WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:04.657 The video you’ve clicked on and are about to watch is objectively pointless. 00:00:04.657 --> 00:00:09.127 The videotape format war between VHS and Beta happened some 40 years ago, 00:00:09.127 --> 00:00:13.714 and nobody has any legitimate reason to be sticking up for either format because, 00:00:13.714 --> 00:00:15.058 news flash, 00:00:15.058 --> 00:00:18.100 we’re kinda done with analog videotape. 00:00:18.100 --> 00:00:24.238 And yet, a persnickety group of people just can’t seem to stop themselves from popping out of the woodwork whenever they get the chance 00:00:24.238 --> 00:00:28.239 to lament that “the worse format won” 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:30.291 and this annoys me. 00:00:30.291 --> 00:00:33.945 Those people will cite all sorts of reasons for which Beta was Better, 00:00:33.945 --> 00:00:38.298 but after a decades-long game of telephone made even worse by the internet, 00:00:38.298 --> 00:00:45.278 those supposed reasons are either missing a heckuva lotta context, misleading, or outright incorrect. 00:00:45.278 --> 00:00:48.808 And for the perfect example of such shenanigans, 00:00:48.808 --> 00:00:50.600 we need look no further 00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:51.657 [WHUMP] 00:00:51.657 --> 00:00:53.574 than this. 00:00:53.574 --> 00:01:01.425 This is a Sony UVW-1800, a Betacam SP professional videocassette recorder from 1993. 00:01:01.425 --> 00:01:04.681 You can tell it’s professional because of all the beige. 00:01:04.681 --> 00:01:07.745 And the fact that it has a bajillion ports on the back, 00:01:07.745 --> 00:01:10.125 none of which work with your average TV! 00:01:10.125 --> 00:01:14.083 I mean, the audio goes through XLR for crying out loud! 00:01:14.083 --> 00:01:21.441 Betalovers ‘round the world just love pointing to machines like this one as concrete proof that VHS was inferior to Beta. 00:01:21.441 --> 00:01:25.275 See, VHS just couldn’t cut it in the professional space, 00:01:25.275 --> 00:01:31.814 but Beta did ipso facto it was the superior format and consumers are just terrible at decision making. 00:01:31.814 --> 00:01:38.460 And they’re correct when they say that Beta enjoyed a long and successful life in the television industry. 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:40.670 It lived on well into the new millennium, 00:01:40.670 --> 00:01:45.702 in fact there was even a digital, high-definition version of the format before all was said and done! 00:01:47.146 --> 00:01:52.201 There’s just one teeeeensy little problem with that whole argument. 00:01:52.201 --> 00:01:54.746 This much groovier piece of kit 00:01:54.746 --> 00:01:55.438 [THOMP] 00:01:55.438 --> 00:01:58.089 is a Sony SL-5400, 00:01:58.089 --> 00:02:01.121 a Betamax videocassette recorder from 1979. 00:02:01.121 --> 00:02:02.956 Did you catch that? 00:02:02.956 --> 00:02:03.973 It was subtle. 00:02:03.973 --> 00:02:07.504 Don’t worry if you didn’t, I’ll be hammering it in repeatedly. 00:02:07.504 --> 00:02:11.466 This is a consumer-grade Beta machine, and an early one at that. 00:02:11.466 --> 00:02:13.883 It’s got the simulated woodgrain cabinet, 00:02:13.883 --> 00:02:16.207 it’s got the piano-key controls, 00:02:16.207 --> 00:02:21.547 and best of all it’s got the pop-up cassette drawer. 00:02:21.547 --> 00:02:24.588 Now, both of these are Beta machines 00:02:24.588 --> 00:02:30.616 so it shouldn’t surprise you that the same tapes used by the SL-5400 will go right into the… 00:02:32.191 --> 00:02:34.267 well that’s all kinds of weird. 00:02:34.267 --> 00:02:39.682 I mean, it took the tape alright, but why is the loading door on this machine so freaking wide? 00:02:39.682 --> 00:02:41.968 Oh don’t worry, we’ll get there! 00:02:42.198 --> 00:02:44.334 But first, let’s try and play it. 00:02:44.334 --> 00:02:51.043 [extremely squeaky audio running at, like, six times normal speed] 00:02:51.043 --> 00:02:52.782 Uh… that is not right. 00:02:52.782 --> 00:02:54.890 And the screen is blank. 00:02:55.185 --> 00:02:58.227 I think we should take a closer look at these two machines. 00:02:58.227 --> 00:03:00.817 Let’s see here, they’re both from Sony. 00:03:00.817 --> 00:03:02.813 They’re both videocassette recorders. 00:03:02.813 --> 00:03:05.669 They both have model numbers divisible by 1800. 00:03:05.669 --> 00:03:07.315 And they’re both Beta! 00:03:07.315 --> 00:03:10.734 See, this one says Betamax right up here, couldn’t be any clearer, 00:03:10.734 --> 00:03:12.451 and this one… 00:03:12.451 --> 00:03:14.478 well hold on just a minute here. 00:03:14.478 --> 00:03:16.787 This one says Betacam. 00:03:16.787 --> 00:03:19.813 That’s a different set of three letters tacked onto the end there. 00:03:19.813 --> 00:03:21.510 Could it be… 00:03:21.510 --> 00:03:23.353 I wonder… 00:03:23.353 --> 00:03:28.480 Does this mean that these two machines are actually entirely different formats? 00:03:29.300 --> 00:03:30.410 YES! 00:03:30.410 --> 00:03:32.554 That’s precisely what this means! 00:03:32.554 --> 00:03:38.039 Betamax and Betacam are in fact not the same format at all. 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:40.506 You can tell by how their names are different! 00:03:40.506 --> 00:03:47.592 Even their logos are different, with the Beta-compatibility mark seen on every consumer Beta VCR and tape 00:03:47.592 --> 00:03:50.668 suspiciously missing from this machine. 00:03:50.668 --> 00:03:56.274 Except, it’s not suspicious at all because that compatibility mark is for the Betamax system 00:03:56.274 --> 00:04:00.334 which is not the same format as Betacam. 