Betamax vs VHS: The Battle for Home Video Tapes

Betamax and VHS were the first two mainstream home video formats, and they would battle it out for home video dominance throughout the 1970s and 1980s in a serious effort to own living rooms across the world!

Each tape had its own pros and cons, market strategies, and studio support that would shape the home entertainment market for years to come. And the loser might have stuck around a lot longer than you thought…

Join me for a deep dive into the first home video format war in this episode of Home Video History!

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#vhs
#movies
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[matthemming]

I grew up in this era. We had a bank of VHS tapes, numbered and referenced in a book, and my mom would plan out the week using TV Guide so we could record the shows and movies we might want to rewatch. I remember the revolution that was the "commercial skip" button.

[michaelwallace]

In the late 70s, when my parent were deciding on which machine to get for our house (I was in high school at the time), Beta may have been technically better, but on TVs of the day, the difference wasn't apparent. On today's setups, the difference is noticeable. On the TV we had (and it was a very good TV for it's day), you couldn't see, and definitely couldn't hear, the difference. And VHS machines may have been available for 200 bucks in the mid 80s, but in 77 or 78, when my folks got theirs, it was less than a Beta machine, but still quite a bit more than 200 bucks, as I remember. Great analysis of the formats! Thanks.

[PaganFall]

There was a third format in the UK as well, called Video 2000 (aka V2000). It was a double sided video cassette (like a large VHS sized black audio cassette). It was great for recording from TV, because you could get 6 hours from a 3 hour tape, or 8 from a 4 hour). A limited number of movies also got released for rental & retail, but it died off in 1988 after VHS won the war.

[InimicusSolitus]

You should do a video on the history of Laserdisc - a format well ahead of it's time.

[jurassic_zilla_]

You should make a video about a format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

[MrBibi]

*I remember when my friend showed me if you recorded in Long-play "LP" it would double the amount of time you could record. That rocked my world at the time lol*

[joeblankenship]

The one thing I miss about VHS was hooking up 2 VCR's, renting movies, then copying them at home. We had TONS of bootlegged movies back in the 80s/90s. And if you didn't really care about the quality, you could get 3 movies on 1 tape.

[stephaniemack]

I grew up long after this particular format war, but my Stepfather remained sore about the loss of Betamax for decades. He used to bitch for hours at a time about how superior Beta was compared to VHS. Finally I asked him why if Beta was so much better that it lost to the inferior VHS. Without hesitation, he said: "Because Sony was stupid and couldn't read the damn market!"

Now I see what he was talking about.

[Ilyaisaweeb]

6:07 Ain’t no way one of the biggest reasons VHS succeeded was because of gooners. 💀

[DanKeatis]

VHS was such a big part of my childhood (in fact, I was buying videotapes well into my twenties) that I feel like it was around forever. Even though I've been collecting Blu Rays for way longer in real-terms. Great stuff Jeff!

[maxmtzrdz]

Love these kinds of videos, really interesting!! You think you could do more videos of the Home Video History of Horror movies??

[Markimark]

I remember Betamax in the 1980s, we had few video stores that rented out Beta tapes, they did have Disney movies on Beta, I remember seeing Mary Poppins and Pinocchio, but I got VHS format, a Magnavox VCR. The ability to record long television shows was the main factor that VHS won, not necessarily the movies, since studios like Disney, Warner Bros, and Paramount supported both VHS and Beta in the early days of the format war.

[tobygroves]

Sony has a history of trying to invent proprietary formats which died because they were too expensive and/or not open. Betamax, Mini-disc, Memory Stick. Only when they created or collaborated on open standards did these succeed, such as CD and Blu-ray. The story of Betamax has parallels with Digital Audio Tape (DAT) - another Sony product which failed miserably in the consumer space but lived on in the professional arena for a long time. I'm from the UK but lived in Holland in the late 70s and VCRs were huge amongst the English-speaking community as it offered a way, via rental stores, of accessing English-language programming. There was a definite 'snobbery' surrounding Betamax with those who opted for this system touting its superior technical quality and higher price as a kind of status symbol. The Apple of its day you might say :D

[garytilford]

Sound quality on VHS improved massively when Hifi Stereo was introduced. It was a vast improvement over the original linear stereo and really brought your tapes to life. It was better than CD quality on an analog tape.

[donsimpsonshead]

We got our first VHS deck in 1978 because my dad was a doctor, and he wanted a monthly series of medical tapes. So little 12 year old me would sit next to him to watch full on operations; chests getting cracked open and blood squirting out of veins in ER’s. But back then each movie would be crazy expensive because they would be priced out for rental stores, around a hundred dollars or more. So the only actual movie we had for a couple years was the two free ones that came with the player, The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The very first movie that broke the price barrier was Star Trek’s The Wrath of Khan. It came out at $39.99 and that’s really when VHS took off.

[kenneth]

Sony did not by Columbia Pintures until 1989.

[ryanjones]

I was born in 1991 so i was in the vhs craze from the beginning of the 90s! How many people collect VHS tapes for a living?

[ShaMicKan]

I work in broadcast and was surprised how long beta held on. Well into the HD days. But those super small market stations used their equipment until it died. Wasn’t really until the analog to digital signal switchover that their hands were finally forced.

[paulmaguire]

Fabulous video! Can you imagine the store you went to in 2011 to get a Betamax tape? "Yes, sir isle 3 beside the Super8 film and 8-inch Floppy disks !"

[Eva_H]

Jeff, I can’t remember did you ever do VHS vs laserdisc?

Yes, please if you were ever going to consider if you haven’t already.

Laserdisc is my favourite Home video format of all time.