Any requests or ideas for Why (INSERT COMPANY OR PRODUCT) Won?

@Steakkiller

Жыл бұрын

Why Nintendo won. Both against Atari and Sega. "Blaming" only Nintendo is probably oversimplified but whatever.

@matt45540

Жыл бұрын

Blu ray would be a natural progression, seems like Sony won that

@haweater1555

Жыл бұрын

​@@Steakkiller The old video game systems companies got nailed by the Great Video Game Crash of 1983, when massive amounts of junk games flooded the market, and the hardware companies tried to add "home computer" functionality to legitimize them. After that, Nintendo intro their system to USA, with sanctioned quality games only available, and no pre-tenses to being a computer (despite being a very popular home computer platform in Japan).

@feuby8480

Жыл бұрын

I'd be interested into why Steam (video game platform) won through physical sales and second hand market. Especially since at start I did not want it, and now, I'm all aboard...

@RaymondHng

Жыл бұрын

Blu-ray Disc versus HD DVD. CompactFlash vs. Memory Stick vs. MultiMediaCard (MMC) vs. Secure Digital card (SD) vs. SmartMedia vs. Miniature Card.

When VHS and Beta were slugging it out, it was essentially a battle decided by early adopters. For my family, the decision came down to which format had the most movies available by the time we could finally afford a VCR, simple as that. (spoiler alert: it was VHS)

@x--.

Жыл бұрын

And the reason more movies were available on VCR? Looks like the studios were making the same bet, Phil made a strong argument.

@incars1000

Жыл бұрын

I'm surprised more people don't know it was complementary products that won the war. The actual video player/recorder was worthless without things to play on it

@rods6741

Жыл бұрын

My father in law paid around $1000 for his first VCR, a VHS unit. He sadly died in the late 80's. He would be amazed by the technology today.

@TylerMcHenry

Жыл бұрын

My family had a betamax in the *late* 80s and I remember being constantly disappointed as a kid browsing at video rental stores, and finding something I liked only to be told we couldn't get it because it was only on VHS.

@originalsusser

Жыл бұрын

No spoiler alert needed there! It was the same for most att. I remember us renting our 1st VCR because we didn't want to spend the fortune needed to buy possibly the wrong one, like our neighbours did... sorry Lynn, lol. In '83 we bought a VHS for same reasons as u & never looked back.

Phil is an OG and no one else can keep up with his style of video.

@dylanlastname6784

Жыл бұрын

He was here before us, and he’ll be here after us

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

lol we'll see

@ow4744

Жыл бұрын

Pretty sure Jake Lafontrelle has a stronger mustache game though.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

@@ow4744 damn it, bested by lafontrelle once again!

@headphoneboy

Жыл бұрын

@@PhilEdwardsInc Love this topic. Please considering covering other format wars: - DVD vs Laserdisc - Blu-ray vs HD-DVD - Minidisc vs CD Also, a retrospective of all of Sony’s failed attempts at launching new formats or standards would be 🔥

Love this topic. Please considering covering other format wars: - DVD vs Laserdisc - Blu-ray vs HD-DVD - Minidisc vs CD Also, a retrospective of all of Sony’s failed attempts at launching new formats or standards would be 🔥

@vylbird8014

Жыл бұрын

Laserdisc was 1978-2001, DVD was 1996 onwards. By the time DVD came out, the failure of Laserdisc to displace videotape was already apparent. Minidisc vs CD is... complicated. You'd have to also include the connections with DAT and DCC, and the music industries crippling fear of any recordable digital medium. HD-DVD vs Bluray though, that's a straight-up format war: Released at almost the same time, coexisting for a period in competition until one achieved dominance.

@senorverde09

Жыл бұрын

DVD was the next evolution in digital home disc media. Comparing that to Laserdisc is like comparing a horse to a car. Now CED and Laserdisc would be a more fair and contemporary discussion.

@I_WANT_MY_SLAW

Жыл бұрын

Streaming killed all of them. Not that I'm shedding any tears. Walmart killed all the mom and pop stores. But now suddenly we're all supposed to be crying that Amazon is killing Walmart? No.

@jordanmcgrory2171

Жыл бұрын

"How PlayStations changed everything", a Phil Edwards documentary.

