samples from the same manufacturer. [8]"

      Sumner
    • here's [urbanlegends.com] a link that might help you. Essentially, Beta was first and had most of the innovations, but VHS won out overall. Betas quality was, as everyone will state, better but the record time and lack of pre-recorded media helped to kill it.

      --trb

      • JVCs Open Licensing v. Sony's Obstinance the Key (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @01:00PM (#4150242)
        here's [urbanlegends.com] a link that might help you. Essentially, Beta was first and had most of the innovations, but VHS won out overall. Betas quality was, as everyone will state, better but the record time and lack of pre-recorded media helped to kill it.

        Pre-recorded media wasn't a factor until long after the VHS-Beta battle was over. Almost no one was buying movies back then ... the big rage was the ability to record your own movies and material, directly off the television transmission.

        The urbanlegends link portrays one perspective (and is quoted as an authority, although in truth it is no more authoritative than any other perspective), however, other early players in the consumer video market have argued a much different perspective.

        At any given point in time, Beta was noticably better than VHS in features/quality (recording length excepted, although almost no one uses the 8 hour super-slow really-crappy record mode that I know), so saying "VHS caught up" really sidesteps the entire question of why VHS won, given that at any point in the battle VHS was on the losing side of the "technically better" argument.

        What really killed Beta, according to some players at the time, was Sony's asinine licensing, or rather, the lack thereof, in direct contrast to JVC's willingness to license VHS to pretty much anyone willing to write a check. The entire event is very analogous to Apple undercutting other power-pc manufacturers, or Sun undercutting other sparc manufacturers, Sony was very stringent in who they would license Beta to.

        The result was that there were four or five competing VHS brands, against Sony's Beta. Consumers correctly perceived a competitive market on the one hand, and a Sony proprietary market on the other, and as they did with Intel vs. Everyone else (remember, Intel allowed for competing motherboard and computer manufacturers, IBM notwithstanding), consumers went for the format that had clear competition.

        The other factor of having multiple VHS manufacturers is the perception that VHS was already a standard catching on, while Sony was the sole promoter of Beta. Whether consumers chose VHS because they saw competition, or because they perceived it as having caught on (since there was competition), or simply because of price, the fact remains that the deciding factor was licensing and the presence of multiple vendors, not the quality of the underlying format.

        In a sense that could be called 'marketing', but more correctly VHS's success is attributable to its 'licensing.'
      • That urbanlegends article isn't entirely accurate. For example, it implies VHS Hi-Fi recordings aren't compatible with plain vanilla VHS decks. That isn't the case. You can play back VHS Hi-Fi recordings on a plain VHS deck - you just won't get the Hi-Fi sound.

        Also, Beta's picture was noticeably superior to VHS's picture right up to the introduction of S-VHS around 1986, long after VHS had "won" the format war. Anybody with a halfway decent 27" television would be able to see the difference. The way Beta wrapped the tape around the head drum was also superior, leading to less wear and tear on the tape and making it easier to implement "special effects" like freeze frames, slow motion and especially viewing the picture during fast winding.

        The article did do a good job of refuting the bogus claim that Sony was slow to license Beta. They were in fact trying to acquire partners right from the start (JVC turned them down because they were nearly complete with VHS), and did manage to get some big players onboard. Sanyo sold millions of mostly lower-priced Beta decks from the late '70s through the mid '80s, for example.

        What killed Beta was the shorter recording time, plain and simple. When VHS debuted with its 2 hour recording time, Beta was stuck with a 1 hour recording time. After a year or so Sony introduced a slower recording speed that allowed for 2 hour recording (with a slightly degraded picture quality), but by then it was already too late - VHS was ahead in the market (having then-gigantic RCA onboard as a partner didn't hurt VHS's chances, either). When the VHS camp shot back with their own slower speeds (allowing for 6 hours of recording per tape, at substantially degraded fidelity) it was all over for Beta.

