| Sony's "Betamax" is the 12.7 mm (0.5 inch) home videocassette
tape recording format derived from the earlier, professional 19.1 mm (0.75 inch) U-matic video cassette format. Like the video home recording system VHS, it had
no guard band, and used azimuth recording to reduce
cross-talk. The "Betamax" name is said to derive from the Japanese phrase beta gaki (raw + write), however, as a pun, the
designed trademark incorporated the Greek letter "beta"; Sanyo marketed its version as the "Betacord", but it, too, was referred
to as "Beta."
Betamax format
The Betamax cassette is smaller than the VHS cassette, and the format is said to produce a sharper picture, although the
difference lessened as both technologies progressed. Other claimed advantages included a straighter tape path through the
machine, making start-up faster after inserting the cassette, though that was not intrinsic to the format, and the transitions
from "play" to "fast forward" or to "rewind" were faster, but only because (unlike in VHS format) the tape was not first
unthreaded from the mechanism, thus leading to greater tape wear during fast winding. A little-used capability of the Betamax
format was recording in audio-only mode. By using the entire bandwidth for sound, the
helical scanning recording head of the videotape technology allowed for
very high-fidelity reproduction compared to normal, stationary-head audio tape recorders.
Struggle and failure in the home market
In domestic use, Betamax lost to VHS despite Sony's great marketing effort. In his autobiography, Sony's founder, Akio Morita, attributed
that loss to Sony's difficulties in licensing the format to other companies, thus allowing the technically inferior VHS format's
establishing itself in the market. Others believe the Betamax format's shorter recording time retarded its early adoption by
consumers, a problem that, in the 1980s, led Sony to a technological race to increase
Betamax's capacity; another factor was each format's relative availability in video tape rental stores.
One claim which has been made is that the failure of Betamax was driven by the porn industry's preference for "cheap convenient 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, the sex industry's
reluctance to use Betamax may have been due to the short, one-hour time limit on the original Betamax tapes. 1
Once VHS became the base of home video cassette recording, the rest of Betamax's market collapsed. Subsequent VHS
developments, such as "VHS-HQ," and multi-head technology, equaled Betamax's technical superiority. Eventually, Sony started
producing VHS-format video cassette recorders, thus conceding defeat in the "format
war." Their last American model was marketed in 1993, and Betamax VCR production
outside Japan ended in 1998. Sony continued manufacturing Betamax VCRs for the Japanese
market until 2002, so, officially announcing the Betamax consumer line's end.
The legacy of Betamax
The VHS format's defeat of the superior Betamax format became a classic marketing case study, now identified with the verbal phrase "to Betamax," wherein a proprietary technology format
is overwhelmed in the market by a format allowing multiple, competing, licensed manufacturers, as in: "Apple Betamaxed themselves out of the PC market."
Sony succeeded greatly in professional television production. Betacam, and its
successors, became one of the standard formats; production houses use Betacam videocassettes to exchange footage among
themselves.
One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City
Studios, with the U.S. Supreme Court determining home
videotaping legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette
recorders were a legal technology since they had "substantial non-infringing uses."
References
- The dirty secret that drives new technology: it's
porn (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,661094,00.html), John
Arlidge, The
Observer (http://observer.guardian.co.uk), 2002/03/03, retrived 2005/01/10 from
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,661094,00.html
External links
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