Betamax (sometimes called Beta) (ベータマックス bēta makkusu) is a home videocassette Videotape is a means of recording images and sound on to magnetic tape as opposed to movie film or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram. In most cases, a helical scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two tape recording format developed by Sony Sony Corporation (TYO: 6758, NYSE: SNE), or commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics,, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain 1/2-inch (12.7mm)-wide videotape Videotape is a means of recording images and sound on to magnetic tape as opposed to movie film or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram. In most cases, a helical scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two in a design similar to the earlier, professional 3/4-inch (19.05mm) U-matic U-matic is a videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various open-reel formats of the time. Unlike most other cassette-based tape formats, the supply and take-up reels in format. The format is generally considered obsolete, though it is still used in specialist applications by a small minority of people.
Like the rival videotape format VHS The Video Home System is a consumer-level video standard developed by a Japanese company, JVC, and launched in 1976. It was first marketed to the public on October 1, 1977. During the late part of the 1970s and the early 1980s, the home video industry was involved in the VHS vs. Betamax war, which VHS would eventually win. Advantages of VHS (introduced in October 1977[1] by JVC Victor Company of Japan, Ltd (TYO: 6792), usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927. The company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions, and developing the VHS video recorder), Betamax had no guard band In radio, a guard band is an unused part of the radio spectrum between radio bands, for the purpose of preventing interference and used azimuth recording Azimuth recording is the use of a variation in angle between two recording heads that are recording data so close together on magnetic tape that crosstalk would otherwise likely occur. Normally, the head is perpendicular to the movement of the tape, and this is considered zero degrees. However, if the heads are mounted at slightly different angles to reduce crosstalk In electronics, crosstalk is any phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel. Crosstalk is usually caused by undesired capacitive, inductive, or conductive coupling from one circuit, part of a circuit, or channel, to another. According to Sony's own history webpages, the name came from a double meaning: beta being the Japanese word used to describe the way signals were recorded onto the tape, and from the fact that when the tape ran through the transport, it looked like the Greek letter beta Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β, internal ϐ; Greek: Βήτα [ˈvita]; English pronunciation: /ˈbeɪtə/ or /ˈbiːtə/ (UK)) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . Letters that arose from Beta include the Roman B and the Cyrillic letters (β). The suffix -max came from "maximum", to suggest greatness.[2]
Sanyo SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (TYO: 6764, NASDAQ: SANYY) is a major electronics company and member of the Fortune 500 whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo targets the middle of the market and has over 230 Subsidiaries and Affiliates marketed a version as Betacord, but this was also referred to casually as "Beta". In addition to Sony and Sanyo, Beta-format video recorders were also sold by Toshiba Toshiba Corporation (TYO: 6502) is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company's main business is in infrastructure, consumer products, electronic devices and components, Pioneer Pioneer Corporation (TYO: 6773) is a multinational corporation that specializes in digital entertainment products, based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. The company was founded in 1938 in Tokyo as a radio and speaker repair shop. Today, Pioneer is well-known for technology advancements in the consumer electronics industry, Murphy Murphy Radio in Welwyn Garden City, England was founded during 1929 by Frank Murphy and E.J. Power as a volume manufacturer of home radio sets. Their factories were based in the Hertfordshire town of Welwyn Garden City, England, and they started with less than 100 employees, Aiwa Aiwa was a Japanese consumer electronics company, founded in 1951. It experienced considerable success in the 1970s and 1980s producing audio and video equipment that was sold around the world, and NEC NEC Corporation , a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology (IT) and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government; the Zenith Electronics Corporation Zenith Electronics Corporation is a former American manufacturer of televisions headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois. It was the inventor of the modern remote control, and it introduced HDTV in North America. Zenith is now a member of the South Korean conglomerate LG Group by way of LG Electronics, which acquired a controlling share of Zenith and WEGA WEGA was a pioneering German audio and video manufacturer, manufacturing some of Germany's earliest radio sets. It has been founded as Wuerttembergische Radio-Gesellschaft mbh in Stuttgart, Germany in the year 1923. In 1975, it was acquired by Sony Corporation, at this point, they were known throughout Europe for stylish and high-quality stereo Corporations contracted with Sony Sony Corporation (TYO: 6758, NYSE: SNE), or commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, to produce VCRs for their product lines. Department stores like Sears Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of Department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century. Formerly a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Sears merged with Kmart in early 2005, creating the Sears Holdings Corporation (in the U.S. and Canada) and Quelle Arcandor AG (FWB: AROG) is a holding company located in Essen, Germany that oversees companies operating in the businesses of mail order and internet shopping, department stores and tourism services. It was created in 1999 through the merger of Karstadt Warenhaus AG, which was founded in 1920, and Quelle Schickedanz AG & Co, founded in 1927 (Germany) sold Beta-format VCRs under their house brands, as did the RadioShack RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH) is a chain of electronics retail stores in the United States, as well as parts of North America, Europe, South America and Africa. As of 2008, it had 4,653 company-owned stores, 688 kiosks, 8 service centers, and 1,408 dealer outlets. RadioShack reported net sales and operating revenues of $4.81 billion chain of electronic stores. Betamax and VHS The Video Home System is a consumer-level video standard developed by Japanese company, JVC, and launched in 1976 competed in a fierce format war The videotape format war was a period of intense competition or "format war" of incompatible models of video cassette recorders in the late 1970s and the 1980s, which saw VHS come out on top in most markets.