        The lesson here being that people are cheap, and care more about the cost of tape than about picture quality - a fact the HDTV crowd should keep in mind.
    • The Urban Legends page mentioned by other /. posters has a good overview on why VHS prevailed.

      One thing the Urban Legends page forgot to mention was the fact that it was the VHS camp that produced the first major improvement in picture quality for home VCR's with the Super VHS format in 1987; in SP mode it had a resolution of over 400 lines, far better than broadcast quality and almost as good as Laserdiscs. Sony's attempt to fight back with the Beta ED format flopped because no one outside Sony produced Beta ED machines and Beta ED tapes were quite expensive--far more so than Super VHS tapes.

      Today, new Super VHS machines are still being produced, and you can easily buy S-VHS tapes.

    • Re:"good technology outdone by better marketing" (Score:5, Informative)

      by UserChrisCanter4 ( 464072 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @01:24PM (#4150468)
      It wasn't really marketing. As previously indicated, it was Sony shooting themselves in the foot.

      Beta did have an ever so slightly higher horizontal reolution (the way most TV video sources are measured) than VHS. I wanna say 350 lines vs. 320, or something asinine like that. But, technically, it was better.

      For the better majority of Beta's life, though, Sony was the only company who made players. They didn't want anyone else getting a slice of the pie. When companies like Panasonic, Philips, RCA, etc. wanted to make a Beta player, Sony said, "no".

      Enter JVC.

      JVC came up with VHS. it's not quite as good, but they didn't have any real technical disadvantage. But (and this is the big thing), they would license technology. Philips, Panasonic, and RCA could now make a VCR. Now the consumer had a lot of choices: some companies could make stripped-down models, or models with different features, or what-have-you. Additionally, the customers who just have to have all of their equipment the same brand can do so.

      It wasn't really marketing in the way someone wants to think (ads and so forth), it was just a better idea.

      Think about it this way: Apple vs. PC. If IBM's technology had stayed completely proprietary, and Compaq had never reverse engineered the system, there's a good chance Apple or even some other platform would've won. Instead, there are 1,000s of brand-names for PC and still just one Apple.

  • What they *really* want (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rknop ( 240417 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:39PM (#4150010) Homepage

    ...is to kill the Supreme Court Betamax decision, now that they find that they'd rather have the ability of perfect control over media. Maybe they're hoping that by killing the technology the suit was over, the ruling will go away... :)

    -Rob

    • Maybe you shouldn't put words into the mouth of an international corporation. Do you honestly think that they think by not making betamax anymore the court case just vanishes?
  • A few people have commented how this may hurt the TV/broadcast industry.


    Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry
    ... so one would surmise that NO, this won't hurt the TV broadcast industry. It sounds like it is just the consumer level Beta product.

  • Hemos is wrong (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    Sony did not shoot itself in the foot with Betamax. They've been selling VHS to one market and Betamax to another for years. That's called a win-win. Most consumers don't deal with Betamax these days, but it's been a mainstay of professional video production since its introduction. The only reason they're discontinuing it now is that digital video has just recently become good enough to replace it. Sony wisely decided to focus its efforts on beating competing DV equipment manufacturers, rather than invest in both technologies and have to compete with themselves, as well.

    • Re:Hemos is wrong (Score:2, Informative)

      by tinrobot ( 314936 )
      BetaMAX a standard of video production? It's always been a consumer format. Are you thinking of BetaCAM?

      We use BetaCam sp here, as well as Digital BetaCam. Those formats are still very much alive, though DVCAM has put a dent on BetaSP.

    • Beta*CAM* (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArcSecond ( 534786 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:55PM (#4150198)
      I said it once, I'll say it again: BETAMAX != BETACAM. If you worked in video, you would know that. Max was a market failure, period. BetaCam is an industry standard. They have nothing to do with each other.

  • Dumbasses (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Laplace ( 143876 )
    Beta is still used quite a bit in the commercial broadcast industry. Sony was making consumer products on the side, just cause there was still a nickel (truly a nickel) to be made. They aren't making enough nickels any more so the niche consumer product line has been discontinued. Beta is still alive and well in the broadcast industry, though.