00:04:00.334 --> 00:04:03.525 Sony did go ahead and use the same basic cassette design 00:04:03.525 --> 00:04:07.977 and decided to just lean-in to the whole “beta” moniker for this new format, 00:04:07.977 --> 00:04:11.118 so it’s understandable that there’s a lot of confusion here. 00:04:11.118 --> 00:04:18.214 But this Beta and that Beta aren’t the same Beta and never ever were. 00:04:18.214 --> 00:04:20.722 So, there you go, job done. 00:04:20.722 --> 00:04:23.149 Betacam isn’t Betamax, 00:04:23.149 --> 00:04:30.658 and anyone who points to "Beta’s" use in the professional world after the format war ended as some sort of proof that Beta was Better 00:04:30.658 --> 00:04:35.434 is either being very disingenuous or simply isn’t aware of the difference. 00:04:35.434 --> 00:04:41.150 And for those good folks in that second category (as well as the generally curious who would like to know the difference), 00:04:41.150 --> 00:04:42.845 I have great news! 00:04:42.845 --> 00:04:45.871 You’re already watching the video that’ll answer your questions. 00:04:45.871 --> 00:04:50.756 But first, we’ll need to go back in time for some important context. 00:04:50.756 --> 00:04:54.971 Now, I discussed the videotape format war at length several years ago, 00:04:54.971 --> 00:04:59.474 so if you want a deeper dive, click on that thing or check the description. 00:04:59.474 --> 00:05:03.039 While I’m staying pretty surface level with this recap, 00:05:03.039 --> 00:05:07.548 it’s still over 10 minutes long so if you would like to skip it go ahead and jump to 00:05:07.548 --> 00:05:10.697 seventeen minutes forty-one seconds. 00:05:10.697 --> 00:05:13.678 Betamax, released at the end of 1975, 00:05:13.678 --> 00:05:18.978 was Sony’s first full-color, cassette-based consumer videotape offering. 00:05:18.978 --> 00:05:24.575 And yes, U-matic came out a few years earlier, but that didn’t find any success in the consumer market 00:05:24.575 --> 00:05:28.565 and was co-developed with several other manufacturers so it doesn’t count. 00:05:28.565 --> 00:05:30.575 When Sony released Betamax, 00:05:30.575 --> 00:05:37.391 the pitch was to use these things to record and save broadcast television programs so you could watch them later. 00:05:37.391 --> 00:05:40.663 You might set up a timer to record a program while you were away 00:05:40.663 --> 00:05:44.838 [ANNOUNCER] Thanks to Sony’s revolutionary Betamax deck which hooks up to any TV set, 00:05:44.838 --> 00:05:50.700 now you can automatically videotape your favorite show even when you’re not home and watch it anytime you want! 00:05:50.700 --> 00:05:54.860 Or you could record one program while watching a second program. 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:57.389 [ANNOUNCER] Because with Sony's Betamax video recorder 00:05:57.389 --> 00:06:02.395 you can actually watch a show on one channel while you’re videotaping a show on another channel! 00:06:02.395 --> 00:06:04.024 That way you get to see both of them! 00:06:04.024 --> 00:06:11.157 The idea of buying or renting something like a movie on a pre-recorded tape just wasn’t in the cards at this point, 00:06:11.157 --> 00:06:18.188 and that’s very important context for understanding the earliest phases of the soon-to-happen format war. 00:06:18.188 --> 00:06:22.250 Through an apparent obsession with an entirely subjective portability standard, 00:06:22.250 --> 00:06:26.508 Sony engineers landed on a rather diminutive cassette design. 00:06:26.508 --> 00:06:28.748 While admittedly pleasant to interact with, 00:06:28.748 --> 00:06:33.964 its small size meant small tape spools inside of it which of course meant 00:06:33.964 --> 00:06:37.325 not a whole lot of tape could fit on those spools. 00:06:37.325 --> 00:06:40.812 The format launched with a maximum recording time of 60 minutes 00:06:40.812 --> 00:06:43.688 (that’s one hour for those of you who speak Metric). 00:06:43.951 --> 00:06:50.939 Sony didn’t think this would be an issue as most television programs of the time happened to be an hour long or less. 00:06:50.939 --> 00:06:53.114 But Sony was wrong. 00:06:53.114 --> 00:06:54.760 Very wrong. 00:06:54.760 --> 00:06:57.401 Catastrophically wrong. 00:06:57.401 --> 00:06:59.754 See, one of their competitors, JVC, 00:06:59.754 --> 00:07:04.387 was working on their own consumer videotape format which they called VHS. 00:07:04.387 --> 00:07:08.196 It came to market about a year after Betamax was released. 00:07:08.196 --> 00:07:15.163 Coming out second and being a bit rougher around the edges, it was easy to smear as some sort of cheap knockoff product. 00:07:15.163 --> 00:07:21.774 But its slightly chunkier cassettes had much larger tape spools inside which 00:07:21.774 --> 00:07:22.936 - get this - 00:07:22.936 --> 00:07:25.322 meant they could hold more tape. 00:07:25.322 --> 00:07:27.575 Significantly more, in fact. 00:07:27.575 --> 00:07:32.650 Sony’s K-60 cassette held 500 feet or 152 meters of tape, 00:07:32.650 --> 00:07:39.101 but the T-120 VHS cassette held 812 feet, or 248 meters. 00:07:39.101 --> 00:07:45.503 With 62% more tape in the shell and recorders that ran at a slightly slower tape speed, 00:07:45.599 --> 00:07:49.244 VHS tapes held a full two hours of video. 00:07:49.244 --> 00:07:56.405 In these early days, VHS was generally regarded as having a slightly worse image quality than Sony’s product, 00:07:56.405 --> 00:08:01.078 but double the recording time was quite the tempting consolation. 00:08:01.078 --> 00:08:03.436 Not only because more time is more better, 00:08:03.436 --> 00:08:08.880 but videocassettes were brand new technology and very expensive to manufacture. 00:08:08.880 --> 00:08:17.235 Thus, they cost a lot to buy as a consumer, and the literal two-for-one deal offered by VHS was hard to pass up. 00:08:17.235 --> 00:08:22.450 And it turned out nobody cared at all that the cassettes were a bit bigger. 00:08:22.450 --> 00:08:29.104 I was gonna go on a rant here about how much more space-efficient the VHS cassette design is but here - just look at it. 00:08:29.104 --> 00:08:34.067 Much larger tape spools in an only marginally larger package. 