vhs or beta max? i know vhs won, but which was best and why?

Answer 1

AH, now this is a classic study in Business strategens and who was the smartest. BetaMax & VHS came out at roughly the same time (1976), but from different companies. Beta was the brainchild of Sony, and VHS from JVC. Whereas JVC realised it was not able to corner the market but may have a share in it, Sony rapidly became greedy and tried to force the market to take it's standard.

Unlike the Laserdiscs of the same reason (just think of them as 12'' DVDs) which were huge, expensive to produce, cumbersome, easy to scratch and had poor quality, the cassette standards came cheaply (in comparison) and were reliable, clean and easy to handle. Sony's attempt, Beta, had a higher frame rate (it used more tape to make the same images) and a much better quality overall. Sony became overconfident, patented it's Beta system into the ground and woe betide anyone who should try to produce something compatible. However JVC went the opposite way, encouraged manufacturers to use the technology and helped people produce both VHS equipment and Cassettes.

Becuase Sony decided they were going to be the only people to make Beta, production was slow and the range of titles, recording and playback equipment released for the standard was poor. JVC's VHS however soon had the collective market producing fancy equipment, forwarding the technology and had a huge library of films to own. Becuase the two standards took such a different turn, after several months it was clear that the one to stay the course was VHS and that Sony's Beta was doomed.

History does repeat itself though, watch now as coming soon to your house will be a brocure about the new Sony only technology, Blu-Ray which will be competing against the world's shared format, High Definition DVD. I know which I'll be buying...


Hope I helped

Answer 2

In 1975 Sony introduced it's Betamax system. JVC introduced its own VHS system the following year.

The two systems were incompatible each using different tape-handling mechanisms and cassette sizes as well as coding systems that varied just enough so that the tapes were not interchangeable.

At first Beta was the industry leader with its compact, inexpensive, and reliable VCR. It accounted for most of the sales from 1975-77. It soon however it fell behind VHS in market share and continued to loose its share every year thereafter.

So the question is why did this happen? Sony had entered the market first and had a product that was generally considered to be technically superior than it's VHS counterpart.

There were several reasons for Sony's defeat.

Sony was unable to produce enough Beta systems to supply all its potential customers. Other manufactures were reluctant to licensed the technology. Originally Betamax had a one hour recording limit. RCA recognized the Beta formats inadequacy of a one-hour playing time. They decided to join with JVC and Matsushita in declining to adopt the Beta format. Now it seemed time for Sony to modify the Betamax for two-hour recordings which resulted in the loss of valuable time and opportunities to continue their attempts at licensing their format. Of particular interest was when Hitachi approached them in 1975 but were turned away because Sony managers insisted that the Betamax was not yet perfected and thus not available for licensing.

JVC was willing to let other companies refine the VHS. This included creating longer recording times and adding new features. As all these companies began producing VHS models they flooded the market. Together these companies gained a market advantage of 49% with the VHS system (compared to 41% by Sony and it's few partners). The VHS standard was worldwide by the end of 1978, and Beta-max had lost the war.

By the end of the 1980s Sony had stopped producing home Beta models and switched to a smaller 8mm tape used primarily for home movies.

From strictly an engineering point of Betamax was a superior format. Sony's product was basically a miniaturization of the U-Matic (the universally accepted professional tape standard system from the early 1970's through the early 90's).

However to the home user (not professionals) the easy availability of the VHS system and longer recording times and
the fact that the picture quality (to the user) was just as good as the Betamax doomed the Betamax system.

Sony did however convert the Betamax to a professional broadcast machine and it replaced the U-Matic in TV TV stations and newsrooms until digital recording became available early in the 21st century.

Answer 3

Beta max was a superior product. They even (and still do) have a professional version of the Beta max, and it was (and is) in active use in professional world. It is now fading away with digital technologies.

The reason beta didn't take off was that Sony held all the patent and didn't license its technology to only select companies, where as VHS was pretty much an open standard. Because of this, the market share didn't rise, and eventually the whole system for family use was obsoleted.

Answer 4

At the time when Sony launched Betamax, they were effectively a small, little known company. Their product, however, was superior in sound and picture quality to VHS, as well as being more reliable. However, VHS had the backing of Philips and Matsushita, who were at that time, the big names in home entertainment. They basically flooded the market with relatively cheap VHS recorders, forcing Sony's Betamax out of production. A similar event is happening now with Sony's Blu-Ray system, competing against the HD-DVD offerings from everyone else. We shall see who wins this time around...

Answer 5

I am sure I heard a story that beta max could not tape a full american football match (or some other sport thing), so it lost out 'cause VHS could record over a longer period of time before it ran out...

Answer 6

Beta was best quality but more expensive to produce because it ran faster than VHS and used more tape, but the picture quality and sound where better than VHS

Answer 7

Aw man . . betamax all the way, better picture quality etc etc the list goes on, but it was all to do with the amount of heads the tape was read from the speed of rotation of the said heads. . . god i could go on. . . poor poor betamax, oh and vhs was cheaper to produce . . . .


Don't forget the Grundig attempt at tape wars too, video2000 i think it was called . . even better than betamax . . but the phrase goin down like a lead balloon was invented for that format

Answer 8

beta max was the best and no one knew why vhs won but it never got standardised so never became popular

Answer 9

betamax was best ,better quality.just think that VHS name sounded better so VHS won

Answer 10

Philips 2000 hands down.