RIP Betamax

There is no scrap value. It will cost you money to get rid of them. They will be sold to the highest bidder.

 

A variation of Betamax was used. The first analog pro format based on it was Betacam, which was improved in BetacamSP and made digital in Digibeta and made HD in BetacamHD. A BetacamSP tape was the same size as a Betamax tape, but it recorded analog component video and could only hold 30 minutes. Much larger tapes were made that could hold up to 90 minutes. The Betacam VCRs are huge relative to any home video format.



This is a Sony PVW-2800 Betacam SP recorder sitting under a Panasonic Super VHS deck. The tapes on top are Betacam SP 30 minute and 90 minute tapes.

 

I think this shows how long it takes for a format to completely expire. Those predicting the demise of CD in a few years are maybe a decade or more too early.

Here in a suburb of Des Moines, there used to be about 10 places to rent movies on videotape, and I don't recall ANY of them ever carrying Beta, though my memory may be fuzzy. If so, it didn't last long.

 

IIRC, wasn't The Compleat Beatles on Betamax monophonic for some reason? I recall first watching it at a friend's house way back when on his parents' Betamax machine.

 

I think you must mean CDr, because that's what we are talking about here. I think the are already phasing out CDrs. You can get VHS tapes yet, but they are a pain to use in the UK. You have to watch the channel at the same time as recording it. Ended up getting a HD recorder.

 

Huh? Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I recall the fastest Beta speed being only capable of recording 100 minutes on it's longest tape, compared with 120 minutes on a standard VHS tape and 180 minutes on VHS' longest (but quite thin) tapes. A huge factor in VHS overtaking Beta.

 

Once VHS HI-FI came out, it was basically the end of Beta.

 

As an audiophile teen I was working on convincing my dad to buy a Betamax but then VHS HI-FI came out and I talked him into buying the following JVC VHS recorder (HR-D725U)



which was built like a tank (weighed a ton too), had advanced video/audio editing features (behind the front pull-down panel), and only needed one belt change in 31? years (it still runs flawlessly, as far as I know).

 

I found used about a year ago a Sony Beta-max player/recorder model: SL-HF900

It was only ten dollars and works perfectly. Found a couple tapes as well and a couple blanks. I never had a VCR until around 1990-91. When I was a kid (late 70s/early 80s) my sitter had a Beta-max that we watched movies on. It's kind of neat to have something old for ten dollars that was probably hundreds of dollars when it retailed. It is very well constructed and heavy as a tank.

To say the least I'm quite surprised that this format is as of recent being buried.

 

Some corrections: Digital Betacam (aka Digibeta) also led to variants like Betacam SX and Betacam IMX. The HD version was initially HDCam, then later improved as HDCam-SR. I've often said that I think the Digibeta decks were the best standard-def video format ever made -- it was extremely robust and reliable. What's surprising, though, is how well Beta SP held up. I know of companies that still use it all the time for playback, and even tapes from 1986, 1985, 1984 play back just fine. By comparison, I think even broadcast 1" is a little flakier.

 

Do they still manufacture tapes for these babies? Philips Video 2000. You could use both sides.

 

Lots of photogs still cart around DigiBeta tapes. Most news shops have switched to using P2 cards, but there are a few stragglers out there. I know the shop I worked at had literally thousands of DigiBeta tapes containing archives of old footage.

 

I don't think the fastest speed (BI) was widely used by many people by the 1980s. Most people were content with BII, and it actually measured fairly well in relation to SP on VHS:



The reasons why Betamax ultimately failed as a consumer format are varied and complex. Here's a piece my partner and I wrote more than 25 years ago, when we cited 1988 as the Death of Beta because Sony had agreed to make VHS machines and blank tape:

http://www.betainfoguide.net/RiseandFall.htm

 

While I suspect that manufacturing of CDRs is only a fraction of what it was 10-15 years ago, I firmly believe they will be around for at least another decade as they still have uses. I regularly burn CDRs for use in my car player, since my 10-year old car doesn't have an input jack for an iPod. Plus it's also a very cheap format for sending out data and reports for my job, as I'm required to make regular submittals to local agencies that need to review my reports. (Not all have large enough e-mail boxes to accept more than 10MB of data.) I could send out USB thumb drives, but CDRs are dirt cheap and many desktop computers in professional offices still have CD-ROM drives. Indeed, some of the governmental agencies I send reports to won't accept thumb drives as they may contain malicious software. (Granted a CD-ROM can also contain malicious software...)

 

Betamax will still outsell Ultra HD blu-ray even when it is no longer being made.

 

I had the 5200 as well, and still have an HF-360 SuperBeta unit.

I got the 5200 very early on its' release, and bought the Fleetwood Mac Mirage Tour tape the night I bought the machine. It was jaw-dropping sound quality when I first hooked it up.

I also did the time-shifting thing to record radio broadcasts, and would later dub them to cassette for the car.

 

B1 recording speed was offered only on very few Beta decks; only the SL-HF1000 that I recall. B2 speed offered better picture quality than VHS SP and held 3 hours on a standard L-750 tape.

I paid J&R Music World $900 for one in the mid-80s.

 

Read my article. You're quoting chapter and verse to one of the apostles involved with the Bible.

 

Wow. No wonder all the rich kids in my neighborhood were the only ones that had Betamax and VCRs in the 80s.

 

Actually, you could do about 102 minutes on BI on an L830. But it was very thin, fragile, dropout-prone tape. VHS did have a T-200, which was horrifically thin, and it would do 200 minutes in SP, 600 minutes (10 hours!) at EP. Most crazy fans I knew in the 1970s and 1980s referred to EP as "SLOP," otherwise known as SLP. Ugly mode.

 

Ha...I had this model and should have kept it. In fact, I don't even remember what happened to it now, but I remember it was a beauty and sounded fantastic.