  • As I quote from the article.

    "Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry"

    doesn't anyone read the articles these things point to? F*** almighty...

    RB
  • [urbanlegends.com]
    http://www.urbanlegends.com/products/beta_vs_vhs .h tml
  • Sure, they lost the battle for Joe Consumer, but they won the corporate market big time. And while JVC is spitting out VHS systems for >$100 a pop, Sony is selling their Betamax systems for $10 or 20 grand. Of course, nobody outside of Sony corporate knows just how much they've made versus how much JVC made, but I bet the gulf isn't as wide as most people think.

  • Betamax? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xenopax ( 238094 ) <xenopax.cesmail@net> on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:47PM (#4150104) Journal
    I didn't even realize that it was still possible to get anything in a betamax format. Seriously, I'm not trying to troll, but when was the last time anyone even saw a betamax tape for sale?
    • Betamax is widely used in video production. When I worked at a 3D animation school, the students would save all of their work to a master Beta tape.

      Betamax is still huge for people who do video editing.

  • Betamax-Betacam (Score:4, Informative)

    by genka ( 148122 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:50PM (#4150128) Homepage Journal
    Betamax and Betacam formats have little in common. They share the shape of the cassette, but tape are different. Recording speed and layout is different too. Whatever it is now, Beta is doing just fine in broadcast industry. The major types are:
    Betacam (Obsolete)
    Betacam SP (Probably the most popular analog pro video format)
    Digital Betacam (Excellent quality, very slight compression)
    Betacam SX (Compressed Digital, Cheaper than above)
    All formats, except for the original Betacam support not only Betamax style cassette, but also a large one with 3x recording time.

  • Good timing... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:50PM (#4150132)
    Not a bad time to do it. DV has matured enough to absorb the impact. As a matter of fact, I bought a $500 video camera that uses Digital8 and am surprised at it's capabilities.

    I have Premiere ($500ish), After Effects ($600ish), Photoshop ($600), and Lightwave ($1,600) as well. My $5,000 setup (my computer included) kicks the crap out of the TV studio I worked in a couple of years ago where one 3/4th Beta Deck cost around $20,000. The downside is that I don't quite get the color data that beta does. Can't say I miss it yet.

    Price per performance has really changed in the last 5 years.

    I wish I could record TV to MiniDV, though...

    • Re:Good timing... (Score:4, Informative)

      by edremy ( 36408 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:53PM (#4150171) Journal

      I wish I could record TV to MiniDV, though...

      Get a digital-analog bridge and you can. I've been using a Formac Studio [formac.com] with no problems. RCA/SVideo in, Firewire out or vice versa.

  • Yawn. I'll bet there'll be lots of comments on how this is the prototypical example of good technology outdone by better marketing, and an example of a company being stupidly obstinate about wanting to own a system, and shooting themselves in the foot.

    Oh wait...

  • shooting themselves in the foot.

    I'm not sure that Sony shot themselves in the foot with Beta. Sure, it never really took off in the consumer segment, but it was the basis for years of professional equipment. And during all that time, Sony was perfectly happy to sell the consumer VHS VCRs.

    There are lots of technologies that are used in professional settings that differ from consumer grade products. Creating a good and profitable professional product without a corresponding product for the mass market doesn't make it a failure.

  • What about SuperBeta? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tin Weasil ( 246885 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:54PM (#4150186) Homepage Journal
    Years ago (1991-1993) I was working for the Navy Broadcasting Service in Keflavik Iceland. Every week we would receive a shipment of three large containers. Each container was packed with video tapes containing content for us to play the following month on our base-wide television station. The tapes came in "SuperBeta" format from Sony. Basically, the tapes were some version of "BetaMax" but on tapes that were almost twice the width of the standard beta tape. Each tape could hold about 90 minutes of programming.

