Remember the battle between VHS and Beta that took place in the 1980's? It's not all that different than the HD-DVD vs. Blue Ray battle that took place recently. However, unlike the recent victory, Sony lost out big-time with the Beta. It's kind of interesting, I think - considering Beta's picture clarity was about 4 times better than VHS, and the Beta-Max tape was much more compact than the VHS tape.
However, Sony made a big mistake in it's approach. Sony ignored making it easy to service the Beta players ... one would have to ship the player to Japan to have it fixed ... certainly not convenient, and very pricey too. Not to mention, VCRs were a lot cheaper than Sony's Betamax system.
Funny that I don't remember anybody who owned a Betamax. My friend Davers's parents were the first people I knew to get a VCR. It was a top-loader, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. You could record shows and watch them whenever you wanted?!?!? Was this even legal?!?!? My parents got a VCR in the mid-80's, and I remember going to the supermarket on Thursday evenings to rent a movie ... then, eventually "graduating" to going to BlockBuster video ... this was like VHS heaven! But, I digress.
Seems to me that Sony learned its lesson the second go-around!
Here is a Betamax commerical ... notice the bartender ... it's Nathan Lane!
1 comment:
My dad was one of the first in our city to own a Betamax. I still have the monster in my garage. If I remember correctly, it weighs about 100 lbs, lol !
Post a Comment