00:08:34.067 --> 00:08:38.445 Sony knew right away they had a problem on their hands, so they set to work. 00:08:38.445 --> 00:08:44.282 By making the tape much thinner, they would soon stretch Beta’s recording capacity to 90 minutes 00:08:44.282 --> 00:08:48.227 with the introduction of the new L-750 cassette - right, 00:08:48.227 --> 00:08:55.037 you’d think they’d call it the "K90" but Sony decided to denote this new cassette by the literal length of tape inside in feet, 00:08:55.037 --> 00:08:58.724 and then went ahead and renamed the K60 to the L-500 00:08:58.724 --> 00:09:02.586 which I’m sure had nothing to do with 60 and 90 being smaller numbers than 120. 00:09:02.586 --> 00:09:09.420 Anyway, despite Sony’s bump in recording time VHS still had it beat by a full half-hour. 00:09:10.437 --> 00:09:12.966 And then came RCA’s idea. 00:09:12.966 --> 00:09:17.704 See, RCA was looking to sell a line of videocassette recorders in the United States, 00:09:17.704 --> 00:09:22.058 and they knew that consumers here would probably like to be able to record football games 00:09:22.058 --> 00:09:24.645 (which tend to be longer than two hours). 00:09:24.645 --> 00:09:30.029 So they partnered with Matsushita, who had licensed the VHS technology from JVC, 00:09:30.029 --> 00:09:37.788 to develop a long-play recording mode which would double the already much longer two-hour recording time of VHS cassettes 00:09:37.788 --> 00:09:42.259 to four hours at the expense of reduced video and audio quality. 00:09:42.259 --> 00:09:46.295 Their first Selectavision VCR was released in 1977, 00:09:46.623 --> 00:09:50.581 and suddenly VHS had a huge ace-in-the-hole. 00:09:50.581 --> 00:09:56.555 Sony, of course, had no choice but to respond with the new Beta-II recording speed. 00:09:56.555 --> 00:10:00.350 Which was literally the same exact idea as VHS-Long Play, 00:10:00.350 --> 00:10:04.448 cutting the linear tape speed in half and doubling the recording time. 00:10:04.448 --> 00:10:08.313 Just like VHS-LP, it reduced video and audio quality, 00:10:08.313 --> 00:10:14.349 but at least it was now a closer three hours on Beta and four hours on VHS. 00:10:14.349 --> 00:10:21.428 But of course, the same tape-thinning trick employed by Sony was used to make the T-160 VHS cassette, 00:10:21.428 --> 00:10:26.520 bumping the longest recording time of VHS up to 5 hours and 20 minutes. 00:10:26.520 --> 00:10:31.230 And in case that wasn’t enough, JVC would develop the extended-play recording mode 00:10:31.230 --> 00:10:39.370 which tripled the amount of time you could squeeze onto a VHS tape - making 8 hours possible with a T-160 tape. 00:10:39.370 --> 00:10:43.177 It would look and sound pretty terrible but you could do it. 00:10:43.588 --> 00:10:48.833 Sony, of course, once again had to respond by once again just copying that idea 00:10:48.833 --> 00:10:52.175 and introducing the Beta-III recording speed. 00:10:52.175 --> 00:10:57.040 But that was still just 4 and a half hours recording time on an L-750 cassette, 00:10:57.040 --> 00:11:02.154 and only three hours with the at-the-time more common L-500. 00:11:02.154 --> 00:11:06.727 VHS just walked all over Beta in the recording time department, 00:11:06.727 --> 00:11:12.278 and the original Beta-I recording speed was so utterly useless in the face of VHS 00:11:12.278 --> 00:11:14.032 that Sony just up and killed it! 00:11:14.032 --> 00:11:16.530 This machine from 1979, 00:11:16.530 --> 00:11:19.878 made only four years into the format’s existence, 00:11:19.878 --> 00:11:23.386 cannot record at the original Beta speed. 00:11:23.386 --> 00:11:29.301 Your choice is now between II and III, thus Beta-II became the new default speed for Beta, 00:11:29.301 --> 00:11:33.160 and Beta-III would net you a measly 50% bonus. 00:11:33.334 --> 00:11:36.354 And this brings us to the whole picture quality debacle. 00:11:36.354 --> 00:11:40.273 Beta-II was better-executed compared with VHS-Long Play 00:11:40.273 --> 00:11:48.572 (in fact JVC was apparently annoyed with Matsushita for creating it as they pretty much just hacked it together for RCA without even asking). 00:11:48.572 --> 00:11:55.632 So Beta-II produced an unquestionably better picture than a VHS machine recording in long-play mode. 00:11:56.321 --> 00:12:03.490 But ya see, VHS still had very usable recording times at its original standard-play quality. 00:12:03.490 --> 00:12:05.504 And, at least to my eyes, 00:12:05.504 --> 00:12:10.452 standard-play VHS looks just about identical to Beta-II. 00:12:10.452 --> 00:12:11.544 Here, look. 00:12:11.544 --> 00:12:12.183 [snaps fingers] 00:12:12.183 --> 00:12:18.412 You are now looking at the output from this Toshiba Betamax VCR running at the Beta-II speed. 00:12:18.412 --> 00:12:24.550 Unfortunately my vintage Sony tank really doesn’t like to record, so this is the best I’ve got. 00:12:24.550 --> 00:12:28.861 And now, let’s take a look at what a basic Toshiba VHS machine can muster. 00:12:28.861 --> 00:12:30.006 [snaps fingers] 00:12:30.006 --> 00:12:32.255 Doesn’t really look any different, does it? 00:12:32.255 --> 00:12:36.398 Now, in fairness, the VHS machine is newer than the Beta machine, 00:12:36.398 --> 00:12:37.666 but it’s nothing special. 00:12:37.666 --> 00:12:44.359 It’s part of a DVD-player/VCR combo and doesn’t even appear to support the VHS-HQ enhancement features. 00:12:44.359 --> 00:12:46.855 Anyway, let’s go side-by-side. 00:12:46.855 --> 00:12:50.776 Now, I promise, I’ve not done anything to alter the video you’re seeing. 00:12:50.776 --> 00:12:56.149 Both recordings were made from the same source, and they were captured using the same capture device. 00:12:56.240 --> 00:13:02.176 If the colors look slightly different, that’s entirely down to how the VCRs encoded and decoded them. 00:13:02.176 --> 00:13:07.956 We might disagree, but to me the quality between these two images is virtually identical. 00:13:07.956 --> 00:13:11.858 There are some subtle differences to be found if you look hard enough, 00:13:11.858 --> 00:13:16.287 but the difference is way too negligible for the average person to care. 00:13:16.287 --> 00:13:20.436 The fact is, once Beta-II became the default speed, 00:13:20.436 --> 00:13:24.841 the picture quality advantage of Beta had more or less evaporated. 