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Home movies
Two piece camera/VCR systems rapidly displaced Super 8 mm film 8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight millimeters wide. It exists in two main versions: the original standard 8mm film, also known as regular 8 mm or double 8 mm, and Super 8 as the medium of choice for shooting home movies and amateur films. These units included a portable VCR, which the photographer would carry by a shoulder strap, and a separate camera, which was connected to the VCR by a special cable. At this point, Beta had several advantages over VHS systems. The smaller Beta cassette made for smaller and lighter VCRs. Beta's superior picture was important for home movies, whereas the longer recording times of VHS were seen as superfluous.
However, consumers wanted a one piece solution. The first one-piece consumer camcorder, the Betamovie, came from Sony. A major requirement for a one-piece camcorder was miniaturizing the record head drum. Sony's solution to this involved a nonstandard video signal which would become standard only when played back on full sized VCRs. A side effect of this was that Beta camcorders were record-only. Consumers saw this as a major limitation.
VHS manufacturers found a better solution to the drum miniaturization issue. (It involved four heads doing the work of two.) Because it used standard video signals, VHS camcorders could review footage in the camcorder and copy to another VCR for editing. (Two Beta decks and a Betamovie were required for similar functionality, and this still did not allow a videographer to review footage in the field.) This shifted the home movie advantage dramatically away from Beta, and was a primary reason for the loss of Beta market share: Owners of Beta VCRs found that a VHS camcorder would allow them to copy and edit footage to their Beta deck - something that Betamovie could not do. And if rental movies were not available in Beta, they could rent them in VHS and use their camcorder to play them. Owners of VHS VCRs could also choose a variant camcorder format called VHS-C VHS-C is the compact VHS format introduced in 1982 and used primarily for consumer-grade compact camcorders. The format is based on the same videotape as is used in VHS, and can be played back in a standard VHS VCR with an adapter. Though quite inexpensive, the format is largely obsolete even as a consumer standard and has been replaced in the. This used a miniaturized cassette to make a camcorder smaller and lighter than any Betamovie.
Sony could not duplicate the functionality of VHS camcorders, and seeing the rapid loss of market share, eventually introduced the Video8 The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats for the NTSC and PAL/SECAM television systems. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8 (both analog and digital), as well as a more recent digital format known as Digital8 format. Their hope was that Video8 could replace both Beta and VHS for all uses. For more information, see the article on camcorders A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage. Marketing materials may present a video recording device as a camcorder, but the delivery package would identify content as video camera recorder.
The legacy of Betamax
For reasons Betamax lost to VHS, see Videotape format war The videotape format war was a period of intense competition or "format war" of incompatible models of video cassette recorders in the late 1970s and the 1980s.The VHS format's defeat of the Betamax format became a classic marketing Marketing is the process by which companies create customer interest in products or services. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business development. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves case study. Sony's attempt to dictate an industry standard backfired when JVC Victor Company of Japan, Ltd (TYO: 6792), usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927. The company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions, and developing the VHS video recorder made the tactical decision to forgo Sony's offer of Betamax in favor of developing their own technology. They felt that it would end up like the U-Matic U-matic is a videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various open-reel formats of the time. Unlike most other cassette-based tape formats, the supply and take-up reels in deal, with Sony dominating.
