With the recent announcement by Toshiba that they were pulling the plug on their floundering HD-DVD technology, the latest protracted (and increasingly annoying) format war is over, making the Sony-backed Blu-Ray the new standard-bearer for the “next generation” DVD marketplace.

For Sony, this victory has to feel especially sweet. After all, it wasn’t that long ago, relatively speaking – only about two decades – when the electronics giant found themselves on the losing end of another, even more crucial home video format war.

I refer, of course, to the infamous videocassette battle of the ’80s, when Sony’s Beta format was crushed by the VHS juggernaut.

It’s difficult to believe, but there will soon be a generation of geeks that has never so much as seen a videocassette, let alone watched a movie on one. The once-ubiquitous black plastic rectangles, with their spools of magnetic tape contained within, have been relegated in the last few years from dominating home-video aisles in major retail chains to being peddled in any number of disreputable dollar stores or closeout catalogs, as the so-called Digital Revolution has swept virtually all analog technology under the rug of history. Even the mighty VCR has fallen victim to consumer demand for DVD, something that would have been unthinkable even a few short years ago.

What all of this means is that, even as VHS fades from memory, the sad and cautionary tale of Beta (or Betamax, or Betacord, or whichever alternate name you prefer) is in danger of becoming lost to history.

Allow me to set the stage. In 1975, Sony was marketing the first successful videocassette recorder for the home market, discounting the short-lived (and little-remembered) Cartrivision system of 1972 and Sony’s earlier, professionally-targeted U-matic format. The LV-1901 was a fairly bizarre-looking unit, a 19” floor-console TV with a box on the side containing a VCR that resembled nothing so much as a large tape recorder, with its piano-style keys and “pop-up” carrier. It was, as you might logically expect, an extremely primitive unit, capable of recording at only one speed and with tapes that only held up to an hour each at that speed. And all of this for the low, low price of $2,295! (In perspective, that’s very close to ten grand in today’s dollars.)

This seminal machine’s format was Beta. That may surprise a lot of younger readers, who grew up in the era when VHS was king, but it’s true; VHS was a latecomer to the party that Beta threw.

Eventually, Sony began offering a VCR (the SL-7200) as a separate unit from the TV. It was functionally similar to the unit contained in the LV-1901, with one notable difference; the timer was actually a separate, removable clock, similar to a digital alarm clock of the era. The sentiment here was that, if the clock ever malfunctioned, it could be taken to a service center and replaced without the expense and hassle of having to disconnect the whole bulky VCR and lug it to the shop for repairs – and in the meantime, the consumer wouldn’t lose the ability to record shows without the timer. Although this was not a well-recieved feature (mostly because it made the unit resemble something cobbled together in a basement lab), it was an early example of the sort of outside-the-box thinking that would soon come to define Beta machines in the wake of an increasing challenge from VHS.

When the first VHS machine – for the historical record, an RCA “SelectaVision” VBT200 model – arrived in the US market in October 1977, the war was on. VHS was strong coming out of the gate, boasting the ability to record a whopping four hours on a single cassette on a machine that cost less than $1,000. And thus were the battle lines drawn; from this moment on, VHS would represent less-expensive machines with longer tapes, while Beta would boast higher-quality picture and more innovative features. For the better part of the next ten years, proponents of both Beta and VHS would argue incessantly over which format was in fact better.

To this day, proponents of Beta insist that the Beta recording process produces sharper pictures, more accurate color reproduction, and better audio than its VHS counterpart. The generally shorter recording time of Beta cassettes (the most common tape length, L750, only holds up to 4½ hours of content at the slowest speed, versus the 6 of a standard T-120 VHS cassette at the comparable speed) was considered a small price to pay for what was percieved to be superior audiovisual quality. Beta recorders, too, often boasted features that weren’t available on VHS machines until years later, including (but not limited to): scene indexing, adjustable record levels, Hi-Fi stereo with Dolby noise reduction, jog/shuttle discs, and onscreen displays (often in real hours and minutes rather than a somewhat arbitrary “tape counter”). Some high-end models even offered built-in video titlers and true frame-by-frame time code, for making near-professional quality edits of home recordings!

So why did Beta, arguably the better format, lose so convincingly to VHS, becoming instead a synonym for marketplace failure? There are several reasons, but most of them come right back to the same root cause – Sony did not want to open its technology up to other manufacturers, while JVC (the creators of VHS) did. Although there were several makes and models of Beta VCRs on the market (including Sanyo, Zenith, and – somewhat ironically given recent events – Toshiba), the actual internals were all manufactured by Sony themselves, and those other companies just sold rebadged units. This kept the cost of a Beta VCR high in comparison to VHS machines, which were actually manufactured by the other companies in compliance with JVC’s specifications. The lower cost of a VHS VCR, combined with the slightly longer recording length of its tapes, were the key factors in determining a winner in the eyes of the average consumer; ironically, these were also the only two areas that even the staunchest Beta supporter would be forced to admit VHS had the upper hand in. Sony, in short, incorrectly predicted that quality was more important than shelf price to the average consumer, and Beta never recovered as a result.

For all practical purposes the format war was over by 1985; however, Sony kept at it for several years afterward. Beta had found a niche market among videophiles that insisted upon the highest-possible quality to their recordings, something neither VHS nor read-only LaserDiscs could provide. Sony held out on entering the VHS market until 1988, but amazingly continued to churn out Beta tapes and VCRs to the tiny-but-dedicated fanbase, usually through special-order catalogs and Internet sales, until 2002.

What were the lessons learned from Beta’s failure? Mostly that, no matter how good something is, it will still fail to become a standard if someone else can produce something similar for less money. Price point is still probably the most important factor in determining what the average American consumer will buy, especially in a weak economy like what we presently have. And one way to keep the price point low is to allow other manufacturers to have a go at producing units to your specifications; granted, this might mean a noticable difference in quality between different companies, but this kind of “open” development model will reduce costs and, in turn, convince more people to buy your technology.

Sony, with their willingness to allow other companies to produce their own Blu-Ray units, seems to have learned their lesson from the Beta debacle in at least this regard. And it’s been rewarded; with HD-DVD bowing out at the end of March, Blu-Ray has seemingly avenged the slaughter of its ancestor in the Sony clan.

Of course, there’s a difference between getting to the top of the heap and staying on top of that heap. Blu-Ray may have won out in the end, but with the growth of video-on-demand and movie studios recently embracing the concept of “media-free” delivery systems, the future of shrink-wrapped recorded movies themselves may soon be in question. Plus,let’s not forget that Blu-Ray positively reeks of DRM and other potentially nasty content-protection schemes that ultimately won’t stop piracy and will only annoy those who don’t steal content. (HD-DVD also had DRM ugliness, of course, but by most accounts it was the lesser of two evils in this respect.) Winning the format war probably won’t change that, and us Linux users will probably still end up out in the cold when it comes to Blu-Ray compatibility (and even attempting to get such compatibility working will stilll be considered a breach of the DMCA, just like the DeCSS flap from earlier in the decade).

Sometimes, it’s enough to make you want to hold on to your aging VCR. Maybe even a Beta one…

If you liked that, try...

1. Toshiba Pulls Plug on HD DVD, Blu-Ray Crowned Winner
2. Toshiba Expected to Pull Plug on HD-DVD
3. Blu-ray wins…or does it?
4. Paramount, Dreamworks back HD-DVD, drop Blu-Ray
5. Warner Bros backs Blu-Ray, HD format war continues to annoy

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