00:13:24.841 --> 00:13:31.312 Also, fun fact, the linear tape speed of Beta-II is slower than VHS-Standard Play, 00:13:31.312 --> 00:13:36.576 so the linear-track audio quality of VHS is actually a little better. 00:13:36.576 --> 00:13:39.386 I would love to show you what Beta-I looked like 00:13:39.386 --> 00:13:40.647 but I can't! 00:13:40.647 --> 00:13:44.301 Only ancient Beta machines record at that speed, 00:13:44.301 --> 00:13:50.704 and since they are so ancient, they’re probably not able to match even a mediocre VHS machine from the ‘80s. 00:13:50.704 --> 00:13:54.910 Bottom-line, the difference in picture quality is slight at best, 00:13:54.910 --> 00:13:59.315 and anyone who thinks VHS was bad enough to be “the worse format” 00:13:59.315 --> 00:14:06.220 is either an ardent videophile and/or has no idea what actually matters to the average consumer. 00:14:06.220 --> 00:14:08.721 But anyway, let’s get back to 2023. 00:14:08.721 --> 00:14:11.300 [snaps fingers] We’re almost done with this recap, I promise. 00:14:11.300 --> 00:14:17.204 Sony would keep on trying to create features to make going with Beta worth its obvious tradeoffs, 00:14:17.204 --> 00:14:22.126 but pretty much every single one they made was swiftly copied by VHS. 00:14:22.126 --> 00:14:28.475 And even if they couldn’t quite match it, VHS still enjoyed a much longer recording time. 00:14:28.475 --> 00:14:34.649 VHS machines quickly dominated the market, and as time went on it would only get more and more market share 00:14:34.649 --> 00:14:38.974 thanks to the other mistake Sony made and never let up from. 00:14:38.974 --> 00:14:43.003 RCA was able to partner with Matsushita for their Selectavision VCRs 00:14:43.003 --> 00:14:49.016 because JVC was quite happy to license VHS technology for a relatively small fee. 00:14:49.443 --> 00:14:53.538 Meanwhile, Sony kept Betamax technology very close to the chest, 00:14:53.538 --> 00:15:00.134 and only licensed it to a small number of third-party OEMs who were willing to pay them quite a bit. 00:15:00.134 --> 00:15:05.851 The result was a sea of inexpensive VHS VCRs from many manufacturers on the market 00:15:05.851 --> 00:15:11.512 compared with only a few more-expensive yet less-capable Beta machines. 00:15:11.512 --> 00:15:15.401 So, quite naturally, more VHS machines were sold. 00:15:15.401 --> 00:15:22.381 And now, as the fledgling home-video market began to expand with the installed-base of VCRs, 00:15:22.381 --> 00:15:31.838 well if you were a content distributor you could sell your content to more people on VHS cassettes because there were more people with VHS VCRs. 00:15:31.838 --> 00:15:35.742 Supporting Beta machines was simply less profitable. 00:15:35.742 --> 00:15:40.205 And this probably is the genesis of the very irritating-to-me myth 00:15:40.205 --> 00:15:43.980 that Beta failed because you couldn’t get pornography on it. 00:15:43.980 --> 00:15:45.093 First of all... 00:15:45.093 --> 00:15:46.206 you could. 00:15:46.206 --> 00:15:51.972 This idea that Sony “wouldn’t allow it” is pervasive yet disproven with a simple eBay search. 00:15:51.972 --> 00:15:56.412 Again, Sony was not in the business of selling content. 00:15:56.412 --> 00:16:00.086 That’s not what they were trying to do when they invented Betamax. 00:16:00.086 --> 00:16:09.757 I think this myth came about in part because people quite simply forgot as years passed that the VCR was initially sold to record TV 00:16:09.757 --> 00:16:12.208 (the R stands for recorder) 00:16:12.208 --> 00:16:19.467 and video rental sprung up only after enough people had already bought these machines to support that business model. 00:16:19.467 --> 00:16:24.788 Eventually the ability to rent movies and play them at home was a reason to buy a VCR, 00:16:24.788 --> 00:16:26.450 but not in the beginning. 00:16:26.450 --> 00:16:30.046 There almost certainly was less porn available on Beta, 00:16:30.046 --> 00:16:33.975 but there was also less everything on Beta! 00:16:33.975 --> 00:16:41.160 There were fewer of these machines out there in people’s homes, meaning it was a smaller market to sell stuff to. 00:16:41.160 --> 00:16:45.370 Add to that, Beta equipment and thus duplication was more expensive, 00:16:45.370 --> 00:16:49.179 so the per-unit cost of making the tapes was, too. 00:16:49.179 --> 00:16:51.618 For any sort of content distributor, 00:16:51.618 --> 00:16:58.028 VHS was way more lucrative and supporting Beta was basically a nice gesture. 00:16:58.028 --> 00:17:03.531 The lack of whatever kind of content you were looking for was a result of Beta’s poor market share, 00:17:03.531 --> 00:17:05.338 and not a cause. 00:17:05.338 --> 00:17:09.489 But of course, it wasn’t helping Sony dig themselves out of their hole. 00:17:09.489 --> 00:17:16.706 Anyway, with the vast majority of consumers making the very rational and entirely-correct decision to go with VHS 00:17:16.706 --> 00:17:19.008 (that’s right, you heard me), 00:17:19.008 --> 00:17:23.792 Betamax was left to live out the rest of its days as the format of wealthy tech-forward videophiles 00:17:23.792 --> 00:17:29.849 that cared more about a quite-possibly imagined marginal increase in image quality than they did access to a wider ecosystem 00:17:29.849 --> 00:17:31.295 which was also cheaper. 00:17:31.295 --> 00:17:35.109 And there just aren’t enough of those people to sustain any format, 00:17:35.109 --> 00:17:37.091 so Beta was doomed. 00:17:37.091 --> 00:17:40.767 And now, at last, back to this beige beauty. 00:17:40.767 --> 00:17:48.394 By the late ‘70s, Sony started work to create a new professional videocassette format to supplant the venerable U-matic. 00:17:48.394 --> 00:17:56.153 U-matic was great and all, but its rather large cassettes and ¾-inch tape made it a not-so-portable format, 00:17:56.153 --> 00:18:00.727 and its picture quality was still just a little sub-par for post-production work. 00:18:00.727 --> 00:18:02.972 “But hey,” somebody at Sony thought, 00:18:02.972 --> 00:18:10.240 “we just spent all this R&D money coming out with Betamax… maybe we can reuse parts of its design for this new format.” 