@susilgunaratne4267

11 ай бұрын

​​​​​@@senorverde09 Dat itself had two varieties: R-DAT & S-DAT. Digital Compat Cassette wasn't popular in consumer markets. Lossy format - reduced data systems all have gone with time except the CD & DVD.

Appreciate the Technology Connections shoutout. Was the first thing I thought of when I saw this video.

@TimurTripp2

11 ай бұрын

His videos are way more in-depth than this one when it comes to the technical reasons. Honestly the record time theory is very plausible as the demise of Betamax.

My mom worked as a TV journalist and we initially went down the Betamax route in 1982. The problem with Betamax was that video rentals didn't have as broad of a catalogie on Betamax as with VHS and often only one copy of a popular movie on Betamax. We switched to VHS within a couple of agonizing years, simply because of the more movies being available on VHS,

@okaro6595

Жыл бұрын

Yes, that is what often happened. It was the second purchase that counted.

When I first bought a machine, I researched and read reviews, and Beta was my obvious choice. I made one final stop to check the selections at Blockbusters. They had one whole wall of Beta, and five walls of VHS. So I immediately disregarded five months of research and reading reviews and went with VHS. (Remember the blank VHS tapes used to be $60 each?)

I remember VHS video quality being pretty good. Then on KZread, people started using the nostalgia VHS filter to make their videos look like an old tape that's been played a thousand times and was damaged. To me, that is a false nostalgia making younger people think VHS format looked like complete garbage and we put up with it. Videos only really looked like garbage when you tried to copy them. The Macrovision copy protection which messed with the gain control causing the brightness to go all over the place. Also, the copy will look worse regardless.

@bubbythebear6891

10 ай бұрын

Old crappily transferred public domain cartoons had that really bad look that people think of VHS now. The camcorder my family had was pretty terrible, even for the time. It reminds me a bit of the faux VHS look. Hell, footage from my mom's childhood looks better than mine. For some reason we used that camcorder until 2015 when I was 12! I don't know why we put up with it for so long. Of course we got rid of it right before it became trendy, go figure!

@acrouzet

8 ай бұрын

Not to mention bad deinterlacing when digitizing which can halve the vertical resolution

@robertromero8692

7 ай бұрын

“I remember VHS video quality being pretty good.” It looked ok compared to NTSC broadcasts on the typical 25 inch TVs of the time, but it’s VASTLY inferior to today’s digital formats, especially 1080p and 2160p. It would look godawful played on a 65 inch OLED or a 100+ inch projector screen. “Then on KZread, people started using the nostalgia VHS filter to make their videos look like an old tape that's been played a thousand times and was damaged. To me, that is a false nostalgia making younger people think VHS format looked like complete garbage and we put up with it.” I think the false nostalgia is thinking that a paltry resolution of 333 x 480 (and 40 x 480 chroma resolution) is remotely as good as 1920 x 1080 or 3840 x 2160.

@Mr_Kenneth

6 ай бұрын

VHS was just fine. Plus It certainly made a big quality difference if you played it in a decent VHS player and telly. I remember loaning out tapes to friends and the quality was shocking when the returned them . Dirty in fact

@Mr_Kenneth

6 ай бұрын

Contrary to popular belief, when you played back NTSC VHS. On a PAL TV, the quality despite being 100 lines less (525), looked fine. It compensated for the loss by centering the image with a little border top and bottom. I used to import the latest VHS movie released before they were on UK cinemas

It's also important to remember just how expensive these devices were. My parents graduated college in 1981, and didn't own a VCR until 1987.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

yeah the prices are mind boggling!

@susilgunaratne4267

11 ай бұрын

Panasonic NV - 300 was the 1st less expensive model.

@Rhomega

11 ай бұрын

Yeah, my parents graduated in 1982. They went with LaserDisc.

@AaronOfMpls

11 ай бұрын

Meanwhile my parents bought a Betamax VCR _and_ a BetaMovie camcorder in the mid-'80s, with part of a windfall from a legal settlement. (They bought new cars in '85-'86 too.) They'd been Sony fans for years already -- _all_ our household TVs were Trinitrons, and many of our stereo components were Sony -- so Betamax seemed like an obvious choice to them. Our _second_ VCR, though, was a Sony VHS model, bought in the early '90s after the _last_ video store in our part of town that rented Beta ... stopped renting Beta.

