Mr. Bob Dole Appreciation Day

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by Fire Me Boy!

Until 6 months ago I still had a working beta player in my house.

Television still uses Betamax extensively. While the switch over to DVCPro and other digital formats is ongoing, Beta is still a good and reliable source.

Beta should have won the Beta/VHS war, but JVC (who owned VHS) sunk a ton of money into VHS and public ate it up... whereas Sony (who owned Beta) thought incorrectly that quality would triumph.

Bottom line: Beta > VHS.

You are not telling the quite whole story. I was selling/servicing them at the time, it was quite an issue.
It was all about recording time from the beginning. The original Beta would record 1 hour, the VHS 2 hours. Then 2/4 and then 6. The VHS was always ahead when it came to recording time and that had the consumer appeal.
Oh, and before the VHS we had the "Quasar Great Time Machine" that had a 2 hour tape that was about four times the size of the VHS tape. The unit was huge, heavy and expensive.