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48-412: When the first videocassettes became available to the public, he was already in the movie business. Customers in the form of hotels and pizza parlors would rent movie projectors and public domain 8mm movies, and later U-Matic videotape. When VCR's first went on sale in 1975, studios thought they would be a luxury item and that customers would want to buy films to own. Atkinson, however, was the first to see

96-558: A "lifetime membership," which provided the opportunity to rent the videos for $ 10 a day. Atkinson was soon threatened with a lawsuit for renting the videos, but he discovered that U.S. copyright law gave him the right to rent and re-sell videos he owned. The battle to protect the public's right to rent videos was a major catalyst for the establishment of the Video Software Dealers Association in 1981. His company went public in 1983 but Atkinson resigned and sold his stake

144-503: A Betamax player, which they do, but it is subsequently damaged beyond repair by Spike’s impatience with the old device. In the 2008 Pixar movie WALL-E , WALL-E watches some excerpts of the film Hello, Dolly! on an old Betamax tape. The Tagalog song "Betamax" by the Filipino band Sandwich from their fifth studio album in 2008 entitled <S> Marks the Spot talks about an era in

192-449: A Betamax recorder. The Sony PCM-F1 adaptor was sold with a companion Betamax VCR SL-2000 as a portable digital audio recording system. Many recording engineers used this system in the 1980s and 1990s to make their first digital master recordings. One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984,

240-592: 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

288-477: A few years later. At its peak, the chain had over 600 affiliates throughout the U.S. and Canada. He died March 3rd, 2005 at his home in Northridge of complications from emphysema. Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta , as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video , commonly known as a video cassette recorder . It was developed by Sony and

336-464: A nearly identical copy of live television. However, the chroma resolution still remained relatively poor, limited to just under 0.4 MHz or approximately 30 lines resolution, whereas live broadcast chrominance resolution was over 100 lines. The heads were also narrowed to 29  μm 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

384-437: 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

432-441: Is "lines per picture height". When picture height is kept the same, the same 720 pixels are spread to a wider area in 16:9, hence lower horizontal resolution per picture height. Both NTSC and PAL/SECAM Betamax cassettes are physically identical (although the signals recorded on the tape are incompatible). However, as tape speeds differ between NTSC and PAL/SECAM, the playing time for any given cassette will vary accordingly between

480-456: Is carried out at the full rewind or fast forward speed, but most slow the tape down to the picture search speed and actually perform a picture search operation. Peep Search is available with all of the following video tape formats: The following formats generally or always unlace during rewind and fast-forward operations and so are unable to carry out this function: The following formats remain laced during rewind and fast-forward operations but

528-559: The Philippines before the advent of the Internet , MP3s , and DVDs , and the only widespread video format was Betamax. Also in the Philippines, Betamax refers to the popular cubed street food made of chicken or pork's blood served in skewers which bear a crude resemblance to Betamax cartridges. In 2019, episode 3, season 1 of Good Omens (Amazon Prime series), a prophecy is mentioned from

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576-523: The Tenth Doctor beats the episode’s main enemy and entraps her for all eternity in a videotape he created thirty years too early as the episode is set in 1953. He shrugs off the effect it will have on the timelines as he calls it “just Betamax”. In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Speak Like a Child", Jet and Spike receive a Beta tape in the mail intended for Faye. Jet and Spike visit a shop in hopes of finding

624-1006: The U-Matic deal, with Sony dominating. By 1980, JVC's VHS format controlled 60% of the North American market. The large economy of scale allowed VHS units to be introduced to the European market at a far lower cost than the rarer Betamax units. In the United Kingdom, Betamax held a 25% market share in 1981, but by 1986, it was down to 7.5% and continued to decline further. By 1984, 40 companies made VHS format equipment in comparison with Beta's 12. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it, too, began producing VHS recorders (early models were made by Hitachi ), though it still continued to produce Betamax recorders until 2002. In Japan, Betamax had more success and eventually evolved into Extended Definition Betamax, with 500+ lines of resolution. The heads on

672-514: The Video8 format. Their hope was that Video8 could replace both Beta and VHS for all uses. SuperBeta and industrial Betamovie camcorders would also be sold by Sony. On November 10, 2015, Sony announced that it would no longer be producing Betamax video cassettes. Production and sales ended March 2016 after almost 41 years of continuous production. Third-party manufacturers continue to make new cassettes. While these cassettes are designed for use with

720-794: The "Betamax case"), with the U.S. Supreme Court 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 file sharing software (notably excepting those who "actively induce" copyright infringement through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct"). In June 1983, Sony introduced high fidelity audio to videotape as Beta Hi-Fi. For NTSC , Beta HiFi worked by placing