@kelvarnsen

2 ай бұрын

Prices of actual movies on tape was insane too. My dad owned a small video store that he started in the mid 1980's and I can remember those days him ordering tapes from his distributor and then costing around $100 bucks. Say what you will about Netflix killing video rental stores, the big killer was when a parent could just buy their kid a copy of The Little mermaid from Walmart for $20 and watch it forever rather than having to rent it every weekend.

Wow you managed to not bring up pornography which is what I'd heard won the format war Very classy to read a whole newsletter/zine about the topic, and to avoid the classically cited pornography (I think it's even mentioned in tropic thunder as the reason why)

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

yeah i am classy but i also just couldn't find any good proof!

@JaykPuten

Жыл бұрын

@@PhilEdwardsInc (conspiracy voice) the lack of proof is the proof man And it sounds like something Jake Lafrontrelle would say Completely unsubstantiated, or he'd cite 200Xs tropic thunder as a source

@seanwebb605

Жыл бұрын

@@PhilEdwardsInc Follow up with the Porno Wars.

@NighttimeNubbs

Жыл бұрын

This was the myth I regularly heard for past couple decades in regards to the format war but higher production output makes more sense just not as clickbaity.

@ChrisCooling

Жыл бұрын

It indeed drove the adoption of all home video formats. In the 1970s, the vast majority of titles available at rental stores were all pirated anyway. There was plenty of pornography on whatever you wanted. Cartrivision, VHS, Beta, U-matic....dubbing off copies of movies was one of the first things you learned how to do when you opened a rental store

There were more formats back in the day, that didn't stand a chance against VHS and Beta. For instance, there was *Video* *2000* which was reversible - like an audio cassette.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

yes left out phillips - they made some headway in europe but not enough...

@beetooex

Жыл бұрын

somebody watches techmoan lol

@DrNoxin

Жыл бұрын

@@beetooex If you're old enough, you remember Video 2000.

@fburton8

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, our household had V2000 in 1980s UK. Everyone else I knew had either VHS or Betamax.

@SomePotato

Жыл бұрын

You could even go back further in time and start with U-matic and VCR or even earlier. But before VHS/Beta, the home video market was pretty much enthusiasts only due the price. And everything that came after VHS/Beta was too late to the party.

Excellent music this time! Love the factual-ness on it being down to ALL movie rentals, not just adult movies like some claim. Sony didn’t really ban it like people say.

@Cookie_85

Жыл бұрын

Thats something that always bothered me that people said the adult movies were the downfall of beta.

@jamesslick4790

Жыл бұрын

@@Cookie_85 I have quite a few "adult" titles on Betamax. (For historic research, of course!).

@jamesslick4790

Жыл бұрын

Neither Sony nor JVC had any control over what someone put on either format. Much "adult" content was on Betamax.

what if Phil collaborated with technology connections?

@partywumpus5267

Жыл бұрын

I'd love that, they're of the best youtubers I watch!

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

i was very impressed by that beta vhs test!

@dwarftoad

Жыл бұрын

Loved his really deep dive into RCA CED videodisc. Such a weird thing in retrospect. kzread.info/head/PLv0jwu7G_DFVP0SGNlBiBtFVkV5LZ7SOU

@shaider1982

11 ай бұрын

That would be tight!

I like the cameo of Jake Lafrontel. He should be on more episodes! 💛🧡💚

@matt45540

Жыл бұрын

you mean Divorce Phil

The crossing your arms for the basic cable bit.... god damn you nailed it.

Watching this while having breakfast in town this morning and your line “We’re covering everything from Blu-Ray to Laserdisc to Protestantism!” Made me burst out laughing which got me a few odd looks. Just another great day watching one of your awesome videos 😂❤ Have a great day good sir 😝

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

thanks- likewise!

@ryanortega1511

Жыл бұрын

OK, but how would Protestantism actually fit in to all this? I kid, I think I get the joke now.

@KomradZX1989

Жыл бұрын

@@ryanortega1511 the randomness just hit my funny bone like a ton of bricks lol. It made me burst out a loud “HAHA!” And I look up with people like “uhhhhhh…” *STARE*

@dwarftoad

Жыл бұрын

@@ryanortega1511 Something something, porn on VHS?

