It's weird that all this seems so ancient now. We're only going back 40 years. I was still using VHS to some degree into the 2010's. I had an active video recorder in my setup only ten years ago, but it feels like a lifetime and more since I last played a tape. It's a strange feeling, to think back on something which was a common everyday item and one that I never considered would become totally obsolete so soon. I never thought I'd see the day when the Argos catalogue contained no VHS machines. Nor, for that matter, that the physical Argos catalogue itself wouldn't even exist now. Life has changed so much. And here I am, ironically, talking about it by using the very tech which changed all of it.

@TomiTapio

4 ай бұрын

40 years = 1.5 generations = yes ancient

@ajs41

4 ай бұрын

I still use VHS and DVD to record TV programmes. I just prefer it.

@aeiouxs

4 ай бұрын

A small but curious (at least to me) addendum to your good point is that Charity shops no longer accept - nor even know what - VHS tapes are (at least here in Oz).

@97channel

4 ай бұрын

@@aeiouxs Maybe up until ten years ago here, you could still find VHS tapes in somewhat abundance at charity shops, used goods stores and markets. But you'll not find a single one, anywhere, now. Even DVD's and Blu Ray's are becoming scarce, Physical media is in its last gasps.

@97channel

4 ай бұрын

@@ajs41 I still used VHS up until around 2012, but ditched it when I moved house because I never got 'round to setting the machine up. I've had some very important VHS tapes in storage for over a decade now, I fear that they may have rotted and I'll have lost the recordings. I did have a very expensive DVD recorder, but ended up hardly using it. I have a fondness more for physical media than streaming, but the practicality and convenience has lead me totally to it.

I worked for EMI, developing the world's first CT Scanner. When Thorn acquired EMI, I headed for the door and never looked back. R&D was shut down soon after. It was the death of the UK electronics sector.

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

emi made ct scanner? the one used in hospitals? wow!

We were the first family in our little street to own a VCR, which was Betamax. The very first film we rented from the video shop was Clash of the titans, some time around 1981. The video shops back then actually charged you to become a member. After a few years the selection for Betamax got smaller and smaller until it was basically a tiny corner in the shop with just a few rows of films but none of the new releases. This was what eventually prompted my dad to upgrade to a VHS. Blockbuster video didn't arrive for another 5 or 6 years, but when it did it seemed so huge. My word how things change so quickly.

It's become a cliché to say that Betamax was technically superior and offered better picture quality. But in reality it was virtually indistinguishable from VHS, especially when viewing on the 21-22in TV sets that were common at the time.

@stressball1324

4 ай бұрын

The difference was only 10 lines in resolution, but only if you lived in a country that supported the NTSC format. Beta had three types of Recording speeds, beta 1, (SP) beta 2 (LP) and beta 3 (EP or SLP). Beta was 250 lines of resolution but but only if you recorded it in the beta-1 mode, if you were recording in beta-2 the resolution was cut down to 240, The same resolution as VHS SP. In PAL territories, the beta 1 and beta 3 speeds were removed, so the only speed you could record was beta 2. Another words, there was no difference between picture quality between beta and VHS here in the UK. A lot of people don’t know that because they come from the mindset of the American standpoint of the format wars.

@sandyshine6690

4 ай бұрын

My dad bought a Betamax because it was cheaper than a vhs at the time time of purchase in the 80s but after a year or so it was hard to get Betamax videos from the rental shops mostly vhs 👍🇬🇧

@djsherz

4 ай бұрын

@@stressball1324 Ah you beat me to it! Beta 1 was pretty short lived across the pond as well, I think only the first generation of machines supported it - Sony quickly ditched it when they realised their tape was no match for VHS in terms of running time.

@marcse7en

4 ай бұрын

Exactly! ... I've used a list of video formats as long as your arm. There was very little difference between VHS and Betamax picture quality, and Betamax seemed more prone to drum wear, as the upper and lower drum was stationary (only the heads spin), whereas on VHS the upper drum span, creating an air cushion between tape and drum, and lessening drum wear. Plus, there was a LOT of innovation with VHS; Camcorders, Hi-Fi sound, VHS-C, Super VHS, Digital VHS, etc! ... VHS was certainly NOT the "poor relation" to Betamax! Merry 🎄 Videomas And An Instant 🕗 Playback 📺 New Year! 🤣

@christopherharmon2433

4 ай бұрын

@@sandyshine6690 Unless you were in 🇨🇦, where by law the stores had to support both formats.

