This video is part two of an exploration on
why Sony’s Betamax video recording format
lost to the more ubiquitous VHS.
We were comparing these two machines, and
we saw how Sony had introduced BetaScan, but
they had overlooked something.
Here comes a link to get to part one.
We left off with me saying that this machine
falls flat on its face.
What’s most important to consumers is
the machine’s
flexibility at recording shows.
And here’s where the Sony machine falls
flat on its face.
See, that’s where we left off.
Now,
In addition to spending time and resources
making new features that the buyer didn’t
know they needed, Sony also seemed to just
keep flailing their arms about and making
stupid decisions about other basic necessities,
and it shows in this model.
Initially, they thought things like timers
were silly features to include in their machines.
As Marc Wielage and Rod Woodcock recall in
their piece The Rise and Fall of Beta, one
Sony executive, when asked why his machines
didn’t include a timer when the competition
did, explained that “Having separate timer
allows the consumer to use it for other purposes.
And not everyone needs timer.
We do not force you to buy one.”
Yeah, no.
While it sounds noble, the whole damn point
of a VCR is to time-shift, recording things
when you’re gone.
That’s not possible without a timer.
So selling it as an add-on is only going to
piss people off and look like a money-grab.
Great job, guys.
While they did come around and include a timer
in most of the models, the timer wasn’t
nearly advanced as what the competition offered.
The Sony unit has a 3 day, 1 event timer.
Take a look, programming is pretty simple,
you just hold down the program button and pick
a time.
Then you select what day, either today--tomorrow,
or the day after tomorrow.
And lastly you choose how long you want it
to record for.
Once you’ve punched that in, you select
the channel you want it to record, hold down
the record button, and move the power switch
to timer.
Not too difficult, but also not too impressive.
Let’s hope you’re not gone longer than
just a weekend.
And let’s hope there’s only one program
you want to record.
The RCA model, meanwhile, has a 4 event, 7
day timer.
And it’s actually less frustrating to program,
as you don’t have to hold a button down
while making adjustments at the same time.
Turn the selector from manual to program,
then select which program, a, b, c, or d,
you want to input.
First, you pick the day.
0 is today, 1 tomorrow, 2 the day after tomorrow,
etc.
I’ll admit, that’s not as easy to work
out as Sony’s in-your-face wording.
But it’s way more capable--Also, A means
it will record every day.
That means one program can actually create
multiple daily recordings, which is pretty
neat.
This lever switches between the start time,
and how long you want it to record.
So, say I want to start at 4 PM, and record
for an hour and a half.
Set the time to 4, turn this to select the
length, and then 1 hour thirty minutes.
This is more versatile than the Sony, as you
might want it to start recording a minute
before your show starts and stop a minute
afterwards to make sure nothing is missed.
You’re not limited to thirty minute increments
like here on the Sony.
But the most important way this machine kicks
the pants off the Sony is here.
Notice how the channel is flashing.
It wants you to select it.
That’s right, the RCA machine will change
channels for you.
So, the Sony has BetaScan, but the RCA can
record for 6 hours, on 4 different programs
over a week, and even change channels for
you.
Which one would you buy?
Sony just didn’t seem to get it.
They released this device with virtually no
regard to how their buyers would actually
use it.
The reason people flocked to recording time
wasn’t simply that they wanted the machine
to be able to record a very long program like
a football game, it was also that they wanted
it to be able to record a lot of different
programs.
A six hour recording time means 3 one hour
shows and an entire weekday lineup of half-hour
daily programming could be recorded on a single
tape with room to spare.
But to do that automatically, you need a timer
that can start more than just one recording.
So while Sony caved and produced the Beta
3 speed, it was rather obtuse to not also
add a complicated timer that can manage more
than one program.
Now to be fair, this RCA machine was probably
a little more expensive than the Sony.
Poking around online shows that the Sony retailed
for, are you sitting down?
One thousand 2 hundred fifty dollars, eek,
and although I don’t have a firm price for
the RCA model, this price chart from Popular
Mechanics shows the Panasonic PV-1600, probably
the exact same machine internally as this
one given its features, at $1295.
But, this is for the absolute whiz-bang most
complicated VCR on the market.
As their ads proclaimed, nobody gives you
more VCR than RCA.
But what about lesser-models?
Remember, I said that jumbled mess of how
this machine came to be made was important.
That’s because JVC was super-OK with other
companies paying them a licensing fee to make
their own VHS machines, and tons of companies
offered VCRs from the most basic machines
with a mechanical clock-timer to the crazy
advanced ones like these.
This meant there was a lot of competition
between manufacturers, and prices for VHS
machines tended to stay lower than their Beta
counterparts.