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:11.461 So they did. 00:18:11.461 --> 00:18:15.514 And in 1982, Betacam would hit the professional market and was, 00:18:15.514 --> 00:18:17.521 to the delight and relief of Sony, 00:18:17.521 --> 00:18:18.982 a smash-hit. 00:18:18.982 --> 00:18:24.594 What makes Betacam the professional format that it is are the signals it records on the tape. 00:18:24.594 --> 00:18:27.551 Despite initially sharing identical cassettes, 00:18:27.551 --> 00:18:32.699 a Betacam VCR records true component video onto the tape. 00:18:32.699 --> 00:18:35.914 Now, to explain the difference we need to get a little bit into the weeds, 00:18:35.914 --> 00:18:37.690 but to show you the upshot 00:18:37.690 --> 00:18:38.471 [snaps fingers] 00:18:38.471 --> 00:18:41.303 here’s the quality we get out of Betamax 00:18:41.303 --> 00:18:43.189 and here’s how Betacam fares. 00:18:43.189 --> 00:18:43.919 [snaps fingers] 00:18:43.919 --> 00:18:45.591 Much better! 00:18:45.591 --> 00:18:48.378 This is true broadcast-quality video. 00:18:48.378 --> 00:18:53.041 And you’re not even seeing it at its best as I don’t have a good way to capture component video - 00:18:53.041 --> 00:18:54.833 this is just composite. 00:18:54.960 --> 00:19:01.166 By the way, a huge thanks goes out to friend of the channel James Colvard for lending this machine and a couple of tapes to me. 00:19:01.166 --> 00:19:07.400 I’ve been wanting to make this video for ages just to set the record straight on what Betacam was 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:10.697 and with this we have a fantastic example. 00:19:10.697 --> 00:19:14.833 This machine barely got any use as you can see from its hours meter. 00:19:14.833 --> 00:19:19.230 Yeah, that’s right, it has an hours meter - this is proper professional stuff! 00:19:19.230 --> 00:19:22.325 And in case the beige and all those ports didn’t give it away, 00:19:22.325 --> 00:19:26.811 when you open up you’ll find that good lord it’s chock full of circuit boards! 00:19:26.811 --> 00:19:32.425 This isn’t just big and heavy for the lolz, there’s a lot of stuff jammed into this case. 00:19:32.425 --> 00:19:34.857 That alone is fascinating! 00:19:34.857 --> 00:19:40.685 These boards are all swappable and they plug into some sort of backplane down at the bottom. 00:19:40.685 --> 00:19:48.087 And they have a plethora of potentiometers all along their edges so technicians can conveniently make adjustments. 00:19:48.087 --> 00:19:53.634 I don’t want to know how much I can mess up by adjusting those so I will not be touching them! 00:19:54.389 --> 00:19:55.694 But wow. 00:19:55.694 --> 00:19:57.809 When we look at the tape transport, though, 00:19:57.809 --> 00:20:01.014 what we find is, well, Beta. 00:20:01.014 --> 00:20:05.083 Compare this to what’s inside the Toshiba machine and it’s very familiar. 00:20:05.083 --> 00:20:08.641 The tape is threaded around the drum in pretty much exactly the same way, 00:20:08.641 --> 00:20:13.198 and it takes a very discerning eye to notice any differences between the two. 00:20:13.198 --> 00:20:18.608 The technology of Betamax was very clearly adapted for this new format, so again 00:20:18.608 --> 00:20:22.986 when people confuse this with Betamax, it’s understandable. 00:20:22.986 --> 00:20:28.202 But a close look at the head drum reveals what gives Betacam its special sauce. 00:20:28.202 --> 00:20:35.808 A standard Betamax VCR, just like VHS, only has two heads in the drum located directly across from one another. 00:20:35.808 --> 00:20:41.130 This spinning head arrangement is needed because analog video is a very high-frequency signal, 00:20:41.130 --> 00:20:47.891 and to record such signals onto magnetic tape you need the tape to move very fast past the recording heads. 00:20:47.891 --> 00:20:51.855 Making the actual tape move that fast is impractical for lots of reasons, 00:20:51.855 --> 00:20:54.818 so instead the heads move around the tape. 00:20:54.818 --> 00:20:57.546 As the drum spins and the tape moves sideways, 00:20:57.546 --> 00:21:01.058 the heads record diagonal stripes across the tape’s width, 00:21:01.058 --> 00:21:07.700 with each pass taking only one sixtieth of a second and recording (or playing back) one field of analog video. 00:21:07.700 --> 00:21:12.192 Circuitry inside the VCR repeatedly switches which of the two heads are active, 00:21:12.192 --> 00:21:15.228 and the result is a seemingly continuous signal. 00:21:15.228 --> 00:21:20.855 But when we look at the head drum in the Betacam machine, we find that there are six heads. 00:21:20.855 --> 00:21:24.810 Two of them are flying erase heads and don’t have anything to do with the video signals 00:21:24.810 --> 00:21:27.612 (other than, well, destroying them when necessary), 00:21:27.612 --> 00:21:34.852 but the other four work in pairs to record two distinct signals onto the tape at the same time. 00:21:34.852 --> 00:21:38.756 There are actually two heads right next to each other in this little slot 00:21:38.756 --> 00:21:43.226 and they work together when recording onto or reading back the tape. 00:21:43.226 --> 00:21:45.389 Why might we want to do that? 00:21:45.389 --> 00:21:53.020 Well, it has to do with the bandwidth limitations of magnetic tape and the way analog color television works. 00:21:53.020 --> 00:21:57.414 The reason why Betamax and VHS look so, well, 00:21:57.414 --> 00:22:05.565 mediocre is that the tape can’t actually store a video signal with the same bandwidth of a television signal. 00:22:05.565 --> 00:22:14.647 It can store something that a television can put back together into an image all right, but every line drawn on the screen won’t display as much detail. 00:22:14.647 --> 00:22:22.015 That makes the image appear somewhat soft, but what’s even worse is the way the formats encode color. 