By 1980, JVC's VHS format controlled 70% of the North American market. The large economy of scale Economies of scale, in microeconomics, are the cost advantages that a business obtains due to expansion. They are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as scale is increased. Economies of scale is a long run concept and refers to reductions in unit cost as the size of a facility, or scale, increases. Diseconomies of scale allowed VHS units to be introduced to the European market at a far lower cost than the rarer Betamax units. In the UK, Betamax held a 25% market share in 1981, but by 1986, it was down to 7.5% and continued to decline further. By 1984, forty companies utilized the VHS format in comparison with Beta's twelve. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it, too, began producing VHS recorders, though it continued to produce Betamax recorders.
In Japan, Betamax had more success and eventually evolved into Extended Definition Betamax, with 500+ lines of resolution, but eventually both Betamax and VHS were supplanted by laser-based technology. The last Sony Betamax was produced in 2002.
While most casual observers describe Betamax as an obsolete format, there is still a small but fervent group of enthusiastic supporters of the format who continue to use, maintain, and trade the machines and media. Many of these people maintain (on technical merits, not related to run time or availability of prerecorded titles, but more akin to professional video concerns) that Betamax is superior to VHS in many ways, including picture quality, tape wear, and system design and convenience of use. For many of these people, VHS never rendered Betamax obsolete, and DVD may not either; the discrepancy between their view and the mainstream arises from a difference in the criteria (i.e., the interests) on which they judge. Also, some appreciate Betamax decks as examples of superior engineering or innovation for the time—Sony's Betamax was first with many features, such as hi-fi sound, full threading on load (which allows faster transitions between stop, play, and fast winding tape transport modes), and digital freeze frame (never available on a large number of VHS recorder models), which VHS adopted later. Because of their high build quality, many Sony Betamax machines are still working well today, and high-featured models sell regularly for hundreds of dollars on eBay and elsewhere.
Home and professional recording
One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 , also known as the "Betamax case", is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use. The Court (1984, the "Betamax case"), with the U.S. Supreme Court Clerks · Reporter of Decisions determining home videotaping to be legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette recorders were a legal technology since they had substantial noninfringing uses. This precedent was later invoked in MGM v. Grokster (2005), where the high court agreed that the same "substantial noninfringing uses" standard applies to authors and vendors of peer-to-peer A peer-to-peer, commonly abbreviated to P2P, is any distributed network architecture composed of participants that make a portion of their resources directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination instances (such as servers or stable hosts). Peers are both suppliers and consumers of resources, in file sharing software (notably excepting those who "actively induce" copyright infringement through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct").
Three Sony Betamax VCRs built for the American market. Top to bottom: SL-2000 portable with TT-2000 tuner/timer "Base Station" (1982); SL-HF 300 Betamax HiFi unit (1984); SL-HF 360 SuperBeta HiFi unit (1988). A rare Japanese market Betamax TV/VCR combo, the Model SL-MV1. The early-form Betacam tapes are interchangeable with Betamax, though the recordings are not.In the professional and broadcast video industry, Sony's Betacam Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videotape products. It was developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, "Betacam" singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself, derived from Betamax as a professional format, became one of several standard formats; production houses exchange footage on Betacam videocassettes, and the Betacam system became the most widely used videotape format in the ENG ENG is a broadcasting industry acronym which stands for electronic news gathering. It can mean anything from a lone reporter taking a single camcorder out to get a story, to an entire television crew taking a satellite truck on location to do a live report for a newscast. In its early days, the term ENG was used by newsroom staff to differentiate (Electronic News Gathering) industry, replacing the 3/4" U-matic tape format (which was the first practical and cost-effective portable videotape format for broadcast television, signaling the end of 16 mm film — and the phrase "film at 11 The idiom "Film at 11" originates from television news broadcasting. Traditionally, it follows a promotion aired earlier in the evening for a particular story to be detailed on a later local news broadcast at 11 p.m., a traditional timeslot for local news broadcasts in the Eastern and Pacific time zones of the United States" often heard on the six-o-clock newscast, before the film had been developed). The professional derivative of VHS, MII MII is a professional videocassette format developed by Panasonic in 1986 as their answer and competitive product to Sony's Betacam SP format. It was technically similar to Betacam SP, using metal-formulated tape loaded in the cassette, and utilizing component video recording (aka Recam), faced off against Betacam and lost. Once Betacam became the de facto De facto is a Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it is meant to mean "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established". It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or technique (such standard of the broadcast industry, its position in the professional market mirrored VHS' dominance in the home video market.[citation needed] On a technical level, Betacam and Betamax are similar in that both share the same videocassette shape, use the same oxide tape formulation with the same coercivity In materials science, the coercivity, also called the coercive field, of a ferromagnetic material is the intensity of the applied magnetic field required to reduce the magnetization of that material to zero after the magnetization of the sample has been driven to saturation. Coercivity is usually measured in oersted or ampere/meter units and is, and both record linear audio tracks on the same location of the videotape. But in the key area of video recording, Betacam and Betamax are completely different. BetaCam tapes are mechanically interchangeable with Betamax, but not electronically. BetaCam moves the tape at 12 cm/s, with different recording/encoding techniques. Betamax is a color-under system, with linear tape speeds ranging from 4 cm/s to 1.33 cm/s.