Blink and you'll miss it, but I'm glad they also mentioned the V2000 format. It was the first of the three systems to drop out of the format war, though I still remember someone at work at the time who owned a V2000 machine, and swore by it. Barry Fox was right though; Beta at the time did have the edge on picture quality over VHS.

@DeannaAllison

4 ай бұрын

I had a V2000 machine from Grundig. I thought it was the best out of the 3 formats.

@AtheistOrphan

4 ай бұрын

@@DeannaAllison- I remember their remotes used a unique battery that was difficult to find.

@AtheistOrphan

4 ай бұрын

A friend of mine spent ££££s on a Bang & Olufsen V2000 VCR, just before the format tanked!

@analogueman123456787

4 ай бұрын

@@AtheistOrphan - If a company name summed up the 1980s, it was B&O. Their hi-fi was something many a yuppy aspired to owning in their converted warehouse apartment. They were essentially a 'designer label' for consumer electronic hardware. There was however a downside - their gear was VERY expensive.

@hermanmunster3358

4 ай бұрын

Sony first developed U-Matic, but it was mainly used by broadcasters, as the machines were too large for domestic use. Betamax was/is a scaled down version of it, apparently.

Del Trotter was right. That Chinese kid over at Desmond Tutu House was a genius. Now he has a production line fitting adapters to all his Matsuki VCR's. 1:33

My parents had Betamax. School was not an easy ride...

Funny how the whole segment is shot on film, but the very last part is video. Is it a real Betamovie recording? Does not look too bad, although not as good as film. Betamovie was a stop-gap solution until 8-mm launched a year later and crushed VHS-C. Has the BBC used Umatic for news segments at all, or has switched directly from film to Betacam?

I never thought about how the rental industry is the reason home technology was so accessible. I grew up poor and wondered how my family afforded our TV and Stereo system in the early 90's.

I first got a VCR in 1984 and came close to getting a Betamax at first because the prices on them were dropping. I learned that VHS would be the better choice through a couple sources, so I ended up getting a Magnavox top loading VHS with wired remote which cost $600.

@asmrfoodieuk7965

4 ай бұрын

A wired remote? 😳

@NewFalconerRecords

4 ай бұрын

@@asmrfoodieuk7965 Yes, there was a lead that went from the remote in your hand to the VHS.

@thedave7760

4 ай бұрын

@@asmrfoodieuk7965 Wired remotes were great Pause, Rewind, Fast forward, stop, everything you would ever need a remote for that was until the cat started playing with it and pulled the plug.

I had a silver Fergusion videostar as seen at the start of this clip, it was £800 back then, it had stereo sound and long play, cutting edge back then. It still worked after 20 years of use.

I remember (as a teen) taking video tapes apart. I spooled betamax tape into a VHS casing. The sound came through on playback, but not the image (different heads on the machines, I guess?) But I spent my formative years constantly in video shops and collecting video tapes. Then came DVD, Blu-Ray (and now 4K) I still have hundreds of VHS tapes still (pre-certs, rentals and sell-throughs) and a smattering of Laserdiscs. Thousands of Blu-Ray's (which i'm slowly replacing with 4K) I love physical media..will always love VHS (despite it's many faults)

Fond memories of our first VCR in 1983, a top-loading Panasonic NV-366, (rented from Visionhire) complete with wired remote control which my late mother eventually broke by constantly tripping over it and wrenching it’s plug out.

Remember my family's first vdeo recorder. I had just came in from primary school and my mother had mentioned there was a surprise in the living room. Our very first VHS recorder on trial. Thankfully we kept it. It was rental from DER. I learned quickly how to use the maching so my dad, who used to program recordings, got me to do it. It was baird machine with a 5 pin audio output, stereo? Not sure but we left DER and joined radio rentals and we did get the stereo version of the baird machine. If my parents weren't using the video I'd take it upstairs and hook it up to an old stereo system also with 5 pin din. Pre-recorded music video sounded amazing on it. Later it was nicam and I'm sure there were people who managed to put music on video tapes. I was putting a friends home movies onto DVD and mp4. Had to borrow a machine!