@ryanortega1511

Жыл бұрын

I think it's the idea of Protestantism being a "format" of Christianity.

I loved this video. A personal anecdote: I was born in the mid-90’s and, as my mom has never been the type to spend money unless she absolutely has to, I only knew VHS until I was about 10-11. The first DVD player we got was a portable one for road trips. Regarding your “be kind, rewind” throwaway line, I was blown away that you didn’t have to “rewind” a DVD, which, looking back, makes me laugh.

@luigivincenz3843

8 ай бұрын

i remembered the "rewind policy" at Blockbuster. BB eventually removed it because a majority of returns were NOT rewound. I know because I had family who worked for BB. They ALWAYS had a tape rewinder beside them that was working the entire shift because of late returns. I miss Blockbuster. Saturday nights BEFORE CLOSING, you'll see lots of people loitering around just waiting for that hot movie people want to watch, every time a tape is returned thru the bin LOL

One thing to add - in the early/mid 80s, you could rent a VHS player to see a movie. My family didn't buy a VCR until around 1986. Before that when a major movie came out, we'd rent a VCR and invite the entire neighborhood over to see it. I remember being the most popular kid in my class when we rented a VCR and the first Ghostbusters movie. And I remember going to see Star Wars at a neighbor who had rented either a Betamax or VCR. I don't remember which. But it was a big deal to rent a player, not just the tapes. I don't remember anyone my neighborhood actually owning one until the mid 80s.

@silkwesir1444

9 ай бұрын

yeah it wasn't until late 80s, early 90s that they became a common household item instead of being a rich people thing.

Very nice video ! In Europe we had a third challenger : the philips and grundig's "V2000", from 1979 to 1988. V2000 was technically better with an image stabilizer but Philips and Grunding came after the battle, the VHS had already won.

Regarding recording length, the pertinent number is how many cassettes were required to hold a movie. In the VHS world, a double tape movie would be fairly rare and represent an actually long movie. It’s my understanding that a double tape Betamax movie was more common. Regarding recording quality, perhaps that is a matter of the quality of cameras, too. Local news organizations used Beta for a long time after the VHS won out on the consumer side.

@bluetoes591

Жыл бұрын

Later, completely incompatible versions of the Beta tape were still the standard ENG camera recording medium until around 2010 when tape started to be phased out. But still being used today by professionals, which VHS definitely isn't.

@SomePotato

Жыл бұрын

That was most likely Betacam, which was very successful in the professional market.

@okaro6595

Жыл бұрын

In Europe the recording lenghts were different, The standard tape here was 3 hours and the longer 4 hours, with 195 minutes etc. in between. There even was a rare 5 hour tape. With Beta the standard length was 3 hours 15 minutes. On the other had on VHS LP was less common, only on better recorders and EP was very common, only appearing at the end of the VHS era (I have a Panasonic VCR that can record 12 hours on EP on a 4 hour tape. The tape speed in Europe was slower than in the US.

@AaronOfMpls

11 ай бұрын

Though TV news used Betacam, not Betamax. The tapes themselves were (originally) physically the same, but the signal recorded onto them was different and incompatible -- and more suited to TV stations' needs. (Technology Connections made a video not long ago about Betacam and how it differed from Betamax. ...Including optional larger-size cassettes that could hold more tape than the Betamax-sized ones.)

It was a reoccurring theme with Sony. They came up with a lot of stuff over the years that didnt pan out because of arrogance and/or over pricing. They seemed to have learned their lesson though

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

this is the first time i realized i forgot to mention this video was shot on a sony!

@MattPlachecki

Жыл бұрын

Memory Stick, anyone?

yo dude just wanted to say i really appreciate your vids and love coming back to them , you’ve introduced me to topics I’ve probably never look at myself and for that thank u

If they had just named it ALPHAmax... Great video Phil. I really enjoy these videos of brand competition and companies we take for granted. There is usually an interesting story.

One thing I love about your videos is that while being informative, one comedic thing always takes me out. Like I have to pause to laugh and rethink my life kind of funny.

Jake Lafontrelle needs to be a recurring character with his own story arc, Phil!

That's why I jumped on the VHS format as a teenager back then. VHS became a bandwagon and most anyone you knew agreed that VHS was best because that was the machine they also bought. Matsushita brought down the cost better than Sony and that was the decisive factor.

your work is so amazing! please keep it up!

