BETAMAX vs. VHS parallel to Blu-ray vs. HD DVD

[tabbyjt]

most tv stations now use hard drives, no more betamax

[Neo65]

Betamax supporters back then were Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC.
VHS supporters were Panasonic, JVC, Sharp, RCA.

The CE support back then was even. This time around, during launch, Toshiba is the only company building this, every other CE company either had BD prototpes or stayed out. Notably NEC which makes the HD DVD drives and the chipsets now has announced a PC-MediaServer with BD burner (that also reads HD DVD).

CE land was actually surprised that Toshiba still decided to launch when every CE manufacturer already decided on BD to avoid a format war.

[radagast]

Originally Posted by ReduxInflux

when i went back to what happened with VHS and BETAMAX in the early 80's, i found that Blu-Ray's technical superiority parallels BetaMax, but their success parallels VHS. It is the inverse for HD-DVD. Check it out:


"Sony introduced the Betamax home video system in 1975 with the LV-1901 Trinitron/Betamax console. It was the most popular video format in 1983, gaining almost a third of the UK video recorder market, while Sanyo's VTC5000 was the top selling UK video recorder. By 1985, however, the market had turned sharply towards VHS...

The VHS format's defeat of the Betamax format became a classic marketing case study. Sony's ability to dictate an industry standard backfired when JVC, and parent Matsushita, made the tactical decision to forego Sony's offer of Betamax in favor of JVC's VHS technology. They felt that it would end up like U-Matic deal: Sony dominating, and they get the scraps. 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. However, Sony may be said to have had some small consolation in this saga as its Video-8 small-format videotape is essentially a scaled-down version of the Betamax, and Video-8 dominated the home camcorder format for the next 15 years with the rival VHS-C format, until both formats were rendered obsolete by the digital MiniDV standard."


But I was just an infant during all of this, so my knowledge only drinks from the fountain of the textbook. For those of you who have a more intimate understanding of this and how it parallels (or doesn't) our current Blu-Ray/HD-DVD situation, I would love to hear your thoughts...

I was around when that war was taking place. I chose VHS because it had longer recording times. In relationship to now:

bigger storage: Blu-ray over hd-dvd
recording at all: Blu-ray. There are no recordable hd-dvd discs.

So if there is a parallel, Blu-ray wins.

[scott87]

speaking off this i was not even alive when this was going on! so this is alot of intresting reading! i remember having a vhs player about it really!

[SS316SRV]

From where I sit. Blu and HDDVD is not like Beta and VHS. Beta and VHS were two different technologies. Blu and Hdcrap are almost the same technology. We have the better disc, and the players use different codecs, but other than that they are almost the same. It is not like Beta/VHS it is more like Beta & Beta+. Porn is supposed to be a billion dollar business. Just for a second go look at your movie collection and count the porn. Now if you look through your on-line history, I bet there is more in there (no shame in it). The internet has made the home video ownership of porn a passing thought.

[lch]

Originally Posted by SS316SRV

Just for a second go look at your movie collection and count the porn. Now if you look through your on-line history, I bet there is more in there (no shame in it). The internet has made the home video ownership of porn a passing thought.

i have none and i don't surf porn.

[jdsanko]

Originally Posted by JayAuritt

VHS did win because of it's longer recording time, but it also won because the consumers at that time were so enamored with the fact that they could actually videotape TV programs (which, if you're old enough, was an absolutely amazing development to us back in the stoneage) that they completely ignored the fact that the picture totally sucked. I had a friend who boasted about having over one thousand movies on VHS tape - but the pq on those movies, all recorded at the 6-hr speed, 3 movies to a tape, was akin to viewing a picture through a TV screen smeared with vasoline.

I guess I am old simply because I am a veteran of the Betamax vs. VHS war. Unfortunatley I did end up throwing out a significant number of Beta tapes when my last Betamax died several years ago.

The story as told to me was that Sony actually invented both Beta and VHS. They litterly gave VHS away to JVC because they felt it was inferior and had no future.

Record time saved VHS. They were the first format to have a 3-4 hour record time to capture an entire American football game. The rest is history.

Today BD has the vendor support and the best, but not quite fully inplemented technology. Toshiba is trying to win by selling the most players which eventually led to VHS winning. So we will find out what is most important, low prices or media availablity.