Some of those machines were beautiful.

Kids these days don't know what they're missing.. I do. Why, did I tell you about Uncle Albert and Aunt Evelyn's trip to Japan for the flower shows? They filmed the whole thing. A three hour VHS tape, that was. "Who needs professional cameramen any more! You can do it yourself!"

0:45 Factual error there, you would have thought they would have done their research. Beta doesn't run the tape faster than VHS, it's actually slower. The head tip speed is faster because the angles of the helical scan are different.

IMHO the biggest advantage VHS had was recording time. In SP mode it could record for over six hours / tape, (three movies) while Betamax could only do about half of that. This is why when VCRs got cheaper, you started seeing them in dorms / kids bedrooms.

@video99couk

4 ай бұрын

When this film was shot, running times on VHS and Beta were virtually identical. 4 hours on VHS and just a little under on a Beta L830. Actually Beta running times were often longer, because the "normal" VHS tape you would buy was E180 of 3 hours, and the normal Beta L750 usually at the same price was 3 hours 15. Running times were just not the issue.

@christopherharmon2433

4 ай бұрын

@@video99couk Initially, once VHS increased to 6 hours (and the tapes were made longer 8 hours IIRC). It became a real selling point that Beta could not match.

End of the day: Technical proficiency does not mean anything to the average joe. So long as it basically works and is competitively priced then folks will yum it up. Wish we could have seen the Betamax format iterate and evolve. I have a thing for obsolete media formats and the "What if..?" factor. I died on the Betamax hill. Championed the hell out of it. I was convinced that when TV displays evolved in the 90's that we would all see a Betamax resurgence lol... "Blu-Rays are for tourists!" lol...

i was glad to see the back of the tape and dvd..

I sold the first video recorder in my home town. It was a V2000 and it was the size of a small case. The first Betamax I sold was a top loader, excellent picture. The first VHS, not half as good but that is the one that caught on.

@yukisaitou5004

3 ай бұрын

You're probably confusing V2000 for Philips earlier standard which was just called VCR for Video Cassette Recording - this came out a few years before both VHS and Betamax whereas V2000 wasn't released until 1979.

@stephenguppy7882

3 ай бұрын

@@yukisaitou5004 This WAS in 1979.

@yukisaitou5004

3 ай бұрын

@@stephenguppy7882 fair enough, with a lot of the other content on KZread around VHS and Betamax being from an American POV it's easy to forget that uptake was quite a bit slower across the pond.

@stephenguppy7882

3 ай бұрын

@@yukisaitou5004 Whereas on your side of the pond, it is the people themselves who are generally slower on the uptake....obviously.

@yukisaitou5004

3 ай бұрын

@@stephenguppy7882 touché, but I'm on your side of the pond too. VHS had already won during my childhood but my great aunt had a V2000 machine. I didn't see a Betamax machine until I was much older.

The correct format for the domestic market won, the one with bigger longer tapes - VHS. Sony didn't help themselves by keeping the beta format to themselves (apart from some Sanyo branded betas) . Anyone could license and manufacture VHS, and they did.

Thanks good video i still Betamax tapes and VHS tapes today

Before I was born, one half of my family backed VHS while the other backed Betamax. I remember the latter's Betamax sat on a shelf in a cupboard for _years_ without ever being plugged in or switched on, while the VHS machine they eventually bought was used all the time. I also have a whole stack of BluRay discs, but never owned a single HD-DVD.

My first VCR was the Sanyo 4000, which was a top loading Betamax. I bought it in 1983 because it was less expensive at @$360. I bought a Sony SuperBeta later on but eventually went to VHS as it became obvious that only VHS would be supported by software. Sony made the mistake by more strongly controlling the patents for the recording process and not allowing other manufacturers to produce Beta VCRs in fear of quality issues. I live in the U.S.

The legend that is Valerie Singleton. (Just missing Peter and John for the classic triumvirate).

We had a Baird off Radio Rentals when I was young and I still remember trying to tune it in. There was a whole Jack Lemmon film with a lot of white on it that just buzzed everytime there was light on the screen. And the times we accidentally taped over things. I think my brother taped 'OTT' (yeah, the late night version of Tiswas) over 'The Intelligence Men' and I don't think any of us were happy...