00:22:22.015 --> 00:22:26.094 I have a video planned specifically on this so I’m not gonna get too deep here, 00:22:26.094 --> 00:22:31.016 but one of the truly groundbreaking things both Betamax and VHS accomplished 00:22:31.016 --> 00:22:38.000 was get color video working at all with such limited recording bandwidth and a single video head. 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:46.005 See, both NTSC and PAL, the analog color television standards that used to dominate North America and Europe respectively, 00:22:46.005 --> 00:22:48.243 were a bit of a hack. 00:22:48.243 --> 00:22:53.163 We wanted color television signals to be compatible with existing black and white televisions, 00:22:53.163 --> 00:22:55.551 which was a pretty huge ask. 00:22:55.551 --> 00:23:03.918 Somehow we needed to take a signal that represented image brightness alone and magic that into three separate brightness values 00:23:03.918 --> 00:23:07.522 for the three color channels in an RGB image. 00:23:07.522 --> 00:23:11.213 We managed to do this, in fact I made videos on that whole saga 00:23:11.213 --> 00:23:12.065 *ding* 00:23:12.065 --> 00:23:21.579 and the way we did it was really quite elegant and involved separating a color image into a luminance signal for brightness and a chrominance signal for color, 00:23:21.579 --> 00:23:28.242 then combining those signals together in such a way that the color carrier signal was suppressed. 00:23:28.242 --> 00:23:31.180 A black and white television would only see the luminance signal, 00:23:31.180 --> 00:23:39.703 but a color television, using a circuit that latched onto a brief pulse of the color carrier transmitted before each line of video known as the colorburst, 00:23:39.703 --> 00:23:48.304 could recover the color signal from the luminance signal which would change the ratio between red, green, and blue as it drew lines across the face of a cathode ray tube 00:23:48.304 --> 00:23:50.812 and yes it’s all very complicated and I’m sorry. 00:23:51.101 --> 00:23:52.898 What does this have to do with videotape? 00:23:52.898 --> 00:24:02.057 Well, you need to have at least as much bandwidth as a true television signal for that scheme (known as composite color) to work. 00:24:02.057 --> 00:24:07.581 And neither Betamax nor VHS has that bandwidth available on the tape. 00:24:07.581 --> 00:24:12.737 Those formats had to come up with an entirely new scheme for encoding color video, 00:24:12.737 --> 00:24:18.076 and translate between NTSC or PAL and this new scheme when recording 00:24:18.076 --> 00:24:23.375 (and of course translate it back when playing a tape so a color television could display it). 00:24:23.375 --> 00:24:27.962 The so-called "color-under" encoding used by both Betamax and VHS 00:24:27.962 --> 00:24:33.860 could only encode about 30 to 40 different colors across the width of the television screen. 00:24:33.860 --> 00:24:40.634 Editor’s note: what I just said is correct but only when considering an individual scan line. 00:24:40.634 --> 00:24:45.707 Every next line can display its own unique set of 40 or so different colors, 00:24:45.707 --> 00:24:51.783 so I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that an entire image can only contain a few dozen colors. 00:24:51.783 --> 00:24:56.100 The whole image could theoretically contain about 20 thousand unique colors 00:24:56.100 --> 00:24:59.838 (that’s 480 visible lines multiplied by 40 colors per line) 00:24:59.838 --> 00:25:07.096 but when considering the width of the screen alone, the color resolution of consumer videotape is quite awful. 00:25:07.096 --> 00:25:12.104 And this is why the colors on ordinary videotape look so smeary - 00:25:12.104 --> 00:25:13.902 they literally are! 00:25:13.902 --> 00:25:22.176 You particularly notice this with animation - there’s a very good chance the change between two colors happens outside the lines. 00:25:22.176 --> 00:25:25.732 This is perfectly fine for a cheap home video format, 00:25:25.732 --> 00:25:28.451 but it ain’t gonna cut it in the studio. 00:25:28.451 --> 00:25:36.380 So, not only does Betamax (or any other consumer videotape format) lack the luminance resolution necessary for broadcast image quality, 00:25:36.380 --> 00:25:42.914 but it absolutely doesn’t have the color resolution to be seen as remotely acceptable. 00:25:42.914 --> 00:25:49.631 There’s just no way to cram enough information onto magnetic tape using a single flying head. 00:25:49.631 --> 00:25:50.844 But remember. 00:25:50.844 --> 00:25:53.496 Betacam doesn’t have a single flying head. 00:25:53.496 --> 00:25:57.757 It has two flying heads which work at the same time. 00:25:57.757 --> 00:26:03.434 If you look very closely at the two heads in the drum, you’ll notice that they’re not quite aligned. 00:26:03.434 --> 00:26:11.257 One sits a bit higher than the other so that as the heads sweep across the tape, they record two parallel tracks. 00:26:11.257 --> 00:26:16.166 One of them contains the luminance, or brightness, information (effectively a black and white image). 00:26:16.166 --> 00:26:19.147 And the other contains the color information. 00:26:19.147 --> 00:26:22.416 Since we aren’t combining those two signals into one, 00:26:22.416 --> 00:26:30.206 we can have much more color information and we can avoid the artifacts like dot crawl that plague composite video. 00:26:30.206 --> 00:26:38.557 That’s a huge boon for the video editing process and is a big part of what separates the professional VCRs from the consumer machines. 00:26:38.557 --> 00:26:42.299 Look at how well Betacam can reproduce titling elements. 00:26:42.299 --> 00:26:44.887 Now let’s compare with Betamax. 00:26:44.887 --> 00:26:47.055 With much more luminance bandwidth, 00:26:47.055 --> 00:26:49.616 the letters appear very crisp on Betacam, 00:26:49.616 --> 00:26:52.999 and with additional features like built-in time base correction, 00:26:52.999 --> 00:26:56.539 the image is rock-solid and stable. 