Oddity Archive: Episode 194 – History of VHS, Vol. 2 (Format Wars & VHS-C)

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You do videos weakly, but I feel that you do that shit for several months!

You know...I went back and watched the Betamax episode. It puts everything now into context.

That song is an absolute banger and I’m going to have it stuck in my head for the rest of the week...

Wow! I just published my review of a JVC SVHS-C camcorder today! Some videotape psychic synergy seems to be going on this week! Great video with excellent examples of footage. Great job! You have just published the BEST documentary about the video tape format wars of the 1980s.

Great trip down memory lane. JVC is just so 1985 its not true and then fell off. Reminds me of Phil Collins mid 80s over synthesised music. Remember VHS was supreme in NZ from 1983 onwards, Beta never got a foothold and in 83 wanting to get a video movie out and my Dad would never let me (I was 7) I thought it was munch bunch as it showed cartoon fruit - it was infact a porno in which the fruit was being inserted in certain places!!!

I have been looking for a while to figure out when EP was introduced. Not even a newspaper archive was of any help.
I did this because I was trying to figure out what VCR model a batch of tapes (1980-1988) was recorded on, it seems to be a Panasonic-manufactured deck that does not care about Macrovision, as the recordings closely line up with my 1986 Panasonic-manufactured Sylvania.

I think this is a good time to mention the new video game "Moving Out". Start a new game and choose to play the Training level...

OH, NO!








BETA

Also thanks for the stupid chicken song I can't get out of my head now

Part II at last! Well done. I stand firmly by my vote for this as Best of Breed among VHS history videos. Somewhere, a small liberal arts college is crying out for you to join them as a professor of practice in... I dunno what. Talking about this stuff to the most- and least- hip undergrads around.

The format war was based mainly on the number of VHS manufacturers, the interference of entities such as RCA, the availability of duration of recording times. If Sony had left other manufacturers to make players in Betamax, it would have been something different.Not for nothing the Betacam, a format derived from the Betamax aimed at the broadcasting sector had more significance.

Regarding Hi-Fi on both Beta and VHS, this was an entirely separate audio track. The regular "normal" linear track could have other material on it if you wanted it to- the Fantasia VHS has a mono-compatible mix on the linear track and most TV recordings I made were set to record the SAP track if one was there from broadcasts on that track.

Our first VCR was a Hi-Fi VHS in 1985 and it drove me NUTS that it could only play the linear tracks in mono- and that is true of about 99% of all VHS Hi-Fi machines out there. Those earlier stereo tapes shown here will only play in mono on most recent machines. I've taken great pains to track down equipment to play linear stereo properly. I can even play the linear tracks on Beta tapes in stereo which is extremely rare, but most movie tapes only had that track in mono. Despite reports I've seen to the contrary, both tracks on VHS tapes were stereo all the way up to the end of that format. (The Hi-Fi track on some tapes is unusable due to tracking errors as demonstrated here- I've gotten some where the track won't even play at all. You then need the linear track as a backup and playing that in mono won't cut it for me.)

There was also Beta ED (Extended Definition), which matched or exceeded Super VHS quality, but it arrived around the same time Sony caved in and started selling VHS VCRs, so it got almost no attention except from some Beta-diehard videophiles. And most later VHS VCRs do have the ability to play S-VHS tapes with a watchable image, albeit reduced to standard VHS quality -- this was called Quasi S-VHS or Super Quasi Playback (SQPB).

And to nit-pick: those early two-piece portable setups with a separate camera and recorder are not camcorders, because the term "camcorder" comes from the combination of both devices (camera + recorder) into one unit.

if anything Sony helped the porn industry of the 80s, alot of stuff was shot on a BetaCam and mastered on Beta Tapes

This is the best channel ever. FInally content that appeals to my super nerd senses.

I've noticed that your talking speed is much slower than many years ago, I wonder what made this change.

More history videos please. I find these fascinating.

I'm becoming intimately familiar with VHS-C. Currently in the process of digitizing a bunch of old home movies on VHS-C from the late 90s and early 2000s. Then I'll be throwing it in Final Cut, to make the ultimate home movie.

Ahh the intro in VHS quality.

Is this guy trying to emulate Wilson on Home Improvement?

You forgot to mention SQPB (super quasi playback) where certain VHS machines could playback SVHS recorded tapes but only at regular VHS resolution.

I was in graduate school between 2002-2004 for film and we used mini dv. I still have the tapes from there and will dispose of them because from looking online they are obsolete.

Great episode, as always...one indirect drawback of playing standard VHS cassettes in a S-VHS unit was that it made onscreen artifacts more prevalent, as I found out firsthand. Also, had no idea that prerecorded movies were ever released in Video 8 format, or that Amstrad manufactured all sorts of electronics (only ever knew them as a computer company!).

I think the no porn on Beta urban legend is perpetuated by internet millennials. Who are used to strict content control from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft on their consoles.

VHS won this round. 😀👍📼

In all seriousness, who Would record 6 hours of video on a tape for home video?

The Sony BMC-110 BetaMovie was available in mid-1983. It should be noted that it was record only with no electronic viewfinder, and the early models had manual focus and manual white balance!

The SL-7200 had Beta I speed only. I bought one in 1976 for $1300! (nearly $6000 in 2020 dollars) The Beta II speed was introduced in the SL-8200 (Zenith JR-9000W), which came along about 1978. In one of many of Sony's odd decisions the next machine was the SL-8600, which abandoned Beta I, and would play/record in Beta II only. If you wanted to upgrade, then you couldn't play any of your tapes recorded in Beta I. Sony added Beta I playback in the SL-5400, but you had to use a switch on the back of the unit to change between Beta I and Beta II or III mode.

OK who else is suddenly interested in acquiring Walter Payton's KFC record?

There’s really no “horizontal resolution” with an analog signal. There are only discreet vertical lines of resolution.

Still own the 1st VHS VCR I ever bought. My 1986 Panasonic 4 head HQ machine. Bought it band new in 1986 and I still use it from time to time.

Why do you recommend a Manual VHS-C Adapter over a Mechanical one?

I personally like the VHS intro

This is fascinating and so informative. I’ve really enjoyed it. I still have my JVC HR-S3900U VCR that I purchased in 2001 and it’s working fine. I have many things on VHS tapes that aren’t on dvd, or anywhere else for that matter.

All'inizio del video si vedono immagini con forti disturbi video,secondo me quei disturbi sono fatti apposta,io sono pieno di videocassette e non c'è ne una,dico una!,che ha il segnale video disturbato in quel modo,ma ci prendiamo in giro?

Perché stai sempre dietro a un cartone?

To a VHS collector like myself, EP mode is a bit of a mixed blessing. On one hand, in EP mode, you have more stuff on that tape. On the other, it's a bit more prone to degradation than the other modes.

We were robbed in 1993 and my insurance had a "full replacement" clause in it. My 1989 Super Beta deck was taken and I won't forget how the insurance company whined about having to buy a new Super Beta Deck that year (special order) for around $650.

It was all about one thing...content. We weren't interested in quality of picture, or tape length.
It was all about movies being available on VHS. In 1982 I saw bootleg versions of E.T., Star Trek 2 and Rocky 3, just to name a few, while they were still at the cinema. That is why VHS won. All my mates also got VHS machines and we started double taping movies lol!

In addition to a couple of early Sanyo, Technicolor gadgets, we had the rca VCT-400 model.... BEST mono audio ever, loved the 7-day timer (and how easily it popped-out of the VCR ;) . We were lucky enough to have a Sony VO-1600 which LOVED to snap tape if you didnt let it settle between rewind/playback modes...