Then between 2006 and 2008 we had the high-definition optical disc format war. Very similar, but Blu-ray technology surpassed that of HD DVD and won. In this instance the inferior technology won due to lower costs and longer recording times.

@Hans-gb4mv

4 ай бұрын

Except that it wasn;t really inferior. Go look up some comparisons and you'll notice that the differences are small.

I used a hifi betamax sony sl hf-950 still have it and still works well to copy vhs rental tapes to get around macrovision now it records the odd stuff from a google chromecast with those hdmi to rca

TV Production companies still used Betamax long after it disappeared of the domestic market . I had a Sony C7 and the picture was superb compared with the gritty VHS

@tsmith7146

4 ай бұрын

You are referring to Betacam, a professional format, which is a different format to the strictly domestic Betamax format. No TV company ever used Betamax. Your C7 (like my C9) was roughly equivalent in picture quality to VHS, both with around 240 lines luma and 30 lines chroma resolution. Allowing for Beta1 (which we didn't get in the UK), there was little difference between Betamax and VHS in terms of picture quality.

Video players? To dvds. To online streaming. What a time

Loved our Sony Betamax about as heavy as a Rolls Royce too! Only had to go to VHS due to the lack of rental titles available on Betamax

Interesting snippet of history @Techmoan

we did not have a vacuum cleaner in the early to mid 80's never mind a VCR.

For as far back as I can remember, we always had a video recorder. My Dad came home with a V2000 and a single cassette...he paid almost £50 just for the cassette alone! We then had a Betamax which was a top loader and absolutely massive, but that got swapped for a VHS recorder quite soon after, mainly because there were hardly any films being released on Betamax. My Dad still owns a Betamax recorder and a ton of cassettes with various films and TV shows on... I'd love to know what they're worth nowadays. Thanks for posting this little trip up memory lane anyway....is it uploaded from VHS or Betamax?! 😂

@thedave7760

4 ай бұрын

The machine might be worth something if it wasn't made in the millions. Cassettes are probably worthless as well unless they're rare and mint condition.

We were still using VHS tapes to buy films and TV show releases on VHS and record films and television shows well into the 2000s! When the picture quality is absolutely awful!

@davidcarrol110

4 ай бұрын

Around 2012 seems to be a popular end point for VHS. I still recorded off TV til this time.

i still use VHS tapes to this day..

@nicholaskennedy1748

4 ай бұрын

Same here!

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

Wow.. you have a collection of flora and fauna microbes on the tapes worthy of medical research today i presume ;)

@ME-ke7qc

8 күн бұрын

why lol?

@ActuallyHoudini

8 күн бұрын

@@ME-ke7qc i like the way they look on a screen or tv and they give a beautiful vibe that i believes adds to a lot of movies and shows. i also use them to record off the telly which is handy. it's just easier for me to tape shows when they air than farting about with differant streaming services. it also means i have a copy of the show or movie in case it gets removed from the platform. it's useful to me, at least.

We had a Betamax, SLC6 mk2, it was always breaking down.

7:16 I wish she knew the BMW car behind her in the background will be an expensive collecters item today!

Originally we had BETAMAX and that did not last long so we bought VHS and stayed with us till it went out of fashion.

Philips were at the forefront of domestic video recorders with their N1500 and later N1700 cartridge machines. Looks like they were all but forgotten by this time. It's a shame as the Philips system was very good for it's time. The cassettes were unusual as the tape spools were mounted on top of each other inside the cartridge, which themselves were fairly compact. The picture quality was decent as well. Yet they didn't start the home video revolution in the early 70's, Philips missed their chance and the home video revolution might have started much earlier.

So that's where the Letterboxd logo is from?

VHS tapes had longer run times. The hardware was also cheaper. Movie rentals were predominantly released in VHS format during the early 1980's. Betamax didn't stand a chance.

@video99couk

4 ай бұрын

Wrong. VHS and Beta running times were almost identical, not enough to make a difference. And the cheapest machine on the UK market in 1984 was the Sanyo Beta VTC5150 at £239.95 (I bought one). The biggest selling machine in 1983 was the Sanyo VTC5000, outselling every VHS model.

Let’s not forget the Philips format. We hired a video camera back in the early 80s which had tapes of that format. Also, in the 90s/00s, there were loads of different formats of video camera tapes. Very annoying. Best to stick to VHS!