Sony also offered a range of industrial Betamax products, a Beta I-only format for industrial and institutional users. It was basically cheaper and smaller than U-Matic. The arrival of the Betacam system reduced the demand for both Industrial Beta and U-Matic equipment.
Betamax also had a significant part to play in the music recording industry, when Sony introduced its PCM Pulse-code modulation is a digital representation of an analog signal where the magnitude of the signal is sampled regularly at uniform intervals, then quantized to a series of symbols in a numeric (usually binary) code. PCM has been used in digital telephone systems and 1980s-era electronic musical keyboards.[clarification needed] It is also the (Pulse Code Modulation) digital recording system as an encoding box/PCM adaptor A PCM adaptor is a device used for recording digital audio in the PCM format, which in turn connects to a video cassette recorder for storage and playback of the digital audio information that connected to a Betamax recorder. The Sony PCM-F1 adaptor was sold with a companion Betamax VCR SL-2000 as a portable digital audio Digital audio uses pulse-code modulation and digital signals for sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion (DAC), storage, and transmission. In effect, the system commonly referred to as digital is in fact a discrete-time, discrete-level analog of a previous electrical analog. While modern recording system. Many recording engineers used this system in the 1980s and 1990s to make their first digital master recordings.
Initially, Sony was able to tout several Betamax-only features, such as BetaScan—a high speed picture search in either direction—and BetaSkipScan, a technique that allowed the operator to see where he was on the tape by pressing the FF key (or REW, if in that mode) and the transport would switch into the BetaScan mode until the key was released. This feature is discussed more on Peep Search Peep Search is feature available on many videocassette recorders and most camcorders, whereby the unit can show you what is on the tape during rewind and fast forward operations. For this feature to work seamlessly, the tape must be fully laced up (wrapped around the video heads) during rewind and fast-forward operation, which is not usually. Sony believed that the M-Load transports used by VHS machines made copying these trick modes impossible. BetaSkipScan (Peep Search) is now available on miniature M-load formats, but even Sony was unable to fully replicate this on VHS. BetaScan was originally called "Videola" until the company that made the Moviola A Moviola is a device that allows a film editor to view film while editing. It was the first machine for motion picture editing when it was invented by Iwan Serrurier in 1924 threatened legal action.
Sony would also sell a BetaPak, a small deck designed to be used with a camera. Concerned with the need for several pieces and cables to connect them, an integrated camera/recorder was designed, which Sony dubbed a "Camcorder". The result was Betamovie. Betamovie used the standard-size cassette, but with a modified transport. The tape was wrapped 300 degrees around a smaller, 44.671 mm-diameter head drum, with a single dual-azimuth head to write the video tracks. For playback, the tape would be inserted into a Beta format deck. Due to the different geometry and writing techniques employed, playback within the camcorder was not feasible. SuperBeta and industrial Betamovie camcorders would also be sold by Sony.
HiFi audio upgrade
Betamax introduced high fidelity audio to videotape, as Beta Hi-Fi. For NTSC NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system used in most of North America, most countries in South America, Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories . NTSC is also the name of the U.S. standardization body that developed the broadcast standard. The, Beta HiFi worked by placing a pair of FM carriers between the chroma (C) and luminance (Y) carriers, a process known as frequency multiplexing. Each head had a specific pair of carriers; in total, four individual channels were employed. Head A recorded its hi-fi carriers at 1.38(L) and 1.68(R) MHz, and the B head employed 1.53 and 1.83 MHz. The result was audio with an 80 dB dynamic range, with less than 0.005% wow and flutter.