768-696: The Betacam format, the cassettes are interchangeable with traditional Betamax systems. 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, Betamax, SuperBetamax and ED-Beta are still being used by a small number of people. Even though Sony stopped making new cassettes in 2016, new old stocks of Betamax cassettes are still available for purchase at online shops and used recorders (as well as cassettes) are often found at flea markets , thrift stores or on Internet auction sites. Early format Betacam cassettes—which are physically based on

816-549: The Betamax cassette—continue to be available for use in the professional media. It is still used by few broadcasters, as it was succeeded by Betacam SP, its digital modifications and more recently by tapeless recording. The VHS format's defeat of the Betamax format became a classic marketing case study. Sony's attempt to dictate an industry standard backfired when JVC made the tactical decision to forgo Sony's offer of Betamax in favor of developing its own technology. JVC felt that accepting Sony's offer would yield results similar to

864-534: The EDC-55 "ED CAM" camcorder, the major complaint concerned its low light sensitivity due to the use of two CCDs instead of the typical single-CCD imaging device. ED-Beta machines only recorded in βII and βIII modes, with the ability to play back βI and βIs. Two-piece portable video systems (those featuring a portable VCR such as Sony's "BetaPak" ) and a separate camera) soon became available for amateur and low-end video production. To better compete with Super 8 film there

912-627: 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 did not 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

960-864: 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 threatened legal action. Sanyo marketed its own Betamax-compatible recorders under the Betacord brand (also casually referred to as "Beta"). In addition to Sony and Sanyo, Beta-format video recorders were manufactured and sold by Toshiba , Pioneer , Murphy , Aiwa , and NEC . Zenith Electronics and WEGA contracted with Sony to produce VCRs for their product lines. The department stores Sears (in

1008-566: The United States and Canada) and Quelle (in Germany) sold Beta-format VCRs under their house brands, as did the RadioShack chain of electronic stores. Sony also offered a range of industrial Betamax products, a Beta I-only format for industrial and institutional users. These were aimed at the same market as U-Matic equipment, but were cheaper and smaller. The arrival of Betacam reduced the demand for both industrial Beta and U-Matic equipment. For

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1056-522: The United States by RCA in August 1977), Betamax has no guard band and uses azimuth recording to reduce crosstalk . According to Sony's history webpages, the name had a double meaning: beta is the Japanese word used to describe the way in which signals are recorded on the tape; and the shape of the lowercase Greek letter beta (β) resembles the course of the tape through the transport. The suffix -max , from

1104-562: The United States was the LV-1901 model, which included a 19-inch (48 cm) Trinitron television, and appeared in stores in early November 1975. The cassettes contain 0.50-inch-wide (12.7 mm) videotape in a design similar to that of the earlier, professional 0.75-inch-wide (19 mm), U-matic format. Like the rival videotape format VHS (introduced in Japan by JVC in September 1976 and in

1152-424: The audio carriers, creating momentary "buzzing" and other audio flaws. Both systems also used companding 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

1200-419: The book of Agnes Nutter book of prophecies saying: "Do not buy Betamax," and referring to the year 1972. Peep Search Peep Search (or BetaSkipScan ) 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

1248-480: The camcorder itself is record-only, and cannot be used to review or play back footage. (This also effectively restricted Betamovie to those who also owned or had access to the Beta VCRs needed to view recordings). VHS manufacturers found a different solution to drum miniaturization using standard video signals instead, permitting footage to be reviewed on the camcorder itself, and output to another VCR for editing. This

1296-581: The color even more. The chroma delay could be disabled on higher end VCRs by turning on EDIT mode to "reduce editing faults" when dubbing a tape. 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, rivaling 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 ED-Beta to "semiprofessional" users, or " prosumers ". As for

1344-440: The drum of a Betamax VCR move across the tape producing a writing speed of 6.9 or 5.832 metres per second with the drum rotating at 1800 rpm (NTSC, 60 Hz) or 1500 rpm (PAL, 50 Hz), theoretically giving Betamax a higher bandwidth of 3.2 MHz, thus better video quality than VHS. The tape moves at 2 cm/sec (βII, 60 Hz), 1.33 cm/sec (βIII, 60 Hz) or 1.873 cm/sec (50 Hz). The original βI speed

1392-484: The envelope with ED-Beta, or "Extended Definition" Betamax, capable of up to 500 lines of luma resolution, comparable to then-future DVD quality. In order to store the ~6.5 MHz-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

1440-559: 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

1488-449: The introduction of Beta Hi-Fi, Sony shifted the Y carrier up by 400 kHz to make room for the four 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 was not there. Some Sony NTSC models were marketed as "Hi-Fi Ready" (with an SL-HFR prefix to

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1536-481: 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

1584-419: The old linear soundtrack. In early 1985, Sony would introduce a new feature, Hi-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

1632-410: The picture. ED-Beta 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. Chroma resolution remained unchanged, which made artifacts like color fringing more pronounced. To cancel chroma signal crosstalk, the chroma portion of the signal was delayed by one or two scan lines during playback, smearing