@video99couk

4 ай бұрын

Camcorder tapes were smaller, and there were five formats in the end: VHSC (generally regarded as junk) and SVHSC, Video8 and Hi8, minidv and micromv. Best not to stick to VHS because then you got a VHS to VHS copy when editing, which was garbage. Much the best was miniDV, but that was from the late 1990s.

My moneys on Betamax 👍🏻

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

ok youve lost it all..

@secretagentbloke

4 ай бұрын

@@fidelcatsro6948 well, at least I have my Blockbuster shares to fall back on…..

No guesses which format won.

@ActuallyHoudini

4 ай бұрын

i still use vhs to this day, betamax is just a pain in arse more often than not although i do often find it useful in arcival work. but apart from that, not much i can say about it.

@davidcarrol110

4 ай бұрын

​@@ActuallyHoudini Do you record non-HD broadcasts. It's great to hear that a few still use VHS.

@ActuallyHoudini

4 ай бұрын

@@davidcarrol110 I have a DVB box directly into my VCR. As the DVB box was made before the introduction of HD DVB, then no. But it wouldn't matter as VHS tapes are SD. I'm in the UK so the tapes are at 576p at 25fps in digital terms.

@davidcarrol110

4 ай бұрын

@@ActuallyHoudini Thanks for in-depth reply. Vinyl records have had a mini revival in recent years so I hope-naively- that VHS may come back. Streaming and online is good but it is sometimes good to have something tangible for keepsake.

Another historical fact was that people down south worked in factories, not from home.

Don’t forget Philips V 2000 double sided tapes

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

Wow they had those too?

For those too young to understand this. Betamax- Myspace VHS-- Facebook DVD - TikTok

It is always beautiful when the British properly pronounce German company names. A quality the Americans lack altogether.

For the record at one point I owned a top JVC ( HR 725 if I recall correctly) a Beta C9 and a Sony EVS 1000 Hi 8. The Beta WAS the best and even better with Super Beta (950) saw a demo of ED Beta which few people have - DVD quality YEARS before DVD - sadly never sold in the UK. 8mm crushed VHS - C (yes I had both) which was always a bit rubbish.

@tsmith7146

4 ай бұрын

I bought a Sony C9 on release in December 1982 for the princely sum of £699. It looked fantastic (design-wise) did have perfect freeze frame and slow mo but unfortunately had design flaws - Beta heads were more susceptible to wear than VHS heads and the front loading mechanism on the C9 is prone to break. Overall my C9 lasted nowhere near as long as any VHS machine i ever owned. Resolution of a colour image is made up of luma (b&w) and chroma (colour) resolutions. They are both equally as important in the quality of a colour image. You make the mistake of looking at luma resolution only. ALL domestic analog vcr formats (VHS, SVHS, Beta, SuperBeta, EDBeta, V8, Hi8 etc....) have around 30 lines chroma resolution. DVD has around 205 lines chroma resolution - from a colour perspective and overall image quality, EDBeta is nowhere near the quality of DVD.

There was a good reason video recorders took off well in this country as anyone like myself who was around in 1983 will confirm, TV was crap back then!

@veneration1

4 ай бұрын

Or you could argue TV was so good people wanted to record lots of it.

Ok, im finally letting go of Betamax and I will heavily invest im this new HD-DVD technology

BETAMAX 4 LIFE, we all know it was better Rest in peace king 🙏🙏

Miss you Beta Max

VHS machines were launched in australia in 1981

With the Betamovie tape path layout basically wrapping completely around the drum the redesigned writing process with the video drum all to compress thre size of a standard mechanical deck now there was some great thinking and design to pull that off plus making the camera much smaller than a vhs one. Two what ifs: Would the smaller deck designs have probably have lead to smaller vcr machines. Were Hi-Fi heads have been possible keeping in mind the smaller head size + the added electronics board circuitry? One benefit the Betamovie design did have is that it did lead to similar smaller designs in later formats of portable consumer cameras.

If only they'd named it AlphaMax

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

or Charlie Max!

Betamax format was developed in to Betacam, Betacam SP and Digibeta which saw use in the professional television industry for nearly two decades after. Far outliving VHS.

@jamesm90

4 ай бұрын

No the Betamax format had nothing in common with betacam or betacam sp, these were broadcast formats and cost 50 times that of a Betamax. They had similar cassette shells that's was all.

