Talk:Betamax
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These claims are reported as "Many people believe..." because I have no hard facts other than having heard both sets of rumors many times. Does anyone have the facts? -- Anon.
165.121.129.41, the anime reference you removed was on-topic, and quite interesting; I enjoyed reading it when I first came across this article. I suggest putting it back.
--tsca 10:01, 2004 May 7 (UTC)
It would be nice if someone could explain the "electronic trick that could easily have been applied to VHS", which made the picture of betamax tapes better. - Xorx77 18:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Betamax recorders incorporated an electronic circuit known as a 'corer'. It operated a little bit like the treble filters that radiograms of the 1970's had. They filtered out the hiss and made the radiogram have a more 'mellow' sound. Something users expected having become to bandwidth limited AM broadcasts. The side effect was that they also filtered out the high frequency contaent of anything played.
- In a parallel manner, the 'corer' circuit sharpened up the rise times of the edges of video signals. This had the visual effect of making the picture appear sharper. However the downside was the circuit removed fine detail. It is hotly debated whether Betamax with its apparently sharper picture, or VHS with its greater detail was preferable. The sharper picture was usually to credited to the Betamax format, but in fact there was nothing to prevent the VHS manufacturers fitting a similar circuit and benefiting by VHSs slightly greater (but not significantly so) bandwidth. However, they chose no to do so. 20.133.0.13 14:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I am rather skeptical of the claim in the article that VHS eventually equalled the technical superiority of Beta, based on my own experience. In late 1997, I purchased new a Betamax SL-HF 2000 VCR (the last consumer model sold in the US; introduced in 1993) and a Panasonic PV-S7670 S-VHS VCR. At that time, S-VHS had been available for a few years. While the visual quality produced by the S-VHS VCR was vastly superior to VHS quality in the 1980s, it was still noticably inferior to the Betamax, albeit slightly. Also, like Xorx77, I would be curious to know what the "electronic trick" was, and why VHS VCR manufacturers waited so long to use it (if indeed they ever did). Edeans 19:33, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- They didn't.
[edit] Porn industry
Regarding this paragraph:
- One claim which has been made is that the failure of Betamax was driven by the porn industry's preference for VHS. Whilst claims that this was because Sony disallowed the sex industry from licensing the format are unlikely since the licenses applied to the production of equipment, it is certainly true that Sony persued an anti-porn policy which may have been offputting. Other reasons given for the sex industries reluctance to use Betamax have been the too short, 1 hour, time limit on the original Betamax tapes with the porn industry preferring the cheap convenient VHS.
The provided reference simply mentions that the porn industry preferred VHS over Beta, and says nothing about an anti-porn policy by Sony.
- " US pornographers' decision to adopt the cheap convenient VHS - rather than rival Betamax - when the two systems were introduced in the 1970s killed off Betamax while sales of pornographic films drove take-up of video recorders."
Can we get a reference for the Sony anti-porn statement? Cheers, -Willmcw 23:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Head speed
"Technically, the Betamax format has an improved bandwidth over the VHS format, due to a tape path design which gives Betamax a faster video head writing speed, despite the tape itself moving slower than VHS."
- Huh? How does that work? - Omegatron 02:03, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
-
- He/she means the spinning drum moves over the tape faster, while the tape is fed past more slowly. Although, since the rotational speed of the drum is fixed to the field rate of the video, the only way to increase the video head writing speed is to use a larger drum, which Betamax does (77 vs 62 mm). I've reworded accordingly. (also, both a really another way of saying the tracks are much closer together on Beta) --Dtcdthingy 02:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Struggle and failure in the home market
Three theories are presented here. Which one is most entrusted today? Should all three get equal emphasize, as they do now?
- The idea that the porn industry is the main reason for Betamax's failure seems a bit far fetched to me.
- That Betamax format's shorter recording time is the reasons seems like a minor technical issue.
- The theory from Sony's founder (Sony's difficulties in licensing the format to other companies) should be the most credible since he is a person who should know what he is talking about.
I think we don't have to give people the idea that the porn industry clearly had something to do with it unless the evidence really point to it...