Really loved this deep dive. Awesome video Phil.

When this came up in my feed, my first thought was “yeah, I‘ve been down this road before.” But you immediately made it clear that you and Leather Boy had a different story to tell. Nice job, Phil. And bonus points for “Warner Siblings.” 😎

I still (try to) record VHS to this day. I have a VCR in my dorm and have so much fun rewatching very modern shows on tape and such. Great video and amazing storytelling!

wow man another fire video. really loved VHS as a kid. remember how expensive the family switch to DVD was

lol your acting skills are sketches are getting so better. Good content as always

This was the first format war I remember as a kid. Our family was squarely in the VHS camp but I had an uncle who was very much on the Beta side of the fence. I seriously remember my dad and my uncle having loud arguments about it but I was too young to really know the ins and outs of their arguments. It's because of that format war, that I've taken it super slow with all tech since then.

wow. found this video on a total whim and it’s really well done & researched. good stuff

Next on why blank won: Protestantism

I have to admit, I've watched a lot of content on this topic (and lived through the format wars as a kid), but this is the most comprehensive breakdown to date. I was honestly convinced it was about recording time, but you've covered that really well here. Thanks for this, I feel better informed about a topic no one under 40 would understand haha!

I like what youre doing to my feed, Phil. Great videos

Our family went from Super 8 Heckle and Jeckyl films to dollar store Laurel and Hardy VHS tapes. The REAL war was between whether someone got to play Atari or some else watching a tape on the ONE television.

Saw this come out today just after watching Be Kind Rewind for the first time last night! What a fun celebration of movies and community

This gave me such strong mid 2000s “History” channel vibes. Great job as always!

Great video, and I love all the references in your description, very very good work. I think it's Mat-sooh-shee-ta though :)

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

Thanks! I tried to just copy Panasonics pronunciation video but it's a journey...

I found this channel today and was bingeing as one does, and that first Format Wars Quick Fact popped up. It's weird when you find someone online who is so clearly a member of the same tribe. :) We live in the future.

Enjoyed the trip down memory lane! All I knew as a boy, I was excited we had a VCR and my favorite gift from my aunt was the Ghostbusters VHS which got years of enjoyment! As a child growing up in that era I never correlated how financial clout lead to certain consumer products. Now as an adult, it's understandable, money makes the world turn.

This was really interesting - I'm slightly too young to remember Betamax but I'm familiar with the battle between formats as I remember Blu ray vs HD DVD. It was Sony which ended up on the winning side that time around. I remember my PS3 could play Blu rays whilst my friend's Xbox 360 needed an additional update to play HD dvds.

Our family initially had a Beta VCR and I remember going to our local video store to rent movies. The store itself was very tiny in comparison to what rental stores would become. And on top of that the Beta section was also much smaller than the VHS section. And that's what eventually became the deciding factor for us. My dad eventually caved and shelled out the money for another VCR, this time one that played VHS tapes, so that we'd stop bugging him about not having as big of a selection to choose from on movie nights.

Nice Video. A kind of different take on the format wars!

Loving this channel!

That "basic cable 'history'" satire is just too funny. After seeing that and your calvin and Hobbes video, I'm fully on board with this channel

VHS collecting has come back into style and they are even opening a store that specifically sells only VHS in a near city. I have actually begun collecting, as VHS is nostalgic.

I love to see the vintage ads of the first video recorders. They take me to my young years and to remember the magic there was in those magic machines.

Thanks Phil! ❤

Great attention to detail. Thanks for reminder that the user experience goes way beyond the technology, what is available in the complete ecosystem matters.

my dad was an early adopter of Beta, and all my early home movies are on it. he had a portable beta VCR and a camera with it, and when he was a young man in the 80s, he took that rig on Space Mountain, vcr between his knees, camera on his shoulder. beta was a lot better in Beta I (vs Beta II and Beta II), but Beta I recording was removed as an option for recording fairly early on. also, beta being mono-only (i don’t think it ever had stereo, but i could be wrong?) probably had an impact when people were buying stereos in the mid to late 80s.

@ryanortega1511

Жыл бұрын

They did have "Beta Hi-fi".

Great video sir! I'm obsessed with VHS and Betamax.