@shepthedoguk

3 ай бұрын

​@@jamesm90The smaller betacam tapes were the same dimensions as betamax so it did have a slight bit in common. But that's it!

Doesn't matter which format ultimately won. You could at least keep your memories in physically retrievable forms. It takes just a few presses of the wrong buttons on an iPhone or laptop these days to erase its entire memory. Think of how much is being documented in the world these days and imagine all of it being wiped out in seconds. Tape recording and CDs should have remained. And now instead of owning the videos and songs you buy off AppleTV or Hulu or Netflix, you're only buying the right to watch it, not the movie itself. Capitalism strikes in the most evil ways.

Was this video filmed on Betamax?

@DyenamicFilms

4 ай бұрын

16mm film except for around 7:07

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

naaaah they used a 2010 nokia c11 camera qwerty smartphone teleported from the future to 1983 back then..

Fortunately, SONY did not want to accept the conditions of the English equipment rental market. As a result, many Betamax devices have survived because they were not disposed of by rental companies.

Everyone now use Smartphones to record videos?

5:46 - Sony is always obsessed with people recording themselves playing golf for some reason.

@aeiouxs

4 ай бұрын

Japanese Salarymen are to blame!

@davidcarrol110

4 ай бұрын

A lot of people who watched these tapes were not golfers but liked to see a hole in one.

That fella seemed obsessed with peoples 21 year old daughters

@sirmoanalot3779

4 ай бұрын

Bill, defo has a fixation there

@halfbakedproductions7887

4 ай бұрын

Maybe he had a 21 year old daughter and was speaking from experience.

@roblough3314

4 ай бұрын

😂

@davidcarrol110

4 ай бұрын

That particular scenario was very common in a lot of Betamax films.

Great work Sony - buy our expensive Camcorder to get your 21 year old daughter to film your golf swings, then buy our expensive Betamax Player for the privelage to watch the results. I'll bet you ¥10,000 that Japanese salarymen wrote that Golf/Daughter line!

Sony lost the battle with Betamax but won the war with blu ray.

@swaneknoctic9555

4 ай бұрын

Not forgetting Hitachi, HP, JVC, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, and TDK. All part of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

@sie4431

4 ай бұрын

It's a common misconception that Sony made Blu-ray, it's a format of the Blu-ray disc association, partly thanks to supporters of the rival format in that format war trying to convince people of that. Ironically that format, HD-DVD, was solely promoted by Toshiba

@dvsxavier

4 ай бұрын

@@swaneknoctic9555 Sony owned the patent. And they were aware to forge alliances to promote the blu ray format. It also was helpful that all their playstation gaming system had it. HD-DVD didn't really have a chance.

The problem with Betamax was it didn’t have enough room on the tapes to record more than one film per tape, and in the late 70’s and 80’s due to the cost of constantly having to rent films out of the rental shops to watch them, when a film they liked and rented a lot came on telly people would want to tape it and keep it, and with the advent of VHS inventing a long play video machine that could turn a 3 hour tape into a 6 hour tape and a 4 hour to an 8 hour, that meant people could fit a few more films on the tapes and so it was good economically! And that’s where Sony fell flat on their bum, because their machine and tapes couldn’t do that!!!!

Betamax had far better picture and sound quality over VHS.

@tsmith7146

4 ай бұрын

No it didn't! The picture quality urban myth has been objectively debunked by an excellent technology connections you tube video. When Beta was first introduced in the US, it was Beta1 and 1 hour max. When VHS was introduced it was 2 hours max. At this point, Beta had a better picture - because it effectively had double the writing speed. Sony then halved the speed and stopped Beta1 - giving us Beta2, which we got in the UK - both Beta2 and VHS have around 240 lines luma resolution and 30 lines chroma resolution i.e. very poor compared to anything today. Original linear sound on both Beta and VHS was very poor - until HiFi was introduced on both and sound was excellent on both.

@Dovith

4 ай бұрын

@@tsmith7146 Don't believe everything you see on KZread.

Whoever brought hair clippers to the mass market deserves the Nobel prize.

She starts of using the American pronunciation for Betamax (Baytamax) but eventually realises the proper pronunciation is BEETAMAX We used Betacam at the BBC for decades because guess what? It was a better system.