00:26:56.539 --> 00:27:00.785 But what gets even more impressive is when I throw some color into the mix. 00:27:00.785 --> 00:27:04.093 Remember that terrible color resolution of consumer formats? 00:27:04.093 --> 00:27:05.944 Well, here it is in action. 00:27:05.944 --> 00:27:10.964 But Betacam, being a true component video format, doesn’t struggle. 00:27:10.964 --> 00:27:16.171 Frankly, the video produced by this machine is extremely close to DVD quality, 00:27:16.171 --> 00:27:20.545 and that’s mighty impressive for analog video on magnetic tape. 00:27:20.545 --> 00:27:25.841 Now the few video nerds out there who know the difference between Component and S-video 00:27:25.841 --> 00:27:31.771 but didn’t know that Betacam was different from Betamax might be a bit confused right now. 00:27:31.771 --> 00:27:34.870 I said Betacam stores component video signals, 00:27:34.870 --> 00:27:39.159 which you may know as the red green and blue jacks, or YPbPr. 00:27:39.159 --> 00:27:45.525 That’s made of three separate signals: Y for luminance, Pb for the difference between blue and luminance, 00:27:45.525 --> 00:27:49.485 and finally Pr, the difference between red and the luminance. 00:27:49.485 --> 00:27:52.332 But there are only two recording heads here, 00:27:52.332 --> 00:27:57.553 so how can I say that Betacam records the three signals of component video? 00:27:57.553 --> 00:28:02.608 Why, because Betacam uses compressed time division multiplexing, silly! 00:28:02.608 --> 00:28:05.792 Yeah, here’s where things get a little bit nuts. 00:28:05.792 --> 00:28:08.204 The head that records the color information 00:28:08.309 --> 00:28:12.371 is actually recording two color signals at the same time. 00:28:12.371 --> 00:28:15.224 Well, actually, no, not at the same time. 00:28:15.224 --> 00:28:24.718 Time-division multiplexing is a very old technique in which you essentially just keep switching between multiple signals so they can share a single channel. 00:28:24.718 --> 00:28:28.116 In this case, we only have two signals: Pb and Pr, 00:28:28.116 --> 00:28:34.503 so that head records the Pb signal for a teeny tiny bit, then the Pr signal for a teeny tiny bit, 00:28:34.503 --> 00:28:35.883 then back to Pb, 00:28:35.883 --> 00:28:36.888 then to Pr, 00:28:36.888 --> 00:28:37.758 then to Pb, 00:28:37.758 --> 00:28:38.483 then to Pr, 00:28:38.483 --> 00:28:39.172 then to Pb, 00:28:39.172 --> 00:28:42.733 and after enough of that an ice cold PBR with a PB&J is well deserved. 00:28:42.733 --> 00:28:47.700 Now, of course, those two signals are continuously being fed to the machine when it’s recording 00:28:47.700 --> 00:28:53.906 and it can’t just stop and ignore one while recording the other or we’d be losing half of the color information. 00:28:53.906 --> 00:29:03.637 So it’s actually time-compressing those two signals (effectively speeding them up) and alternately spitting them out as small double-speed chunks. 00:29:03.637 --> 00:29:06.353 When it’s playing a tape back, it’s gonna do the opposite, 00:29:06.353 --> 00:29:11.801 and slow each chunk down to half speed before sending them out the component jacks together. 00:29:11.801 --> 00:29:13.618 I know! It’s bonkers! 00:29:13.618 --> 00:29:17.461 But it’s a bit like taking a stereo audio track, doubling its speed, 00:29:17.461 --> 00:29:21.509 then splitting each of the two channels into half-second chunks. 00:29:21.509 --> 00:29:26.111 So long as you use some sort of reference clock so you can piece it back together correctly, 00:29:26.111 --> 00:29:32.388 you can send a half-second of the left channel followed by a half-second of the right channel over a single wire. 00:29:32.388 --> 00:29:37.192 On the receiving end, simply slow them both back down to the full second they should be, 00:29:37.192 --> 00:29:43.409 re-synchronize them, play them together, and voila - stereo audio over a single wire. 00:29:43.409 --> 00:29:49.346 Betacam is effectively doing that with the Pb and Pr signals of component video. 00:29:49.346 --> 00:29:54.647 And that’s at least part of why there is so much freaking circuitry inside this machine. 00:29:54.647 --> 00:30:00.189 I found the patent for the process by which Betacam encodes and decodes the signals it records 00:30:00.189 --> 00:30:02.449 and reading it just hurts. 00:30:02.449 --> 00:30:08.076 Even just the block diagrams are hard to follow, but here’s where the two color signals get combined, 00:30:08.076 --> 00:30:10.675 you can see some of the delay and clock pulse elements, 00:30:10.675 --> 00:30:12.465 here’s the part that slows it back down - 00:30:12.465 --> 00:30:15.243 it’s all sorts of nuts, but hey. 00:30:15.243 --> 00:30:16.417 They made it work. 00:30:16.417 --> 00:30:19.534 And honestly, hats off to Sony. 00:30:19.534 --> 00:30:23.770 I forgot to script this part, so I’m gonna do my best and record this off-the-cuff. 00:30:23.770 --> 00:30:28.360 You might have noticed that the two recording heads won’t hit the tape at the same time. 00:30:28.360 --> 00:30:30.091 One follows the other. 00:30:30.091 --> 00:30:32.446 So, how does that work? 00:30:32.446 --> 00:30:36.328 Well, truthfully, I couldn’t find a solid answer to this. 00:30:36.558 --> 00:30:41.817 The time compression that this thing is doing with all that circuitry might be the explanation, 00:30:41.817 --> 00:30:49.216 but the other possible explanation is that it doesn’t matter if the color information doesn’t actually record at the same time 00:30:49.216 --> 00:30:51.777 because of the vertical blanking interval. 00:30:51.777 --> 00:30:57.766 The beginning and end of every frame of video is black space that a TV can’t display, 00:30:57.766 --> 00:31:01.960 so if there’s no color information there it doesn't really matter. 00:31:01.960 --> 00:31:09.966 I think that’s the more likely explanation - the color information actually starts a little bit into each video frame and it just doesn’t matter, 00:31:09.966 --> 00:31:11.875 but, uh, I couldn't find a solid answer. 00:31:11.875 --> 00:31:13.352 So hopefully somebody knows. 