A VHS model sporting a 3 day, one event timer
like this Beta model may have cost a few hundred
less, in fact this chart shows a Panasonic
unit available for 995, although it can’t
record at the SLP speed (not that it mattered
all that much as a T-160 at LP was still more
recording time than an L-810 at Beta 3).
Now, sony did eventually come around and produce
Beta machines for others, for example Sony
produced some machines under the Zenith name,
and they didn’t all out refuse to allow
licensing--Sanyo and Toshiba both made Beta
machines later on, as well as others.
But the menagerie of VHS VCRs to choose from
kept manufacturers in a price war with each
other, and thus it was very common for a similarly-specced
VHS machine to cost hundreds of dollars less
than a Beta model.
Was sony completely wrong to avoid licensing?
Perhaps not.
The price war amongst VHS manufacturers meant
they had to cut costs to compete with each
other, and thus the machines tended to be
less well made than Beta machines, with some
cut corners.
But usually they were just as reliable as
Sony’s machines, and details like a dampened
cassette drawer and soft-touch buttons don’t
mean much to the shopper if you can save a
few hundred bucks by avoiding them.
Plus, the intense competition between VHS
manufacturers meant they had to compete with
each other on features as well, so these companies
were quickly learning what features mattered
most to consumers, like decent timers, whereas
Sony just kept chugging along doing their
thing without stopping to ask what the consumer
actually desired.
So again, which one of these would you buy?
This RCA unit, with its extremely versatile
timer and 6 hour recording time, or this Sony,
with its one event timer, 4.5 hours recording
time, and nice eject mechanism?
Oh, and don’t forget BetaScan!
But my favorite detail about this machine
in particular is the recording speed selector.
Notice how it chooses between Beta 2 and 3.
Where's 1?
Sony basically admitted, in 1979, mind you,
they effed up by proclaiming, well we know
beta 1 is useless, so let’s just not let
you use it anymore.
This was only 4 years after the entire format
was released!
This model has a switch to let you use Beta
1, but it’s located on the back under this
cover cause they really just don’t want
you to think about it anymore.
This is particularly hilarious because the
Beta 1 speed offered a slightly better picture
quality than VHS SP, which led many people
to sing praises about Beta’s better picture,
but since Beta 2 became the standard it was
essentially like recording on VHS LP all the
time, so the quality became pretty similar,
in fact
you could say Beta
2 looks--and sounds, given the slower linear
tape speed on non-hifi machines) slightly
worse than VHS SP.
We interrupt this program for a quick message:
OK, you can’t say things like that without
some people losing their minds in the comments.
Here’s some footage recorded on a VHS VCR
at the SP speed.
OK, now here’s the same footage on Beta
at Beta 2.
Now here they are side by side.
I will admit that this is using a newer VHS
machine than the Beta one,
not that this is a huge surprise given VHS machines were made long after Beta machines
and the Beta machine isn’t in perfect shape.
But it still looks pretty similar.
Oh, and sound.
Here’s a clip from VHS SP.
Now Beta 2.
So, decide for yourself.
I’ll upload another video with all of this
footage and details on my methodology.
And a little card will be appear right about
now if it’s ready.
Personally I don’t see a difference, and
technical data is remarkably similar between
the two.
But I’ll stay out of this, go ahead and
argue amongst yourselves, if you please.
So, in 1979, just 4 years after its release,
Beta was struggling to justify its existence.
Now you might think that Sony would try and
find a way to differentiate beta from VHS
to give a concrete reason to buy a beta machine.
And try they did.
But every time they offered a new feature,
either they went about it in the complete
wrong way and shot themselves in the foot,
or VHS just copied it.
For example:
In 1983, Sony released Beta HiFi.
Look at us!, they said, CD-quality sound on
videotape!
VHS will never match that.
Guess what.
They did.
In 1984.
Then, in 1985 Sony released SuperBeta, a slightly-better
picture quality standard boosting image quality
by shifting the Y carrier, whatever that means.
VHS will never copy that!
Guess what?
They did, creating the VHS HQ standard.
To be fair this wasn’t nearly the improvement
that SuperBeta was, particularly since many
manufacturers resisted its implementation
due to cost and JVC was forced to reduce the
minumum specs for it, but still.
Interestingly VHS actually far and away leapfrogged
SuperBeta with the introduction of SuperVHS
(I wonder where they got the idea for that
name), or S-VHS in 1987.
S-VHS was almost a 60% increase in resolution
over standard VHS, much more than the 20%
improvement achieved by SuperBeta.
Sony wouldn’t match that until the next
year with Extended Definition-Beta, actually
called ED-Beta, a fitting name given how difficult
it seemed for Sony to produce a meaningful
rise in sales.