@tumslucks9781

11 ай бұрын

I used to be like you. Then I got myself a girlfriend.

Your posts are an excellent pairing with my CBS Sunday Morning watch.

I remember when I was young and vhs was so popular. It felt good to be able to watch movies as many times as I wanted! Never even heard of Betamax at all.

@silkwesir1444

9 ай бұрын

Never even heard it? Ever? Not even in passing? Wow...

We had Betamax growing up and I distinctly remember having to go through the door of the rental shop down to the back and round the corner to find the Betamax rack in a dimly lit corner. It was like one unit to ten VHS units.

I just discovered this channel and I'm so glad I did 👏👏👏 Edit: if it helps, it was the NASA Graphics video that was thrown up on my feed.

Great Video! New Sub; Dryden, MI Atari vs Magnavox... Suggestion, but Imma go see what all you've done. Great Job Again!

@PhilEdwardsInc

11 ай бұрын

never encountered the magnavox story before - pretty interesting!!

Looking forward to Jake Lafontrelle’s “Side Boob Monthly” spinoff.

Great video … my only question is why is there not 500k views on this video ? Completely underrated.

I had a VCR growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, but I never seen a Betamax in my life. I only knew about it existence because of references in shows like The Simpsons

As someone who sold VCRs in the early days (the first Betamax was only available in a console with a 19" Trinitron TV for $2,000.) you pretty much nailed the reason VHS won, but overlooked why so many other manufacturers adopted VHS. Sony, like Apple, wanted total control of the format and actually resisted having other manufacturers make Beta machines. JVC by comparison licensed the technology to anybody and everybody who wanted to make a machine. Flooding the market this way created the snowball effect you mentioned: more people owned VHS, so movie companies released their movies primarily on VHS. Video rental stores mainly had VHS tapes, so more people bought VHS machines. Classic chicken-and-egg feeding each other. As for picture quality, testing resulted in slightly better numbers for Beta, but in a side-by-side in-store comparison, most people couldn't see any difference. Combine a lower price and longer recording time (in the early days) and VHS just steamrolled over Beta.

My grandparents had a Betamax VCR and I fondly remember a lot of the tapes, but they never had more than one wall at Blockbuster and by the early 90s you just couldn't find Beta except for like, the clearance section at Service Merchandise. Grandma and Grandpa got a VHS by 1992 but we still played the Beta tapes up until DVDs came out - they were high-quality cassettes.

I feel so old now, my family's first VCR was VHS and the remote was attached with a wire.

@silkwesir1444

9 ай бұрын

ever seen a remote that worked by making a sound that the TV set would pick up?

I think home videos played a significant role, I still remember (circa 1983-4) that in my hometown had just a couple of movie rental shops with BETA but tens of rental shops with VHS' and the latter had a much larger selection.

Consistently, your content and delivery far outshine the competition.

@PhilEdwardsInc

11 ай бұрын

thanks!!

The story wasn't exactly the same everywhere but fairly similar. In the UK VHS won out because floods of cheap VHS players were available to the rental companies, as in the early days, many people in the UK rented their TV's and VCR's. The biggest rental companies had a deal with Thorn EMI and Philips to supply VHS players for the domestic rental market and the rest is history. My parents weren't well off but Dad liked to buy what he thought was 'The best' and saved up and bought a Sony Betamax (with Video camera setup) in 1980 (there's a tale of him coming home one night from work to find me, as a 2 year old, chewing on a 1hr tape that cost him something like £50+. He ended up splicing it back together and ending up with a 40 minute tape!). We still have Beta home move film from the early 80's that is playable. But as the majority of VCRs in the UK were VHS, the tape rental store only ever had a miniscule selection of Beta titles. That's how I ended up with a life long affection for Flash Gordon. I went in wanting Raiders of the Lost Ark (which I'd seen at my Aunts the weekend before on her Sanyo VHS) but they didn't have it. So I rented Flash Gordon instead. Most of the movies we had for the betamax were either taped from TV or pirate movies I got from my uncle (Terminator, Escape from New York, Conan the Barbarian & Battle Star Galactica). Dad finally caved in 1987 and we bought a VHS (which my brother promptly destroyed by trying to use a skateboard in the living room). But ever since '87, we only ever had VHS until DVD came along and we switched in the late 90's. I ended up having that old skateboard damaged VHS in my bedroom after dad repaired it. Many happy memories of that machine. Beta actually carried on in Japan and units were still made up until about 2000, I believe.