1680-427: The possibility of a video rental market. However, the company he was working for, Home Theater Systems, was not doing well, and himself had gone through a difficult divorce that cost him his house and a struggle with alcoholism. In December 1977, George Atkinson spent approximately $ 3000 to buy one Betamax and one VHS copy of each of the 50 available movie titles from Magnetic Video , which were then being sold to

1728-454: The professional and broadcast video industry, Sony derived Betacam from Betamax. Released in 1982, Betacam became the most widely used videotape format in ENG (electronic news gathering), replacing the .75 in (19 mm) wide U-matic tape format. Betacam and Betamax are similar in some ways- early versions of Betacam used the same video cassette shape, used the same oxide tape formulation with

1776-599: The public by direct mail. He announced the availability of the videos for rent in the sports section of a local newspaper, after already advertising "Video for Rent" at an earlier date before he had any videos, along with a coupon for readers to fill out and mail in. Atkinson turned his shop into the first professionally managed video rental store and renamed it Video Station, a 600 square foot (56 m) storefront on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles . In order to raise capital, Atkinson charged $ 50 for an "annual membership" and $ 100 for

1824-468: The rear panel for difficult tapes. For PAL , 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

1872-591: The recording time of β1 on a standard Betamax tape was only 1 hour. Sony removed the β1 speed in favor of the slower speeds to closer compete with VHS’s base 2 hour record time. Because of this, the image quality advantage of Betamax over VHS was essentially removed throughout most of the format war. Despite this, Betamax recorders continued to be manufactured and sold until August 2002, when Sony announced that they were discontinuing production of all remaining Betamax models. Sony continued to sell blank Betamax cassettes until March 2016. The first Betamax VCR introduced in

1920-409: The same coercivity , and recorded linear audio tracks in the same location of the tape. However, in the key area of video recording, Betacam and Betamax use completely different on-tape formats. Betamax also had a significant part to play in the music recording industry, when Sony introduced its PCM ( pulse-code modulation ) digital recording system as an encoding box/ PCM adaptor that connected to

1968-448: The systems. Other unusual lengths were produced from time to time, such as L-410. In the 1983 David Cronenberg film Videodrome , the character of Max Renn grows an opening in his stomach that accepts Betamax videocassettes. The Betamax format was chosen because the cassettes were slightly smaller than VHS cassettes, and thus made the prosthetics easier to construct. In the 2006 episode of Doctor Who entitled The Idiot’s Lantern ,

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2016-410: The video heads) during rewind and fast-forward operation, which is not usually supported on VHS decks and therefore makes VHS almost the only video tape format where peep search is not usually available. To make a distinction between peep search and normal picture search, consider the following operations: Picture Search (or cue and review): Peep Search: On some models of equipment, the peep search

2064-558: The word "maximum", was added to suggest greatness. In 1977, Sony issued the first long-play Betamax VCR, the SL-8200. This VCR had two recording speeds: normal, and the newer half speed. This provided two hours of recording on the L-500 Beta videocassette. The SL-8200 was to compete against the VHS VCRs, which allowed up to 4, and later 6 and 8, hours of recording on one cassette. Initially, Sony

2112-572: Was 4 cm/sec. 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. Listed resolution applies to luminance only, with chroma resolution usually halved in each dimension for digital formats, and significantly lower for analog formats. Equivalent pixel resolutions are calculated from analog line resolution numbers: The somewhat unintuitive analog resolution loss for 16:9 DVD compared to 4:3 DVD arises because analog resolution unit

2160-429: Was a huge advantage, as even owners of Beta VCRs could use a VHS camcorder to copy and edit footage to their Beta deck- something not possible with Betamovie. VHS gained another advantage with VHS-C , which used a miniaturized cassette to make a camcorder smaller and lighter than any Betamovie. Sony could not duplicate the functionality of VHS-C camcorders, and seeing the rapid loss of market share, eventually introduced

2208-505: 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 they were on the tape by pressing the FF key (or REW, if in that mode): the transport would switch into the BetaScan mode until the key was released. This feature is discussed in more detail on Peep Search . Sony believed that

2256-503: Was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, followed by the US in November of the same year. Betamax is widely considered to be obsolete, having lost the videotape format war which saw its closest rival, VHS , dominate most markets. Betamax tapes initially had higher quality images over VHS if recorded at the base β1 speed; however, the speed was rarely offered on Beta VCRs manufactured after 1979, as

2304-407: Was the need for a less cumbersome all-in-one solution, and Sony's was " Betamovie ", the first consumer camcorder. Betamovie used standard-size Betamax cassettes. However, the changes required to miniaturise the mechanism forced the use of non-standard record signal timing. As a result, while the final on-tape recording is – by design – in standard Betamax format and playable on a regular Beta deck,

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