    The format was great. It produced very nice resolution (which is needed for any kind of broadcasting, due to signal loss.) There are still television stations out there (particularly entertainment for military audiences) that still use the SuperBeta format. I'm wondering if Sony is going to force these stations to upgrade their facilities or if they will keep producing SuperBeta after the demise of Betamax.

    • Probably BetaCam (Score:3, Informative)

      by zenyu ( 248067 )
      This is the format used for old school digital editing cuz it lets you timecode, and has decent quality. It will probably continue to be used for archiving and broadcast for some time to come.

      Basically, these a days you transfer your source material onto beta, then into the editing station, then you edit, then you transfer onto another beta for distribution and delete the material from the editing station. You don't delete the edits so if you need to tweak it later you can get it back from the source material beta. In the olden days you'd to the edits on a low res-version on the computer, then use the edits to stream the right frames from the source beta to the final beta.

      You can use DVC but it is significantly lower quality in my (limited) experience. DVD-R makes more sense for the final these days though. The disks are cheap and play in many more places. I saw a BBC pilot distributed that way a few weeks ago.
    • That's not SuperBeta. SuperBeta was a slight refinement to the Beta format released in the early to mid-1980's, providing a slightly improved picture quality while remaining compatible with existing Beta players. It did *not* use a different format or type of tape. I had a SuperBeta Hi-Fi deck around 1985, made by Sanyo, which blew any consumer VHS Hi-Fi recorder away.

      What you were seeing sounds like Betacam studio tapes, which were produced both in a smaller, Beta-sized form factor (30 minutes max) as well as a larger one that held up to 90 minutes. Betacam was a professional/industrial version of Beta that Sony introduced in the late 1980's I believe. It was based loosely on Betamax, but was not backwards compatible nor would it ever have been suitable for home use due to the short running time of the tapes - especially the smaller ones (though it was perfect for recording news stories).

  • Need some NFO?! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @12:59PM (#4150233)
    Obviously there aren't many videographers on /.

    http://www.dvcentral.org/DV-Beta.html

    Sony Corp.'s Betacam SP format is the standard of comparison of video tape recording formats. According to Sony Europe, more than 350,000 Betacam SP devices have been sold world-wide. The majority of broadcast electronic news gathering (ENG) operations currently use Betacam SP camcorders and VTRs. Virtually all broadcast stations require (or at least strongly prefer) Betacam SP source footage. Most clients of professional video production firms specify Betacam SP for industrial shoots and are likely to require videographers to use Sony or Ikegami camcorders. Although the M-II format from Panasonic Broadcast and Digital (formerly Television) Systems Company (PB&DSC) offers about the same performance as Betacam SP, Sony and Betacam SP are untouchable when it comes to brand recognition and status. As a result, all other video recording formats are ranked as "not up to Beta SP," "equal to Betacam SP," or "better than Beta SP." These comparisons, based on the beholders' perception of image quality, are reminiscent of the meaningless "broadcast quality" and "studio quality" bullet points on advertisements for consumer and low-end prosumer video gear.

    The advent of the Digital Video (DV) format has ignited a controversy among current and prospective users of DV gear. Initially, arguments appeared regarding the "legality" of broadcasting NTSC DV's 480 instead of 483 active lines of video. Obviously, if broadcasting less than 483 active lines was illegal, all U.S. stations transmitting letterboxed movies would have by now lost their licenses. The subsequent controversy, DV's 4:1:1 vs. ITU-R BT.601-4 (formerly CCIR-601) 4:2:2 sampling, has generated thousands of messages in on-line forums, newsgroups, and listservers. This paper represents an attempt to dispel the rumor and innuendo surrounding the 4:1:1 versus 4:2:2 issue, especially as it relates to the "Is DV better (or worse) than Betacam SP?" controversy, and DV compression artifacts.

  • Once and for all... (Score:3, Informative)

    by excaliburdj ( 455864 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @01:01PM (#4150255)
    First off...BEFORE YOU POST EVERONE STOP AND READ THIS COMMENT!!!

    From the Yahoo! article:

    Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry.

