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Posted: |
May 21, 2016 - 12:49 AM
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By: |
Mike_J
(Member)
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Over the years, it has become urban legend that Betamax was hugely superior to VHS but that was always a big exaggeration. Certainly, the Betamax format did give a better image and sound quality than its larger competition but seriously it was never the big difference that people said.
But to be honest this has less to do with the construct of the respective cassettes but more to do with the way they were shown back in the day. People forget that, at the outset of the home video boom, a large number of people (and I would think the majority, although that is just conjecture) were hooking their sparkling new VCRs up to TV's that were several years old and which were simply never designed for that sort of input. I'd be willing to bet that, on a side by side comparison, the average home video fan wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the two formats.
One advantage that Beta did have though was the load and eject times - none of that spooling/unspooling of VHS. And consequently less tape jams.
The other thing that was good about Beta - which JohnJohnson will appreciate I'm sure - was the entertainment value it provided when, out of a bunch of movie fan friends, one lone person had gone with Sony's format rather than VHS. It always provided for some light hearted jibes and I'm convinced that the "Betamax is superior" myth came about by the attempts of these poor saps to defend their purchase!
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Posted: |
May 21, 2016 - 3:27 AM
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By: |
Rameau
(Member)
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Second, beta video heads had three alignment screws, as opposed to two on VHS. What resulted was very often incompatibility from one machine to another. And the slower the recorded speed, the greater the chance of incompatibility.
This reminds me, back in the nineties a huge film library was transferred (over a couple of years) to the D2 format (there was D1 & D2, with huge cassettes the size of briefcases). I did a quite few months on the project, all using the one D2 recorder, & the cassettes were warehoused. Well you know what's coming, a few years later someone tried to play the cassettes & they wouldn't play, it seems the machine they were recorded on was seriously misaligned & the cassettes would only play on that one machine (long since junked). Mind you, the D1/D2 format disappeared quite fast. I was talking to someone doing archive telling me he was having trouble finding a working U-matic machine. The tapes will outlast all the players, they're going wrong, being junked, & the heads are wearing out & aren't made anymore
"Over the years, it has become urban legend that Betamax was hugely superior to VHS but that was always a big exaggeration"
True, but...Betamax did have the better picture!
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Posted: |
May 21, 2016 - 3:55 AM
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By: |
Metryq
(Member)
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Well said, Mike. I worked with all kinds of machines and never noticed any "hey, look at that!" remarkable difference between the Betamax and VHS decks. I never put a burst pattern through them, either. But U-matic (3/4") was grab-you-by-the-collar noticeably cleaner.
Good point about connecting the deck to a TV via RF—very few TVs at the time were "jeeped." Naturally, all the monitors at the studio, where I could see VHS and Betamax side-by-side, had video and audio jacks.
Mike_J wrote: One advantage that Beta did have though was the load and eject times - none of that spooling/unspooling of VHS. And consequently less tape jams.
That I cannot agree with. Betamax had a "U-wrap" ring-loading system very much like U-matic, except it threaded in the opposite direction. I don't remember much about the performance of the Betamax machines, but the movement of the U-matics is burned into my brain.
Upon insertion, U-matic drew the tape out and parked itself in an idle mode. Pressing Play resulted in almost instant gratification as the tape tensioned up with a solenoid "clack" and began transporting.
VHS used an M-wrap pattern which covered only 180 degrees of the scan drum, while Betamax had a longer wrap. That gave Betamax a longer "scan," which would make tracking better. But VHS decks varied. Some went straight for a full wrap upon insertion, others parked about halfway up, and still others did not begin wrapping until pressing Play.
I remember the first Panasonic VHS player at my high school. I also remember a long summer of transferring lots of reel-to-reel recordings over to the new format. Of course I was in the AV club. That Panasonic was a top-loader, and sat quietly when the lift was pressed down. Depressing that long-throw, mechanical Play button resulted in internal clinking noises as the tape threaded. Same upon pressing Stop. And that was the design flaw of that machine.
I told all the teachers, "After pressing Stop, wait until all the sounds of movement inside the machine stop before pressing Eject. The tape needs time to unthread." Most of the teachers had no problem remembering this. But there was one German lady (with a very thick accent—who taught the English class, of all things) who just couldn't seem to grasp that, no matter how many times I repeated it. Her usual M.O. was to press Stop followed instantly by Eject. Clack-clack. I'd cringe every time that lift sprang up with the tape's guts still inside the machine. Then the teacher would complain about the lousy machine, and I'd have another rescue (and sometimes splicing) chore later. That VHS needed a solenoid lock on the lift until unloading finished. Thankfully, another deck—with front-loading—joined our stable the next year. And I made sure that teacher never got the top-loader.
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