So long, Betamax, and thanks for all the DVRs
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Its battle was lost to VHS decades ago — but it was only this week that Sony finally euthanized the Betamax video recording format.
Sony quietly announced the official end of shipments for its Betamax tapes on its Japanese web site (it also killed the Micro MV format). For all practical purposes, Betamax has been dead for years.
Sony built its last Betamax player in 2002, a fact that may surprise those who assumed that Betamax went the way of the Dodo in the mid-1980s.
But before we dismiss the now departed Betamax, it's worth remembering Sony and its tapes essentially invented the concept of "time-shifting" television — and that Netflix and today's DVRs are its direct descendants.
Sony Betamax arrived in 1975, complete with big ads and groovy promotional videos.
Its reign as the leader in TV recording was incredibly short lived. JVC introduced the VHS format — which had the benefit of longer recording times and within four short years, VHS had gobbled up 60% of the market.
When my family bought its first video recorder in 1978, it was a massive VHS system (it even came with a black and white video camera that connected directly to the VHS, which recorded the input).
I recall that there was a brief conversation my home about which format to get, but my father quickly decided that VHS was the way to go.
Downward Trend
Betamax held its own through the early 1980s, with some users claiming their video quality was inherently better on the Sony format, and some stores even reporting Betamax outselling VHS.
An early Betamax ad
Image: New York Magazine
In the 1980s and even early 1990s, you could still find some video rental stores stocking both tape formats. But by the mid-1990s, outlets like Blockbuster were almost exclusively VHS.
Why? Because those renting the movies only had VHS at home. Perhaps some cinephiles had the higher-quality Betamax (or even laser discs), but there simply wasn't enough demand to make stocking Betamax movies cost-effective.
History repeats
In the last 20 years, Betamax's fall has become a cultural touchstone for all other format and platform battles. No one wants to be the "Betamax of" any industry. But the comparisons died down as VHS went the way of the Dodo too. By 2012, Sony was comfortable enough to look back on Betamax with nostalgia.
Perhaps that's because Sony did finally end up winning a major video format war.
In the early part of this century, when it came to the battle of the next-generation DVDs, we had the Sony Blu-Ray format going up against Toshiba's HD-DVD. Considering Sony's track record, many of us put our money on HD-DVD.
We were wrong, and witnessed Toshiba fold right before a CES where it had planned to make a pretty big HD-DVD push.
Sony never really did a victory lap. It just expanded Blu-ray production, and continues to sell Blu-ray players to this day. (Of course, that format is itself being eclipsed now by streaming services.)
The company learned a valuable lesson with Betamax. Being first to market doesn't mean you win, especially when there are so many other factors at play, such as distribution, availability and price. It's not that we'll never see another format war or that Sony won’t be involved, but the company probably understands the lay of the land better than most.
Though we bury Betamax, it will forever hold a place of honor at Sony — and in the annals of content consumption.