@sie4431

4 ай бұрын

Betacam SP was the industry standards and it didn't matter if it was more expensive or couldn't payback or-recorded tapes

@TinLeadHammer

4 ай бұрын

As a pro you are supposed to know that Betacam is a completely different system than Betamax and cannot be compared to VHS.

@video99couk

4 ай бұрын

@@TinLeadHammer But it's worth noting that the VHS derived pro formats MII and D9 were a disaster, whereas the Beta derived formats were a huge success.

I was firmly Team V2000 🎉

Betamax led to betacam though which was used until 2016. In fact, this video was probably filmed on betacam.

@ModeMan101

4 ай бұрын

It would have been produced very shortly before the BBC switched from film to tape for their location shooting on programmes like this one, probably due to budget and equipment availability. This could even be one of the last examples of a film-based segment in the archive.

@DyenamicFilms

4 ай бұрын

Betamax is a consumer format. Betacam is a professional format. Betacam cameras cost $80,000 back in the 80's into the 90's.

Dear Val, it was easy access to PORN not movies, not footie that fueled the UK boom. SONY helped JVC (Matsushita) develop VHS and earned a % from each and every machine made ! Crazy - but TRUE. Beta went on to be a fully professional system whilst after the boom VHS died....Crazy - but TRUE.

@tsmith7146

4 ай бұрын

The failure of Betamax and success of VHS in the UK (as everywhere else) was because JVC freely licensed VHS whereas Sony didn't - other than to Sanyo and Toshiba. This alone drew more manufacturers (Matsushita) etc... to take on VHS which meant the vcr rental market then adopted VHS etc... everything followed from Sony's catrostrophic licensing error. Nothing to do with porn - just another urban myth. Sony had nothing to do with VHS - totally a JVC invention. Maybe you are getting mixed up with UMatic? Betacam was a professional system - Betamax was strictly a domestic system. Betamax never became a fully professional format - the 2 are totally different formats with the only connection that they use the same sized tape housing.

@michaelwhiles5282

4 ай бұрын

@@tsmith7146 Yes Sony got it wrong, I'm not suggesting they did not - as for the subject material I'll stand my ground - without being rude, you had to be there or if you were and didn't notice you must have been living under a rock ...... it was no myth.

@tsmith7146

4 ай бұрын

You make the mistake of letting your opinions get in the way of fact. The excellent youtubers Oddity Archive and Technology Connections back up the point that there is no data to support the "opinion" that porn was the cause of VHS winning the format war. I was there - right from the beginning in the UK! Rumbelows/Radio Rentals etc... stocked VHS machines and in the early days, machine rental was massively taken up in the UK. There were always more VHS machines on sale in the UK because a larger degree of manufacturers took on VHS (because of JVC freely licensing it). This is all factually verifiable. Nothing to with pornography! In summary, the cause of VHS winning the format war was there being more machines produced by more manufacturers - an effect of which is of course that consequently more taped content was sold/rented on VHS than Betamax. VHS was invented by JVC - Sony had nothing to do with it - again, a verfiable fact. You seem to keep spreading misinformation - as on another thread on this youtube video where you make claims about the picture quality of EDBeta vs DVD but only look at luma (b&w) resolution and ignore chroma (colour) resolution - DVD has chroma resolution of 205 lines whereas all domestic analog vcr formats (including Betamax, EDBeta, VHS and SVHS) have 30 lines chroma resolution i.e. very poor. Overall, for a colour image, even allowing for EDBeta's fantastic luma resolution, DVD is far superior in quality to EDBeta because of far superior chroma - again, fact based data that can easily be verfied; nothing to do with "opinions".

I wish some people in this video would pronounce Betamax the right way. Baytamax, not Beetamax.

@video99couk

4 ай бұрын

Not in the UK it isn't.

@zx50

4 ай бұрын

@@video99couk I've just looked up how to pronounce it on Google and yeah, it is Beetumaks for British. Seems every time I've come across that pronunciation it must have been the American one.

1983: Hair Wars - 2:31 versus 3:35 versus 3:56

@robertyboberty7495

4 ай бұрын

Yes the barbers risked being obsolete before Betamax.

This is how we watched porn back in the day kids

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

why would you want to watch corn? theyre grains used for eating right?

