Which format war is longer?

[CptGreedle]

I was just curious... but between this format war, and the Beta Max - VHS format war of the 80's... which was longer?

Also, will this format war go down in history as the worst format war ever?
I think so... what do you think?

[stockstar1138]

vhs/betamax its not even close. betamax still had usefullness into the 90s.

this will go down as the most hostile format war, because of the excessive amounts of flaming on the internet.

[tiger roach]

Yeah, Betamax hung on for quite a while.

[CptGreedle]

Wow. So it looks like Beta max war was a lot longer... then which war do you think was worse for the consumer?

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Wow. So it looks like Beta max war was a lot longer... then which war do you think was worse for the consumer?

vhs betamax. right now 99% of the consumers havn't bought into hd media. the 1% that did, only about 1/3 of them got burned. so .3% of the market lost out. all the rest enjoyed their dvds

with vhs/betamax the idea of watching a movie anytime you wanted from the comfort of your own home was brand new. a lot more people bought into the market back then than have bought into the market now, meaning a lot more people got burned. however, price wise this war was a lot easier on the people who lost.

also, in about 2 months everything is going to be on blu-ray. so the format war got itself resolved in less than 2 years. the same cannot be said for vhs/beta, every consumer missed out on something for a long time unless they were lucky and owned both formats (lot more expensive to that back then).

[cawgijoe]

Beta/VHS machines were also used to record......not just as movie playing machines. I had a friend who used his Sony Betamax for years after they stopped printing movies.

[JadedRaverLA]

VHS vs. Betamax lasted FAR longer than BD vs HD DVD

Then again, so did...

LaserDisc vs. CED (and VMD in Japan)
Minidisc vs. DCC
VHS-C vs. 8mm (and Hi-8)
SA-CD vs. DVD-A
DVD+R/RW vs. DVD-R/RW

etc.

Pretty much the only "war" that ended sooner was SD vs. MMCD -- which was settled pre-launch with the creation of DVD

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by JadedRaverLA

VHS vs. Betamax lasted FAR longer than BD vs HD DVD

Then again, so did...

LaserDisc vs. CED (and VMD in Japan)
Minidisc vs. DCC
VHS-C vs. 8mm (and Hi-8)
SA-CD vs. DVD-A
DVD+R/RW vs. DVD-R/RW

etc.

Pretty much the only "war" that ended sooner was SD vs. MMCD -- which was settled pre-launch with the creation of DVD

none of those are really ever got as big as blu-ray will though.

to most consumers those products were pretty off the radar except +/- which everything is combo now, so it doesn't matter.

if you ask consumers in 10 years about format wars. vhs/betamax will be mentioned and blu-ray/hd dvd will be mentioned, thats it for 90% of the population.

i had never even heard of SACD til i got a ps3.

[Metalthrasher442]

I don't really know..I wasn't around for BETA lol.

[jorg]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

I was just curious... but between this format war, and the Beta Max - VHS format war of the 80's... which was longer?

Also, will this format war go down in history as the worst format war ever?
I think so... what do you think?

beta max went into 84

[jopemoro]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

Wow. So it looks like Beta max war was a lot longer... then which war do you think was worse for the consumer?

The video wars, by far. The devices were already into the mass market and many people got burned.

Also, remember there was a third contender, at least in Europe, Phillips' Video 2000. Ugly, ugly...

[sacredchao]

Some news companies still use betamax (digibeta, technically)for storage and archiving, as it doesn't degrade like VHS. They should, obviously, digitize everything, but that's beside the point.

[unreal1080p]

For the record, the VHS vs. Beta war was NOT about buying movies (hardly anyone did that back then) but about recording Television content and forwarding commercials. The overwhelming VAST majority of people rented there movies (99% of Movies on videotape were not sold at mass market prices... i'm talking about 100$ a movie... BACK THEN ). You could easily rent Beta movies (even new releases) in video stores up until 1987.... so, for all intents and purposes, the war lasted 12 years. After 1987, most video stores stopped buying new releases on Beta but kept and continued renting there selection of Beta movies. Prices for rentals were typically between 2 and 3$ and usually video stores had 2 for 1 days on a weekly basis (Tuesday's were I lived).

The cost of "losing" back then was'nt as bad because people were still able to purchase blank Beta videotapes and usually continued using the device to record TV shows until the deck broke (which was inevitable with both VHS and Beta tape decks) and then, rather then getting it repaired, people purchased a VHS deck instead. People were also able (besides new releases) to continue renting there favorite movies on Beta for a very long time (most people did not own movies so if they wanted to watch there favorite movie again, they would go rent it).

I remember renting Beta movies and recording them for "personal use" on my VHS deck until the Beta broke (Macrovision implementation was loose back then)

All the info you need about the videotape wars are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vhs


Here is the jist of it:

- Sony launched Betamax in May 1975

- JVC launched VHS in September 1976

- By 1980, JVC's VHS format controlled 70% of the North American market.

- Large economy of scale allowed VHS units at far lower cost than Betamax units.