Comments? I was rather young at the time and know little about the subject myself. --Fred chessplayer 23:54, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sony had actually attempted the license Betamax before VHS even came on to market, and I believe that JVC developed VHS avoid paying licence fees, becuase they didn't want to support their rival. Is my imformation correct
- How could anyone possibly argue in good faith that shorter recording time is a minor technical issue !?!? We're talking bang for the buck here, folks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.251.149.248 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 21 March 2007.
- This an illustration of the confusion that can be caused by the current mess that the page is in, in that there is no dating of the introduction of the various Beta speeds in relation to each other, let alone to VHS. The first Betmax machines came out in 1975, while VHS went on the NTSC market in Sept 1976. The first X2/BII NTSC machine appeared in 1977, with BIII in 1979. Before VHS, what we would now regard as "shorter" recording times were the norm, e.g. the Phillips Video Cassette Recording system introduced in Europe in 1972 also had a maximum record time of one-hour. VHS marked a breakthrough by effectively doubling the capacity of existing home systems, but really only had a narrow window of opportunity to exploit it before X2/BII (and Philips VCR-LP, for that matter) appeared.
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- It notable that Beta was introduced in Europe and other PAL/SECAM territories in the only speed it had there, getting 3h 15m out of an L-750 cassette, contemporary with (or ahead of) VHS with 3h on an E-180 (PAL designation of approximate T-120 equivalent). If anything, Beta had the edge in these countries time-wise, but ultimately still failed. Nick Cooper
[edit] Video 2000
There should be a link to Video 2000 somewhere I think, because of all the parallels. Shinobu 20:13, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] MGM v. Grokster
Updated this text to concisely reflect the content of the decision. Noticed I was accidentally not logged in; removed and re-added this change so it would be properly attributed.
Option 30 June 2005 16:51 (UTC)
I restored this again after most of the comment was removed. I really don't think it makes any sense to mention Grokster here in passing (as opposed to any other Betamax-related case) unless you give at least 1 sentence of context. I'd say if you're going to cut it down again, cut any mention of MGM v. Grokster completely. Option 18:32, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
- If people are interested they can surely click the link? (Though I agree it might not belong here at all) --Dtcdthingy 23:41, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] References
Would anybody mind me changing the title of this section to References in pop culture, as the section is not a repository of reference material, rather references to the Betamax's portrayal in pop culture? I'd like to change the section to include reference that the portrayals of the characters on the shows The Simpsons and Married with Children are intended to portray the Betamax as an outmoded or obsolete technology. The title References is normally used as a header for a section containing reference links or descriptions of reference materials used to compose an entry, and as it stands it is both confusing and misleading. Glowimperial 01:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Homevid box.
I added the Homevid box, as it seemed to be missing, and a Betamax entry was in it. --65.146.18.161 05:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Likely error.
"Beastie Boys music video Sabotage was filmed with Betamax cameras." Unless this can be confirmed, we should assume that this is another case of mistaken identity, whereby the recording was actually done with Betacam equipment. Colin99 21:36, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] quality?
do we have any numbers on how good beta was? i've heard beta had higher quality than vhs, but this isn't really mentioned in the article. has anything like this ever shown up here?
Justforasecond 05:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Is this normal?
Is it normal for a Betamax VCR to emit a buzzing noise when loading or unloading a tape? --71.162.21.183 22:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The magic trick Beta used
The vhs format uses a lot of nasty tricks to make it work.
For tape run time, the easiest way to increase that is slow the tape down.
Doing so means narrower tracks will be needed. To maintain a wider track, they made the head drum smaller and tilted it at a more severe angle. Doing so they reduced the writing speed. To maintain a good S/N ratio, you need wide tracks with a fast writing speed. They made some tradeoffs to maintain a reasonable sized cassette with a 2 hour run time.
As well, their bandwidth isn't as great, since the writing speed enters into this. Part of the solution was to reduce the carrier deviation to allow more spectrum for the sideband (where all the real information is carried: a large sideband means more resolution). Deviation is related to contrast.
Sony designed the original Beta machines with 1.3Mhz Carrier deviation, but reduced it to 1.2MHz for BII. VHS has always used 1MHz.
For comparison, BI had a 60 micron track width (38um was the narrowest possible for the introduction of BII). jvc used 38um for vhs SP mode. Beta I still can produce the best picture quality possible for a half inch format, due to the long track, wider track, and the higher writing speed.