@onlyme219

4 ай бұрын

@@fidelcatsro6948 I didn't mention corn, you did, and that's after an edit, you're funny :)

The market for VHS VCR's never really reached saturation point. Because as more manufacturers were licensed to produce the machines, the machines became cheaper, and were built down to a budget, so they quickly became non repairable, economically at least. And most were replaced after two or three years. They became "Designed to Fail" ensuring a steady turnover for the manufacturers. Even machines from JVC, the VHS pioneers had a shortish shelf life. And even their S-VHS machines, of which I owned TWO myself, were often problematic, and didn't last as long as expected. Sony really did plough most of their resoursces into building a QUALITY product, with many of their early Beta machines, still in use today. The same can't be said if their VHS machines. I guess after the slow uptake ofvthe superior Beta format, their hearts were probably not in it, where VHS was concerned. Even though their early VHS machines were really good, with many useful features, such as HiFi stereo, with audio recording level controls, audio level meters, audio dubbing etc. And the audio quality you could achieve with a HiFi VCR, is better than just about ANY cassette deck, approaching CD quality, but because it is Analogue, the sound produced is more rounded, and warmer than CD generally. Imagine the sound of Vinyl, without the pops, scratches, and rumble from the turntable motor. Most VHS machines that still exist, are just piles of junk, with transport issues that chew your tapes, or just spit the cassette out for no apparent reason. They can be fixed, but repairs are often down to really obscure faults, that take time and money to put right, such as the "Mode Switch" that often gets gummed up over time, rendering your machine inoperable. So today, I would steer clear of a VHS machine, and buy a Beta machine, if you really must have a tape based video recorder. Otherwise, just go for an HDD connected to your TV instead. Then at least you can make perfect archive copies of your recordings via VLC Media Player, and a computer.

@TinLeadHammer

4 ай бұрын

Stop the "warm rounded analog sound" BS. As for VHS VCR repair, there are many YT channels showing that it can be done. Most issues arise from broken belts, cracked plastic gears and leaked capacitors - nothing that a skilled tech cannot fix.

@hermanmunster3358

4 ай бұрын

@@TinLeadHammer Listen, Princess, I am speaking from experience. Now shut yer trap, put yer butt plug back in, and sit yourself down for tea, ok cup cake!

@TinLeadHammer

4 ай бұрын

​@@hermanmunster3358Experience with butt plugs, this is what you seem to have a lot of. Who am I to judge, to each their own. But don't pretend you know how digital audio works.

@hermanmunster3358

4 ай бұрын

@@TinLeadHammer Ok Turd Bandit, whatever you say 🥱🥱🥱

VHS won the battle because of porn. True.

@tsmith7146

4 ай бұрын

Incorrect. Another Betamax "urban myth". By far the biggest reason VHS won was that JVC freely licensed VHS to other manufacturers from the start whereas Sony was very selective (Toshiba and Sanyo bizarrely named "Betacord" being a few exceptions) and arrogant in their thinking about their product. This disastrous policy by Sony meant that more VHS machines were made by more manufacturers, leading to vcr rental companies taking on VHS, leading to a greater market share - and everything else followed. Sony were always very clever technically but underestimated JVC and VHS. Another example is Video8. They spent all that money creating a new format - but JVC had VHSC, which had the advantage of being able to be played back (with an eventual cassette adaptor) in a standard VHS vcr. The product placement of JVC's first VHSC camcorder in "Back To The Future" was a masterstroke.

@davidcarrol110

4 ай бұрын

Do you still own any VHS tapes?

The porn industry literally saved VHS and destroyed Betamax at the same time.

This is a lesson from history that supposed geniuses like Elon Musk haven't learned. It's not about what you think the public wants...

Behold the rise of the porn film industry

@halfbakedproductions7887

4 ай бұрын

Of course back in those days there were actual pornographic cinemas you could go to.

VHS or Betamax LP or CD X-Box or Playstation Blu-Ray or HDR Apple or Android Who wins? Marketing people, that's who.

@fidelcatsro6948

4 ай бұрын

cat or mouse!

@video99couk

4 ай бұрын

Let's add MD or DCC (with some DAT on the side), DVD-R or DVD+R (with some DVD-RAM on the side), and the VHS / Beta should have some V2000 on the side too.