- Betamax held an early lead in the format war — but by 1981, U.S. Betamax sales had sunk to only 25% of all sales.

- VHS gained market share due to its longer tape time (9 hours maximum, compared to just 4 hours for Betamax in USA) and JVC's less strict licensing program. The longer tape time was THE defining factor in the format war, allowing consumers to record entire programs unattended.

- By 1984, forty companies utilized the VHS format in comparison with Beta's twelve.

- Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it too began producing VHS recorders.

[blu-ballz]

it was audio casette vs. CD definately

[SNAP]

Sony waited until 1988 to make a VHS player......12 yrs. after JVC

The Betamax vs VHS Format War

Sony's Betamax video standard was introduced in 1975, followed a year later by JVC's VHS. For around a decade the two standards battled for dominance, with VHS eventually emerging as the winner.

The victory was not due to any technical superiority (Betamax is arguably a better format), but to several factors. Exactly how and why VHS won the war has been the subject of intense debate. The commonly-held belief is that the technically superior Betamax was beaten by VHS through slick marketing. In fact the truth is more complex and there were a number of reasons for the outcome.

Sony's founder, Akio Morita, claimed that licensing problems between Sony and other companies slowed the growth of Betamax and allowed VHS to become established. However most commentators have played down this issue and cited other reasons as being more important.

It is certainly true that VHS machines were initially much simpler and cheaper to manufacture, which would obviously be an attraction to companies deciding which standard to back. It has also been reported that Sony inadvertently gave its competitors a helping hand by revealing key aspects of Betamax technology which were then incorporated into VHS.

In any case, manufacturers divided themselves into two camps: On the Betamax side were Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC, Aiwa, and Pioneer. On the VHS side were JVC, Matsushita (Panasonic), Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Akai.

For consumers, the most immediately obvious difference between the two formats was the recording length. Standard Betamax tapes lasted 60 minutes — not long enough to record a movie. Conversely, the 3-hour VHS tapes were perfect for recording television programmes and movies. Sony did adapt and offer various solutions for longer recording, but it was too late. The issue of recording time is often cited as the most defining factor in the war.

One more issue is worthy of note—pornography. There is a claim that adult content was not available on Betamax (possibly because Sony would not allow it) while it was becoming readily available on VHS. Whether or not this was really a factor is a contentious topic. Many sources have referred to it as fact (including Wikipedia) while others have made a campaign of debunking the "Myth of Betamax & porn". In researching this article I was unable to find any substantiated evidence that pornography sales significantly influenced the outcome of the war.

At some point and for some reason the choice of rental movies on VHS became better than Betamax. It is arguable how this situation came to be, but once it happened, there was no turning back. Bitter Betamax owners cringed in their ever-decreasing corner of the video store while VHS owners gloated.

The war was over by the late 1980s, although supporters of Betamax have helped keep the format going in a small niche market. Betamax production in America ended in 1993, and the last Betamax machine in the world was produced in Japan in 2002.

Of course, both Betamax and VHS were eventually made obsolete by digital technology.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by blu-ballz

it was audio casette vs. CD definately

That wasn't really a "war." CD was designed to replace the LP... not the cassette. Audio cassettes were always primarily designed as a recordable medium... not one people really saw as the primary record-label release format.

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

none of those are really ever got as big as blu-ray will though.

to most consumers those products were pretty off the radar except +/- which everything is combo now, so it doesn't matter.

if you ask consumers in 10 years about format wars. vhs/betamax will be mentioned and blu-ray/hd dvd will be mentioned, thats it for 90% of the population.

i had never even heard of SACD til i got a ps3.

Well, we can certainly hope Blu-ray ends up being far bigger than any of those other formats, but at this point that's not guaranteed. (I assume you were ignoring the SD vs. MMCD = DVD example, as DVD is the most popular consumer format in history.)

As for being "off the radar," while many people never got involved in the SA-CD vs. DVD-A format war... many people have a DVD player capable of playing one or both formats. This was actually one of the problems with HD DVD's concept of hybrid titles. Even though everyone can play the CD layer of an SA-CD hybrid... and MANY people can even play the SA-CD layer on their DVD player... very few people were willing to pay the additional price for the SA-CD hybrid discs. Same was always bound to be true of HD DVD/DVD hybrid discs.

[neckedness]

I don't know the longest, but the shortest I think was MiniDisc vs MP3. Poor MiniDisc, I love it, had 3 of them recorders/players.

[Blubaru]

I don't know if you could really call it a war but i would say the LaserDisc-VHS war.

It's lasted over 10 years.

[techyted]

My family used our Sony Betamax until the early 90's, we put all of our videos on Beta. Would still be using it if the heads didn't go bad. Beta quality was so much better than VHS and that is why BetaSP is still used for news channels. VHS won the war because the tapes could hold a whole movie, whereas Beta took a few years to get longer tapes, which was too late unfortunately.

[MaleManGuy]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

vhs/betamax its not even close. betamax still had usefullness into the 90s.

this will go down as the most hostile format war, because of the excessive amounts of flaming on the internet.

Betamax is still used in TV studios