The Official Betamax Thread

[Mikintosh]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Three_betamax_vcrs.jpg

In honor of our retitled DVD board, as well as the 21st century version, Blu-Ray, not totally bombing in the marketplace. I wasn't even alive for the Betamax's heyday, but was anyone else here a fan?

[herbkir]

Oh yes, I was a Beta fan. I still have a Beta videocam and one of my three Beta VCRs. They have problems because of disuse, although they were fully functional when I retired them.

Beta offered superior image and sound qualiy, and hung on in professional video circles for years after it left the consumer marketplace. It had one drawback relative to VHS -- Beta cassettes gave a maximum 1.5 to 6 hours of recording time v. 2.75 to 8 hours for a VHS cassette. Plus VHS was available in many brands from many manufacturers. Beta, by contrast, was only sold under the Sony and Sanyo brands and (briefly) under a Sears house brand.

Ironically, when VHS finally killed off Beta, VHS cassettes shrunk to only 2-to-6-hours recording time. You can still find 8-hour VHS tapes in some places, but they cost a premium.

I have a bunch of Beta home movies that I'd like to transfer to current formats, if I can find a working Beta player or find someone to overhaul the one I still own.

I also have a few odd commercial Beta casettes including the first Star Wars movie and the hacked up version of Nausicaa known as Warriors of the Wind (the one that infuriated Miyazaki and led him to reject any editing to any of his movies ever again). I also have a couple of dozen Beta tapes full of stuff taped from TV including first and second season Simpsons episodes, old Twilight Zone and Amazing Stories episodes, some anime and a bunch more.

While this thread is an April Fool, my story is true. And explains why I won't be buying HD stuff until I'm sure Blu-Ray has really won the format war. (^_*)

[mookie75]

Beta offered superior image and sound quality...




This sounds so familiar..................but from where............



Hmmmm............. ;)