[edit] Greek or Japanese?
- according to the Total Rewind site (www.totalrewind.org - I can't link the sub-page from here because the whole site is set in frames) the name "beta" actually comes from the Japanese word for quality, not the second letter of the Greek alaphbet, which the tape spooling is supposed to resemble. Can somone look into this? -Litefantastic 21:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The name "Beta"
Actually, it's a Japanese calligraphy term, meaning to cover with a broad stoke, or cover completely with a stroke.
Sony used the term to describe the method by which a "beta" recorder works, in this case, there are no guard bands and the video portion of the tape is completely covered, as if by that of a broad stroke. Unlike U-matic, which has guard bands. By this definition, vhs machines can be technically (and correctly) called a "beta recorder".
Sony took the term and added "max", to emphasize the recording method. Easier to say than "Zero Guard Band Videocassette Recorder". Also one of the few trademarks to succeed with an "x" as the final letter, as it's believed that will jinx the product.
IIRC, this is explained in the book "Fast Forward".
[edit] WHOLE ARTICLE
This entire article needs a re-write. It has become rambling and disjointed Technically it's all jumbled up because so many NTSC references have been allowed to permeate the article as though NTSC is the only TV system in the world. So it wanders around talking about Beta speeds (not relevant to PAL) and RCA (no-one has ever heard of RCA in the UK), as though these things were somehow relevant to the whole world market. Furthermore there are statements like "recording time was everything" which is POV yet given as some kind of fact (once you can record more than 3 hours on a tape in one go, any more is increasingly unimportant). Pretty well the entire "Criticism" section could be deleted, along with references like "The real reason for the success of VHS is RCA" which is irrelevant outside USA.
It always seems such a contentious subject, but we really need to be level headed and throw out all the POV and USA-centric remarks. Perhaps an NTSC and PAL/SECAM section which covers all the fundamental differences between those markets and technologies, then the rest of the article can be left to talk about the tape format itself.
Any volunteers? Colin99 20:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
- The reasons why the artical is "USA-centric" are because the population of Britain is 60,609,153 and the GDP is $1,903,000 million while the population of the United States is 298,444,215 and the GDP is $12,980,000 million, Hollywood is located in America, and nobody has worried about anything being UK-centric in the last 50 years (at least). All these factors mean that the economy is USA-centric.
- I should also note that your never hearing of RCA may be because RCA was taken over by GE in 1986, so few people under 30 have heard of it.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.69.118.1 (talk • contribs) 23:33, 19 March 2007.
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- Your soapbox rant overlooks the fact that collectively the UK, Europe, Australasia and all the other countries using PAL are easily equal to - if not actually outnumbering - the USA, Canada, Japan and all the other NTSC territories. Don't let your blatent nationalistic prejudice get in the way of logic, i.e. that the PAL (and SECAM) side of the Betamax story is no less important than the NTSC side.Nick Cooper 00:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Pop Culture Reference Discrepancy
Regarding this reference:
- A gag made in a 1990 stand show by UK comic Jasper Carrott goes "People are asking me which am I going to buy the Philips Compact Cassette system or the Sony Minidisc system. Which ever I choose will be obsolete by easter, you are looking at Betamax man"
I'm not sure the date on this is accurate; the article on Minidisc states:
- The technology was announced by Sony in 1991 and introduced January 12, 1992, and is capable of storing any kind of binary data.
Was Jasper Carrott prescient? --Chaos95 00:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Porn revisited
This was stuck into the popular culture section:
- It has been said that when the adult film industry adopted the VHS format, that decision sounded the death knell for Betamax.
It definitely didn't belong there, but does it belong somewhere else? I've seen similar claims in recent stories about Blu-Ray, so even if it's not true it may be worth bringing up in order to refute it. —Celithemis 02:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I work at Sarnoff Corporation, which used to be RCA Labs. I've heard this from co-workers who were there in the day. I'll poke around the corporate library and see if there is any verifiable info regarding the Porn/VHS connection. 70.106.123.197 04:44, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I would also like to note for the pop culture references that a Beta tape was a major plot device in Episode 18 (Speak Like a Child) of Shinichiro Wanatabe's Cowboy Bebop. A character receives a package containing a Beta.