Really, though, both SuperVHS and ED-Beta
weren’t ever all that relevant due to their
high cost compared to their standard counterparts.
But one of Sony’s ultimate missteps was
their idea of a camcorder--Betamovie.
Sony figured that the smaller cassette of
Beta would work to their advantage, allowing
them to create a smaller all-in-one camera
than the competition.
Great.
While their camera was pretty small for its
time, they had to sacrifice a lot to make
it work.
Namely, the ability of the camera to play
a tape back!
They performed some weird technical magic
to shrink the video transport down to where
it would record onto the tape in a completely
strange fashion that would work fine once
removed from the camera and placed in a normal
VCR, but which could not be played back by
the very device that recorded it.
I’m sorry, but how stupid is that?
Since there was no ability to review what
you recorded in-camera, Sony also decided
that an electronic viewfinder wasn’t necessary,
and instead just gave you an optical one.
So, not only could you not be sure if the
shot was in focus or if exposure was OK while
recording, but you would have no way of reviewing
your footage till you could get home and pop
the tape in your VCR.
As you can imagine, sales weren’t great.
Meanwhile, JVC actually had a pretty clever
idea and created the VHS-C format in 1982,
which were small cassettes that only held
a half hour of footage at SP speed (90 minutes,
at SLP) but which contained honest-to-goodness
VHS recordings on them.
These cameras were smaller than Sony’s incredibly
dumb Betamovie, and the machines could play
the tapes back!
Best of all, they simply go into an adapter
for playback in a normal VCR.
Sony wishes they thought of that, for sure.
Sony eventually released the Video8 and then
Hi8 formats which were formidable competitors
to VHS-C, but since no one in their right
mind would purchase a dedicated Video8 VCR,
you’d have to watch your movies with the
camcorder plugged into the TV or you’d have
to dub from the camcorder to a standard VCR,
which reduced the quality of the second generation
copies.
I’ll tell you my family was on team VHS-C,
and we have the bins of tapes to prove it.
Hi8 produced a much sharper picture than VHS,
but again, unless you wanted to plug your
camcorder into your TV every time you watch
home movies, you have to dub it onto a normal
tape anyway.
In retrospect, it seems like Sony kept failing
to put themselves in their customer’s shoes.
Right from the start they were doomed because
of their small cassette.
If they had done research to determine how
people would actually use a VCR, they probably
would have found that recording time was more
important, and they probably would’ve taken
the effort to have a sophisticated timer.
So if the Beta cassette had been made with
VHS-like capacity, it’s likely Beta would
have won the war.
After all, they had a year’s head start.
But people flocked to VHS because it was simply
more flexible.
Impressive trick features and niceties like
the feather-lite buttons are of no use if
the machine doesn’t do what you need it
to do.
By the mid 1980s, sales between Beta and VHS
were pretty lopsided.
Far more people owned VHS machines than Beta.
Naturally, when pre-recorded tapes with movies
and what-not began to be sold under the brand
new product called “Home Video”, sales
of VHS copies were always stronger than Beta.
This led economies of scale to rear its ugly
head, and for movie studios, producing Beta
copies of their latest home-release was more
expensive than VHS.
So, either movie studios had to charge more
for Beta, which was unpopular and only further
annoyed Beta loyalists, or they simply made
less profit on each Beta sale, which annoyed
shareholders.
By the late 1980s, most movie studios had
decided to altogether stop releasing their
films on Beta.
Not.
Good.
To many people, 1988 marked the end of Beta,
as this was the year that Sony caved and started
marketing their own VHS machines. (Gasp)
The history of the videotape format war is
interesting, but in my view hilariously one-sided.
Sure, Sony was first to market, but they just
kept screwing up!
It’s like watching a cartoon where the protagonist
repeatedly slips on a banana peel.
Is it fair to say it was all Sony’s fault?
Not really.
After all, VHS kept copying their developments.
But Sony trapped themselves with this cassette.
4.5 hours isn’t enough.
Even the name wasn’t a good idea.
Beta kind of implies second, as in the second
best, the fallback, the reserve, number two,
the alternative option.
Alpha might have been better.
Hell, even Epsilon.
Anything but “not quite first”.
And there were plenty of annoying little details
that plagued Beta, like the one-sided cassette
window, and their strange decision to label
tapes based on actual physical length and
not recording time.
Sony famously did win their second big format
war, back in 2006 when Blu-Ray was fighting
HDDVD.
So at least we can say with a fair bit of
certainty that they did indeed learn from
their mistakes.
Oh, and their 1982 release of a new product
co-developed with Philips went very well for
them--that new product?
The compact disc, or CD.
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I’ll see you next time!
