That's correct. Sony only licensed Betamax to a couple of mfgs. JVC licensed
to anyone with a checkbook. That created a much larger potential market, and,
as you said, when the porn industry decided to switch from film to videotape,
that much larger market drove the decision to go VHS, and the Beta market dried
up and died.
It irked me, because I had gone Beta (Beta Hi-Fi as a matter of fact) because
of the far superior image and sound. Actually, the last stronghold for Beta was
the video production/news industry who used Beta's professional brother,
Betacam, because of the superiority of the technology. I'm fact, there may
still be some smaller studios still using it.
Paul Braun
Certified Music Junkie
"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever." -- David St. Hubbins
"Music washes from the soul the dust of everyday life" - Berthold Auerbach
> On Apr 13, 2014, at 22:37, "Bill Pearce" <billcpearce@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> the Betamax was so proprietary that almost all the machines were made by
> Sony. The VHS I think was developed by JVC, but whoever did licensed it to
> nearly anyone. What broke the camels back was that the porn industry
> committed completely to VHS, and that's what go it off the ground and took
> it to first place. Look at history and you will see that most all great
> innovations were early adopted by pornographers. More recent? The internet
> of course.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Laughlin
> Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2014 9:25 PM
> To: Olympus Camera Discussion
> Subject: Re: [OM] OT: Sony Sucks, big time
>
> Yes, the Betamax was the best system and I had an expensive Betamax
> player. But because Sony was so proprietary with their system, it got
> to the point that, when I wanted to rent a movie, it was only available
> in VCR. So there I was with, essentially, an expensive door stop.
> And my experience with the original iPad and the way it handles
> photographs has left a very bad taste in my mouth. No more Apple for
> me. And I don't think that Apple is winning, at all. Just too damn
> proprietary for me.
> Paul in Portland OR
>
>> On 4/13/2014 2:40 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
>> ?
>> Am I wrong here but…
>> I was of the understanding that Betamax was the better system - more
>> compact, more reliable, less prone to jamming - but VCR reached the
>> tipping point first in the consumer market and dominated.
>> Isn't that why the professional and ENG market kept using very expensive
>> Betamax equipment for a very long time - until digital got good enough?
>> I suspect that we did ourselves a disservice there.
>> And isn't Apple still winning?
>
>
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