"Thank you for calling your local cable monopoly, how can I help you today?" "Yes, I need whatever channel Phil Edwards is on." "Well, I'll be more than happy to help you with that today. Phil Edwards is part of the Delightful Cable Channel Tier and that goes for an additional $5 a month." "I'll take it! I'm literally throwing my cash at the phone receiver right now!" (everyone laughs, outro Local Cable Monopoly logo build)

A lesser-known format war: VHD vs. CED vs. LaserDisc The disk based format wars predating VideoDisc and DVD.

Sony was well known for attempting to limit commercial adult content from being released on the Beta platform. The VHS consortium was much more OK with spicy content. And thus the Format Wars were won.

Enjoyed this one..👍🏻 Had no idea a competition for VHS existed, let alone something called betamax.

yey! a new phil edwards vid. my life is good today

You explained well. I owned a Betamax and used it for several years, but eventually I had to go VHS. Now, there is streaming. Expensive too in a sneaky way.

College Football, the NFL, and the MLB played a huge part in the success of VHS, as well as the invention of the VHS LP/SP feature, whereby you could record whole Football and Baseball games and watch them when you got home on a weekend.

This is great! I was kinda hoping for some stuff on RCA Selectavision too…that’s another weird 80s home Video thing. I still have one.

Phil is slowly descending into madness and I’m here for it.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

slowly?

Format Wars! lol I love it! Ok now you have to make a video on Monster Truck Rallies. “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!” 🤣 You make the most entertaining, educational, and nostalgic videos Phil.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

if i can figure out how to expense monster truck tickets, i will definitely do it

@contextwithjohnmalone

Жыл бұрын

@@PhilEdwardsInc I’ll get you a hot pass so you can get into the staging area/garage with the trucks and drivers. My email is in my about section on my channel.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

@@contextwithjohnmalone haha shoot! alright i'm gonna do my research and add to my list!

@contextwithjohnmalone

Жыл бұрын

@@PhilEdwardsInc let me know if you have any questions. I worked in racing over 25 years in NASCAR and IMSA and Formula1. My family owned an IndyCar team as well.

The tech specs would have mattered more at the beginning, when it was a cool new technology for early adopters or even a luxury product. (But then price not as much a factor) but once it entered mass adoption then yes, the network effects of movie availability, availability in electronics stores (and which system the stores decided to promote or recommend), what your friends had, etc. would have been the main thing.

Neat! I'd been led to believe for years that it was really just the adult content industry choosing VHS. And that the same thing happened with Bluray vs HDDVD

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I ultimately just couldn't find the evidence.

@SomePotato

Жыл бұрын

It's also a myth for the HD format wars. It pretty much also came down to just shipping units and when the PS3 entered the market, Blu-ray just sprinted ahead. In reality though, DVD still outsells Blu-ray. The public is shifting from DVD to streaming, and only enthusiasts buy physical.

Intersting-we bought a panasonic VHS player in 1980. Betamax did win out however in the broadcast arena. It became the standard for all ENG type stuff and was the go to for laying down all content that eventually made its way across the airwaves in North America and I'm guessing in most of the world as well. I worked in a studio that had at least 5 beta machines in the control room alone. Digibeta eventually became the standard as technology advanced. Though I'm sure places still use it beta-everything is moving towards files that live in the cloud.

by the time i was a kid in the mid 80s almost everything worth getting was on vhs, so my parents got one for me and explained how easy to was to use. i remember seeing friends who had a beta but it was covered in dust even by the late 80s. simply put vhs made itself more available to everyone and won

I'm restoring my grandfathers tube radio currently. Pretty much done all the electrolytic and paper caps and aesthetic repairs. But my point is, it came with its stock Matsushita tubes and I just recently learned all about Matsushita. They made quality components for what they were at least. It's sad that they as well as so many other stopped making vacuum tubes / : The current production tubes available now that I use in my guitar amps are lucky to last 2 years, most die at a year to a year and a half. And that's dispite the fact I go to extreame measures to not run them too hard. But those Matsushita tubes (a budget option in their day) from 1960 are all still working, it's no myth that the quality of our manufacturing in most industrys has considerably decreased unfortunately.