Prior to the introduction of Beta Hi-Fi, Sony shifted the Y carrier up by 400 kHz to make room for the 4 FM carriers that would be needed for Beta Hi-Fi. All Beta machines incorporated this change, plus the ability to hunt for a lower frequency pre-AFM Y carrier. Sony incorporated an "antihunt" circuit, to stop the machine hunting for a Y carrier that wasn't there.
Some Sony NTSC models were marketed as "Hi-Fi Ready" (with an SL-HFR prefix to the model's number instead of the usual SL or SL-HF). These Betamax decks looked like a regular Betamax model, except for a special 28-pin connector on the rear. If the user desired a Beta Hi-Fi model but lacked the funds at the time, he could purchase an "SL-HFRxx" and at a later date purchase the separate Hi-Fi Processor. Sony offered two outboard Beta Hi-Fi processors, the HFP-100 and HFP-200. They were identical except that the HFP-200 was capable of multi-channel TV sound, with the word "stereocast" printed after the Beta Hi-Fi logo. This was possible because unlike a VHS Hi-Fi deck, an NTSC Betamax didn't need an extra pair of heads. The HFP-x00 would generate the needed carriers which would be recorded by the attached deck, and during playback the AFM carriers would be passed to the HFP-x00. They also had a small "fine tracking" control on the rear panel for difficult tapes.
For PAL PAL, short for Phase Alternate Line, is an analogue television encoding system used in broadcast television systems in large parts of the world. Other common analogue television systems are SECAM and NTSC. This page primarily discusses the colour encoding system. See the articles on broadcast television systems and analogue television for, however, the bandwidth between the chroma and luminance carriers was not sufficient to allow additional FM carriers, so depth multiplexing was employed, wherein the audio track would be recorded in the same way that the video track was. The lower-frequency audio track was written first by a dedicated head, and the video track recorded on top by the video head. The head disk had an extra pair of audio-only heads with a different azimuth, positioned slightly ahead of the regular video heads, for this purpose.
Sony was confident that VHS could not achieve the same audio performance feat as Beta Hi-Fi. However, to the chagrin of Sony, JVC did develop a VHS hi-fi system on the principle of depth multiplexing approximately a year after the first Beta Hi-Fi VCR, the SL-5200, was introduced by Sony. Despite initial praise as providing "CD sound quality", both Beta Hi-Fi and VHS HiFi suffered from "carrier buzz", where high frequency information bled into the audio carriers, creating momentary "buzzing" and other audio flaws. Both systems also used companding In telecommunication, signal processing, and thermodynamics, companding is a method of mitigating the detrimental effects of a channel with limited dynamic range. The name is a portmanteau of compressing and expanding noise-reduction systems, which could create "pumping" artifacts under some conditions. Both formats also suffered from interchange problems, where tapes made on one machine did not always play back well on other machines. When this happened and if the artifacts became too distracting, users were forced to revert to the old linear soundtrack.
New standards: SuperBetamax and Extended Definition Betamax
In early 1985, Sony would introduce a new feature, High Band or SuperBeta, by again shifting the Y carrier—this time by 800 kHz. This improved the bandwidth available to the Y sideband and increased the horizontal resolution from 240 to 290 lines on a regular-grade Betamax cassette. Since over-the-antenna and cable signals were only 300–330 lines resolution, SuperBeta could make a nearly identical copy of live television. However, the chroma resolution still remained relatively poor, limited to just under 0.4 megahertz or approximately 30 lines resolution, whereas live broadcast chrominance resolution was over 100 lines. The heads were also narrowed to 29 micrometers to reduce crosstalk, with a narrower head gap to play back the higher carrier frequency at 5.6 MHz. Later, some models would feature further improvement, in the form of Beta-Is, a high band version of the Beta-I recording mode. There were some incompatibilities between the older Beta decks and SuperBeta, but most could play back a high band tape without major problems. SuperBeta decks had a switch to disable the SuperBeta mode for compatibility purposes. (SuperBeta was only marginally supported outside of Sony, as many licensees had already discontinued their Betamax line.)
In 1988, Sony would again push the envelope with ED Beta, or "Enhanced Definition" Betamax, capable of up to 500 lines of resolution, that equaled DVD quality (480 typical). In order to store the ~6.5 megahertz-wide luma signal, with the peak frequency at 9.3 MHz, Sony used a metal formulation tape borrowed from the Betacam SP format (branded "ED-Metal") and incorporated some improvements to the transport to reduce mechanically induced aberrations in the picture. Beta ED also featured a luminance carrier deviation of 2.5 MHz, as opposed to the 1.2 MHz used in SuperBeta, improving contrast with reduced luminance noise.