    GOT IT? Good. Don't post any more about how the broadcast industry is being hurt by this, or they're pulling the rug out from under them blah blah blah blah.

    Now....on to the purpose of my post. We actually had a couple of Beta VCR's at my house for several years. My significant other enjoyed the format because...ready for this??....the tapes were smaller and took up less storage space (Groan..) But I liked the format because initially it did have better quality than VHS. And, with the evolution of the format, you could record nearly 2 hours of video on a tape, more than enough for a standard movie (Titanic fans, please don't flame me!!!)

    On a little different note...Sony has a little present history doing this. Let me see by a show of hands (wait...no...that won't work)...uh...a show of posts, then, how many people own and operate a MiniDisk player on a regular basis? Anyone following the standards debate on Blu-ray?
    • I use minidisc every day. Instead of loading up a company machine with mp3's (we've had issues with people being... ahem.. let go....) I use it at work for those times when I just can't get away from my desk.

      Like right now, posting on Slashdot.

      I also use it when I exercise... very handy device. Especially the 1$-2$ for 74 mins of music storage.

  • Betamax not Betacam (Score:5, Informative)

    by FattMattP ( 86246 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @01:02PM (#4150260) Homepage
    Yes, they were successful in broadcast...
    I think you are confusing Betamax (consumer format) with Betacam (broadcast format). Betacam is very much alive while I don't think Betamax was ever used for broadcast work. The quality is too low.
  • No more new tapes for me I guess, thank God for that bulk tape eraser I bought then!

    Screw VHS, screw mpeg and screw "PVR", I record what I want when I want.
  • Was that in the '80's the Beta/VHS battle was more of an east coast/west coast thing..with the east firmly in the VHS camp and the west going for beta. Betamax was always a superior format picture wise too...proof of this is the fact that Betacam always outsold (and continues to outsell) the M format in broadcast/pro use. The beta/VHS battle is a model for marketing.,.in that the technically superior format lost to the better marketed one...
  • ATTENTION: In other news today...

    DR-DOS is canceled because of increased competition from MS-DOS!
    Coca-Cola cancels their production of "New Coke"!
    and... (wait for it!)

    Russia admits they lost the cold war! ;)
  • BETA != BETAMAX

    Betamax was an excellent format for broadcast quality on site cameras (as stated in the article)... Beta is also a good format, but not nearly as good as betamax

    • Re:clarification... (Score:3, Informative)

      by blincoln ( 592401 )
      Actually, as others have posted, this turns out not to be the case.
      Betacam is a broadcast format. Betamax (AKA "Beta") is a home format. They have little in common other than both being made by Sony.

  • I had always understood that part of the reason Sony lost the "format wars" was due to their fumbling introduction of two-hour Betamax machines. Supposedly, these machines would not play tapes recorded by the previous generation Betamax machines. I seem to remember that Sony got all huffy about complaints, which drove annoyed consumers looking for longer-recording times to buy VHS purely out of spite.

    On another note - Does anyone remember the tape-stackers that you could buy for Betamax? They would allow you to stack four or so tapes into a cartridge that hung on the outside of the machine and then somehow rotate themselves in and out of the recorder! Can anyone say "Rube Goldberg"?

    :)

    MjM

    I only mod up...

  • Cowboy Bebop (Score:2, Funny)

    by overlord ( 5277 )
    Remember Cowboy Bebop ;-)

    OverLord
  • Long after betamax died in the consumer market it continued very strong in the professional market. Up until very recently quite a lot of TV studios (especially local stations) used betamax equipment. The reason it is being discontinued now is not because of obstinance but because of the switchover to digital camcorders, and video editing.
  • Let's hope it doesn't take this long to get rid of MemoryStick!
  • Oh no! Beta!