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

The founder has a pretty cool story I'd never heard of. Just cool to imagine a titan who saw the potential of...electricity...and ended up with this empire. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dnosuke_Matsushita

Betamax continued to be the TV Broadcast standard format throughout the 90's and even part of the 2000's.

thank you for the video

Hat backwards Phil is legit the coolest guy in that room!

phil has upped his sound design game. and we notice phil. sound design + great copy + some goofiness = big views

@PhilEdwardsInc

Жыл бұрын

thanks! it's a journey...

This was wonderful. I'd long wondered precisely what happened since I'm from a sort of Betamax island country. The perfect storm of Sony having very longstanding and deep ties to Venezuela (Matsushita and allies never had a real office there, Sony did!), and there just not being that big of a population, meant that we were a Betamax-preferred country all the way up until the early 90s when the machines to play the tapes just flatly stopped being manufactured. My dad recalls scrambling whenever they got a tape from the US with a pilot for something they could potentially license because they only had one VHS machine in the whole building - no one was using it most of the time anyway. He worked as general operations manager for 1BC, the backing company of the biggest TV channel, RCTV at the time, and the network effect was different - in his industry, the integration with U-Matic was obvious, and in the general country, Sony having a real presence drove prices down (since they handled the importing - not the grey market) and increased reliability since you could go to Sony themselves for repairs. Living in that bizarro world means we didn't really appreciate what was going on elsewhere, and I'm glad to finally see just how stark the difference in Matsushita's manufacturing power was, and the effect it had. And similarly: different markets have wildly different needs, and you may not appreciate them until later.

Others consider the deciding factor that tipped into VHS favour was ability to record 3+ hours, for timeshifting sports programming.

Wonderful video! I never even knew about Beta growing up until my late teens. I’ve never watched a beta format video.

Your look on VHS ans Betamax is exciting. Love Movie formats.

You gotta cover the DVD takeover. It happened super quickly and a significant amount of that momentum was caused by one company deciding to sell at a loss. That company went out of business and the CEO got in trouble. They lost incredible amount of money. I wish I could remember all the details but it was quite a thing.

Literally my whole life I’ve seen media joking about the failure of Betamax, so I understand it as a concept, but now have an entire video for more in-depth information. Hell yeah. Thanks, Phill.

As you said, and most everybody knew, it was always a 'war' over marketing strategy - the one with the biggest share wins, whether it's VHS or Coca-Cola. Quality was not an issue at the time, in fact, I don't remember it ever being an issue. That came later and was presented as an example of 'the highest quality doesn't always win' argument.

Back in 1978-80 I worked as a Barman/Bar Manager and thus missed most TV shows aired in the evening and so purchased a JVC VHS for about 600 GB pounds ($4000 in todays money) and the thing is I was the first person I knew to have a VCR, nobody else at work or amonst my friends or in my extended family of cousins etc.,. In the store where I bought the machine there were NO movies available only a VHS tape of Rod Stewart & Tina Turner in concert! There was one customer in the bar who had a video machine but it was a pre VHS a Philips N1500 video recorder and I believe he worked in the film(movie) industry! 😎

A few of the local broadcast news stations I worked for really dug in their heels with beta. To be fair, editing tape-to-tape on beta was really simple (and easy to teach to a novice)-- but we were airing at least a portion of video in newscasts directly from beta decks until at least 2006

@ryanortega1511

Жыл бұрын

You're thinking of Betacam. That's a similar but different format.

Hey, Phil! A little tidbit for you: I saw a video in my feed about a topic I am not interested in, but I (mistakenly) thought it was your video, so I clicked on it. It wasn't your video. The video was fine, but the topic is irrelevant to me, so I clicked away. My point: you're doing such a great job that I'm willing to check-out a topic that bores me-if you made the video. Health and happiness to you!

Good video debunking some myths about Beta and VHS, great knowledge. Greetings

Blu-ray next please... Also, IDK how this might work but I'd love to hear your take on Blu-ray 3D. It's an awe-inspiring format.

I remember my grandma owned a Beta when I was a kid in the 80s and the frustration of going to the video store and having the TINY selection of Beta tapes to choose from.