Sony introduced two ED decks and a camcorder in the late 1980s. The top end EDV-9500 (EDV-9300 in Canada) deck was a very capable editing deck, rivalling much more expensive U-Matic set-ups for its accuracy and features, but did not have commercial success due to lack of timecode and other pro features. Sony did market Beta ED to "semiprofessional" users, or "prosumers". One complaint about the EDC-55 ED CAM was that it needed a lot of light (at least 25 lux), due to the use of two CCDs instead of the typical single-CCD imaging device. The Beta ED lineup only recorded in BII/BIII modes, with the ability to play back BI/BIs.
Despite the sharp decline in sales of Betamax recorders in the late 1980s and subsequent halt in production of new recorders by Sony in 2002, both Betamax and SuperBetamax are still being used by a small number of people. New cassettes are still available for purchase at online shops and used recorders are often found at flea markets, thrift stores or on Internet auction sites. Early format BetaCam cassettes, which are physically based on the Betamax cassette, continue to be available for use in the professional media.
Comparison to other video formats
Size comparison between a Betamax cassette (top) and a VHS cassette (bottom).Below is a list of modern, digital-style resolutions (and traditional analog "TV lines per picture height" measurements) for various media. The list only includes popular formats. All values are approximate NTSC resolutions. For PAL systems, replace "480" with "576".
- 350×240 (250 lines at low-definition): Video CD
- 350×480 (250 lines): Umatic, Betamax, VHS, Video8
- 420×480 (300 lines): Super Betamax, Betacam (professional)
- 460×480 (330 lines): Analog Broadcast
- 590×480 (420 lines): LaserDisc, Super VHS, Hi8
- 700×480 (500 lines): Enhanced Definition Betamax
Digital formats:
- 720×480 (500 lines): DVD, miniDV, Digital8
- 720×480 (380 lines): Widescreen DVD
- 1280×720 (680 lines): Blu-ray, D-VHS
- 1440×1080 (760 lines): miniDV (high-def variant)
- 1920×1080 (1020 lines): Blu-ray, D-VHS
See also
- Videotape format war
- Peep search – A picture search system pioneered with Betamax and available on most video formats since.
- Umatic - The predecessor to Betamax, using 3/4-inch tape instead of 1/2-inch.
- Compact Video Cassette - Competitor product developed by Funai and Technicolor using 1/4" tape format.
- Betacam - Umatic's replacement. A non-compatible, high-quality standard used by television studios and other professionals.
- Video8 - A small form factor tape based upon Betamax technology, using 8 mm tape.
Notes and references
- ^ http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/vhs.html
- ^ "This is a revolution!", Sony History, Sony.net
External links
- The Ultimate Betamax Info Guide – covering the Betamax format in the North American market
- Mister Betamax – extensive Beta supply site
- Betamax PALsite – over 350 pages of Betamax information, running since 1997
- The 'Total Rewind' VCR museum – covering Betamax and other vintage formats
- The Betamax format in the UK, including technical information on servicing Sanyo Beta machines
- "Daily Giz Wiz" Podcast discussing the Betamax
- The Rise and Fall of Beta by Marc Wielage and Rod Woodcock
- Affinity Publishing Group, Inc. – Betamax Tape Repair and Restoration
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Categories: Sony products | 1975 introductions | Discontinued media formats | Metaphors | Video storage
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Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:33:47 GMT+00:00
BNET (blog) Betamax ; Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD the importance of the porn vote can't be underestimated. As The Register notes: The porn industry could again help ...
unknown
Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:00:28 GM
Betamax. . . betamax. . 2010-07-09. Published on: 09.07.2010 15:00 Home. Categories. 2010-07-09 (17); 2010-07-08 (24); 2010-07-07 (24); 2010-07-06 (24); 2010-07-05 (24); 2010-07-04 (24); 2010-07-03 (24); 2010-07-02 (24); 2010-07-01 (24) ...
Q. Some one in my family told me that my great uncle invented the betamax tapes (they also told me he was a terrible marketer, obviously). I want to find the name of the inventor to make sure that it's true.
Asked by Sammy J - Wed Apr 18 14:09:04 2007 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments
A. He would have had to work for Sony -
Answered by BSE B - Wed Apr 18 14:17:16 2007