    -- Snake inspects his haul, ``Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie'' (episode 9F03)
  • The inevitable Simpsons quote,

    "Oh No! Not Beta!"
  • I and almost everyone I knew as a kid had Beta machines. Why? I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin which was home to American TV (a giant consumer electronics / ugly furniture store). American did "Buy X get Y free" promotions. (Sidenote: For years American's buy X get a bike free promotion made it the largest single outlet for bicycles in the US even though they didn't sell them directly. If you've ever seen an ugly-as-sin, piece-o'-crap "Firenze" 12 speed, it almost certainly traces its lineage back to American.) For a while they did "Buy X get a VCR free." Naturally, these were Beta machines. Beta rentals were available long after they disappeared everywhere else. At the peak of this distribution, one of the trades published a map of the US showing VCR usage by type. The whole country was blue (indicating VHS usage) except for some lonely circles of red in Wisconsin each centered on an American TV store.
  • I used to work for a certain A/V company [cine-med.com] and regularly used betamax for raw footage and portability. Some masters were also on beta. At the time, we used 5 formats: 1" (reeled) for editing, 3/4" for mastering, beta for aforementioned reasons, 8mm for footage (some cameras used 8mm), and of course 1/2" (VHS) for end-user products.

    I guess they'll have to convert all the remaining betamax over now. It would really suck if in the process, the machine broke due to the increase in useage... :) Fortunately, as I last heard, most things were done digitally, so hopefully they can avoid the generational degradation associated with magnetic media.
  • Sony will only manufacture 2000 more betamax machines... wouldn't it be cool to get the last one off the line, and be able to proclaim, "I have the last betamax"?

  • I never owned a Betamax but was involved up close and personal with similar technology model: IBM's Microchannel (introduced mid 80s - same timeframe as Betamax). Superior technology or so they said. IBM sold the PS/2 line with no ISA slots - only MCA. Ethernet was expensive - token ring was cheap (an IBM technology)... once IBM 'had' you, you were at their mercy. Few 3rd party companies would pay the IBM licensing fees for MCA cards except for the server market. Non-IBM token ring cards were like hen's teeth (Madge was one) so moving away without rewring the network was a tough call. EISA and PCI finally put an end to all that nonsense. After that, I never again heard 'no one was ever fired for recommending IBM'.

    After that, I rarely got into RWARs over a vendor's technology. I try to keep my loyalities to myself and my company

    As for Sonys' Betamax, the consumer market is similar in some respects and the network can be an analogy to tapes: If you own 100 beatamax tapes, what are the implications of switching to VHS? VHS is substandard! (I'm thinking about the IBM rep saying ethernet is collision detect - collisions! oh my!)

    I own quite a bit of Sony A/V equipment, including a tv, receiver/amp, minidisk, dvd, camcorder and even a DAT recorder (nice white elephant, that). I went that way because of their single remote technology and s-link. None are propietary formats (despite other posts here, sharp, jvc, kenwood and others manufacture MD). In retrospect, I would have probably been better off with a portable MP3 player.

    Only question is why did they carry BetaMax for so many years? For those with a tape investment, I really think Sony did them a big favor. Not many companies will support their loyalists like that.

  • why my friends care... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sckeener ( 137243 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @03:05PM (#4151447)
    The only people I know that love beta are a bunch of guys with classic p0rn that can't be replaced....

    (don't ask)

  • And in Other News... (Score:5, Funny)

    by trix_e ( 202696 ) on Tuesday August 27, 2002 @03:34PM (#4151707)
    Ford has announced that it will cease production of the Model-T after the 2003 production run. The company cited difficulty in finding craftsmen skilled in sheet metal beating as the primary cause.

    Similarly, the Sperry Rand Corporation has ceased all work on new UNIVAC models. Sales had dropped off in recent decades to the point where the financial viability of the line was no longer profitable. It was also noted that the availability of vacuum tubes played into the decision.

    Finally, The Mayo Clinic has declared that it will no longer offer leeching as a method of treatment for bad blood humours. "We've found that Mr. Moogle's Magic Tonic works just as effectively without the unsightly hickies," noted Chief of Staff Wilhelm Norton.

    Back to you Hemos...

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