You might think that a VHS cassette is a pretty ordinary thing. I mean, in 2019
20
21
22
23
24 it’s not like we’re using these every day, but when you compare a VHS cassette to
a Beta cassette, you’ll
--Hold on a minute, you just made this video! What sort of stunt are you trying to pull?
I’m not pulling any sort of stunt! I just wanted to point out a very clever thing about
VHS cassettes when you compare them to Beta cassettes --
No, that’s exactly the video you just made! Here...
The VHS cassette was more clever than Beta, you just made this video.
What sort of fools do you take your audience for?
Now now, I don’t think of any of them as fools.
Except for you, Kevin.
If anything, I’m the fool.
Aren’t you gonna ask me why I’m the fool?
Ugh, why are you the fool?
Because it was the thing I’m about to talk about that inspired the whole video comparing
Beta and VHS cassettes,
and yet somehow I managed to completely forget to put it in the video!
Isn’t that dumb?
OK that was pretty dumb
Well I’m glad we agree!
So let’s not waste any more time and get right to it!
Have you ever noticed that some things are bigger than other things?
Like Laserdiscs.
They’re bigger than DVDs.
Or like watermelons.
Those are bigger than grapes.
Or like the pockets in clothing traditionally made for men when compared to those made for women.
Ladies, I feel you. I know you don’t have a lot of options out there. Finding clothing
with pockets you can actually use can be hard, or even impossible!
Men don’t have to deal with that sh**!
I can buy pretty much any pair of pants and my giant ass phone and wallet
and keys will all fit in just one of the pockets just fine.
There’s no reason you shouldn’t have that luxury, too, and frankly I think we, and I mean everybody,
should take a stand against this fashion industry nonsense.
I can’t believe I just called pockets a luxury, that’s how nonsense this situation is!
I think It’s time to embrace a little function over form, whaddya say?
I may not have a lot of power to change this,
and my audience is 95% male according to YouTube,
but to those who will listen,
[patriotic music plays] you deserve pocket equality!
I know next to nothing
about what options are out there, but when you find a good one, grab it! And make sure
you tell everyone about it! Demand for pockets needs to be sustained! It needs to grow! And
if you can’t find something in your style with decent pockets, don’t buy it! Let it
sit on the shelf in protest.
And if I may make a suggestion to the gatekeepers and tastemakers of the fashion world,
early '90s colors seem to be all the rage right now. I’m sure you can tell that my fashion
sense is unparalleled so you can trust me here. How about a dark blue skirt with some
hot pink pockets for those totally rad accents?
Huhhhh?
Or maybe go with some pants in the
classic teal with purple pocket highlights like a total boss? I can see it now, so nineties,
so useful, so counter-cultural, even.
You’ll sell millions and your buyers will have the
freedom to keep things on their person like they’ve never had before,
a freedom which frankly they deserve.
[music suddenly stops]
So VHS cassettes are a fair bit larger than Beta cassettes. And this means that while
they’ll fit just fine in the…
pocket, if you will of a VHS VCR, they’re simply
too big to fit inside the Beta machine. But.
What about the other way around?
If a Beta cassette is smaller, then it stands to reason it will fit in here.
But it won’t.
That’s weird. Is it just too thick or something?
No. It’s certainly not too wide,
or even too long!
What gives?
It’s the most cleverest little bit of cleverness that gives! Ever notice something about the
lid of a VHS cassette? Well, aside from how excellent of a fidgeting device it is?
Do you see it?
How about now?
There’s a little notch right in the center of the lid, and
if you look at the underside of the tape, you’ll find an unbroken line carving a little
path through these various holes which are themselves quite clever.
You can learn all about how clever those holes are in the video I just made.
And you can find a card up there.
Or a link in the description serves as backup.
See, starting way back at the dawn of VHS, the engineers over at JVC were all like
“Hey, what a marvelous invention we have made! We shall out-do those Sony people with our amazingly
better recording time and our much less restrictive licensing policies!”
But then, some other engineer had just had a thought. This person went to the other engineers and said
“My fellow engineers! There is a problem! One of Sony’s terribly inferior cassettes will
fit in our machine! If people try to force the lid down, the misaligned cassette could
cause some serious damage!”
So they gathered around and thought of a solution.
And this is it!
See this little spike here in the VCR?
JVC was really fond of spikes.
That little guy sticks up just enough that
when you try to put in a Beta cassette, the solid lid prevents you from inserting the tape.
You can wiggle it around and get beyond the lid, but if you manage to get that far,
you’ll still be foiled by the body of the cassette. Once the spike is up against here,
no amount of wiggling will let you get past it.
And all it takes for the VHS cassette to get around this was a small notch in the lid,
and a line down to the center.
Isn’t that just the neatest thing?
I love how the edges of the notch are tapered so that the cassette will self-align.
You’ve probably never noticed any sort of resistance from that little spike and this notch in the lid.
But, no VHS VCR will let you try and put in a Beta cassette.
Even into the days of front-loaders, that
spike is still there and it will foil your plans. Which is a good thing, too, as it would
be pretty easy to get a Beta tape stuck in there if you could get it all the way in.
Of course, there’s absolutely nothing good that can come from forcing a Beta tape
into a VHS machine.
In theory you could record onto it if it were blank, but if there were
Beta signals on there already, your VHS machine will not be able to play them. You’ll maybe
get something from the audio, kinda, but you aren’t gonna get a picture.
Well.
That’s it.
That’s this video.
Yep.
So uh, don’t forget, we all deserve pockets,
and also don’t forget that no matter how smug those Beta backers are, you had a product
that was just as good and had way more clever tricks up its sleeve. And also, it’s 2019
20
21
22
23
24.
Give it up already.
♫ foolishly smooth jazz ♫
That’s gonna be a problem starting in 2025.
So I would be ashamed if I forgot to mention
that while there were never any VCRs that could record onto both Beta and VHS tapes,
you could find videocassette rewinders that worked with both!
For the youngins in the audience, these things are there just to rewind your tape for you.
Yep. It is a one trick pony.
But, people bought these because using the rewind function of your VCR would put
some wear on the components, and while the degree to which that wear mattered is highly
debatable, it certainly is not debatable that a videocassette rewinder will make that wear
go down to zero. It’s also just more convenient, especially if you’ve got a stack of Blockbuster
rentals you want to watch one after the other.
I’ve seen some of these that have a little lever to switch between Beta and VHS.
The little cogs
--or splines as was pointed out to me a zillion times--
would simply move a little bit with the lever, allowing the rewinder to accommodate both cassette formats.
So now you know! Who actually needed a rewinder that could handle both Beta and VHS?
Presumably almost nobody, and I think it’s a fair bet that the universal rewinders were more expensive
than a standalone rewinder anyway, so the fact that I’ve seen more than one of them
in thrift stores is surprising.
...the misaligned cassette could cause some serious damage.
I’m holding this really weirdly.
‘Cause I forgot to grab it.
Again.
Alright, Kevin.
We've been over this before.
BETACAM IS NOT BETAMAX
Now go apologize to your mother.
Pockets for all!