zlacker

Sure, Betamax was technically superior to VHS. But in the end the market still decides… nobody said “better” means technically superior… just something people want to use an other options available to them. “Good enough” with attractive value to the individual/business typically wins.

>>cmiles+(OP)
Not to get too much into a debate about Beta vs VHS, but VHS did have longer run times and its cheapness was the main reason it won, It just fit better for the consumer overall desires at the time

>>cmiles+(OP)
Sure, and right now, a product being owned by a corporation susceptible to direct influence from the US government is a massive negative when people are evaluating products.

The evalutation metric for various vital projects has massively changed over the last couple years. These European products still need to be technically good, but they no longer need to be better than American products in order to find customers.

With the current level of geopolitical tensions, this is nowhere near enough to cause a massive exodous where all systems that were previously working fine are ripped apart and replaced with new systems, *but* one can be sure that whenever people are looking at new projects, or updates to old systems, the evalutation metrics have changed quite a bit, and this is creating strong momentum for European tech.

>>cmiles+(OP)
Technology connections did a video on Betamax vs VHS that debunked this in a practical sense as Betamax had a version II that allowed 2 hour recordings, the quality was slightly better to early VHS instead the significant improvement of beta I (original standard)

Retail movie releases used II since most movies could fit on one tape. Beta I was rare and later betamax decks just ignored it or something for compatibility.

VHS HQ and HiFi, which came much later when beta was basically dead, was probably better than beta II and close to beta I in quality

>>jetbal+w
Exactly. It's about whose definition of "better" you use. Sony thought that a better picture would win out, and it did where that mattered: TV studios and video-journalists used Betamax until digital formats took over. For consumers, "better" meant cheaper tapes and longer run time.

JVC also licensed the VHS format to many manufacturers, so there was a lot of competition on recorders, further driving the price of ownership down. I don't recall anyone ever selling Betamax other than Sony.

Edit: JVC actually released VHS as an open standard, not a license, per Wikipedia.

>>SoftTa+ma
Pro TV used Betacam, not Betamax. Same physical tape, but four instead of two tape heads and a much faster tape speed.