00:31:13.352 --> 00:31:15.353 If you know, let us know. 00:31:15.460 --> 00:31:19.769 But the way the signals get put on the tape didn’t come without a cost. 00:31:19.769 --> 00:31:25.032 You might have guessed that the two parallel tracks recorded by the video heads result in a… 00:31:25.032 --> 00:31:28.365 less economical use of the tape’s running time. 00:31:28.365 --> 00:31:32.315 But if you guessed twice as many helical tracks means half the runtime, 00:31:32.315 --> 00:31:33.958 well you’d be wrong. 00:31:33.958 --> 00:31:40.852 Thanks to the use of guard bands between adjacent tracks, it is in fact only a third the normal runtime. 00:31:40.852 --> 00:31:44.997 A third, that is, of the original Beta-I recording speed. 00:31:46.014 --> 00:31:50.726 Yeah, this cassette here is more-or-less equivalent to an L-750, 00:31:50.726 --> 00:31:55.463 a tape that would yield only 90 minutes of recording time with an OG Betamax machine 00:31:55.463 --> 00:31:57.951 and three hours on a machine like this. 00:31:57.951 --> 00:32:01.538 But with Betacam, it holds a measly half-hour. 00:32:01.538 --> 00:32:06.911 In a Betacam machine, the tape flies by at over 10 centimeters per second. 00:32:06.911 --> 00:32:11.174 Compare the rotational speeds of the supply spools here to get a sense of the difference. 00:32:11.174 --> 00:32:15.116 The Betacam tape is moving roughly six times faster. 00:32:15.116 --> 00:32:21.347 So here, once again, Sony’s fixation on making a small cassette would become a problem. 00:32:21.347 --> 00:32:24.127 Sure, it made portable equipment more compact, 00:32:24.127 --> 00:32:28.708 and 30 minutes of recording time is all right for a news-gathering team, 00:32:28.708 --> 00:32:33.462 but if Sony wanted this format to see serious use in a television studio, 00:32:33.462 --> 00:32:35.531 they’d need to do better than that. 00:32:35.531 --> 00:32:40.680 So they had no choice but come up with this chonky boy. 00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:46.700 That’s right, Sony was basically forced to design an entirely new and much larger cassette 00:32:46.700 --> 00:32:49.883 which could actually fit a useful amount of tape in it. 00:32:49.883 --> 00:32:56.226 Betacam L cassettes - that’s L for Long - could hold up to 90 minutes of video. 00:32:56.226 --> 00:32:58.741 These are ridiculous and I love them. 00:32:58.741 --> 00:33:04.440 They have the same little cutout to thread the tape that the original Beta cassettes do which looks ever so silly. 00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:09.298 And, the original tape size, by the way, was now known as Betacam S - 00:33:09.298 --> 00:33:11.091 that’s S for short. 00:33:11.091 --> 00:33:13.884 And with that Sony finally admitted it - 00:33:13.884 --> 00:33:16.151 the tape is simply too short. 00:33:16.151 --> 00:33:17.552 Another editor’s note: 00:33:17.552 --> 00:33:27.901 I have seen some evidence that officially it was S for Small and L for Large, but either way… it’s not a good look for the original Beta tape. 00:33:27.901 --> 00:33:31.234 And now we know why the cassette slot is so freaking wide! 00:33:31.234 --> 00:33:35.395 This machine accepts both S and L cassettes. 00:33:35.395 --> 00:33:37.851 And think about the design challenges there. 00:33:37.851 --> 00:33:45.457 You need the slot to keep the small cassette centered as you insert it, so ridges are built into the loading carriage right at the edges. 00:33:45.457 --> 00:33:50.274 But the L cassette, then, needs a recess so it can slip past those ridges. 00:33:50.274 --> 00:33:54.715 And there they are, with a S-cassette fitting right between them. 00:33:54.715 --> 00:34:02.448 If that weren’t enough, the cogs of the tape spools are much farther apart on the big cassette than they are on the small one, 00:34:02.448 --> 00:34:08.021 so this machine has moving spindles that quickly change position depending on which cassette you’re loading. 00:34:08.021 --> 00:34:11.260 It’s equal parts hilarious and impressive. 00:34:12.638 --> 00:34:16.762 [various delightful mechanical noises] 00:34:26.903 --> 00:34:32.430 And I must say, using this machine is genuinely impressive in several ways. 00:34:32.430 --> 00:34:39.222 For one, the tape transport mechanism is deliciously responsive, precise, and wicked fast. 00:34:39.222 --> 00:34:42.626 Remember, the tape moves pretty quickly in normal playback, 00:34:42.626 --> 00:34:45.586 but look at this thing fly when you hit fast forward. 00:34:45.586 --> 00:34:52.664 That counter is going up astonishingly quickly, and the tape spools are moving at an almost scary pace. 00:34:52.664 --> 00:34:57.784 I also just love that when you hit fast forward or rewind when playing, it doesn’t mute the audio - 00:34:57.784 --> 00:35:01.385 [eyy - swoooopittttytytytyytytytytytytsquiuiiu.... 00:35:01.385 --> 00:35:02.192 eyuwooop. 00:35:02.192 --> 00:35:04.165 pooowuyeuiiuiuqstytytytytytyytytytyttttupoooowsyye... 00:35:04.165 --> 00:35:04.862 eyuwooop 00:35:04.862 --> 00:35:06.038 swoooopittttytytytyytytytytytytsquiuiiu 00:35:06.038 --> 00:35:06.678 eyuwooop. 00:35:06.678 --> 00:35:08.103 ♫ choir singing ♫ 00:35:08.103 --> 00:35:09.104 silence] 00:35:09.104 --> 00:35:12.732 This definitely makes me feel like some sorta professional video editor! 00:35:12.732 --> 00:35:13.739 Wait. 00:35:13.739 --> 00:35:20.509 And as much as I love to make fun of Sony, I do have to admit they knew how to build a satisfying machine. 00:35:20.509 --> 00:35:27.686 This is actually a pretty basic machine in the lineup, in fact the UVW model lineup was meant as a lower-cost option. 00:35:27.686 --> 00:35:31.951 But that didn’t stop them from using these delightful illuminated buttons. 00:35:31.951 --> 00:35:34.445 Pressing them is so satisfying. 00:35:34.445 --> 00:35:37.881 And look at the design for the little cover over these extra buttons. 00:35:37.881 --> 00:35:40.150 It could just pop down on a simple hinge, 00:35:40.150 --> 00:35:46.062 but instead it oozes with gravitas as it slides neatly below the controls and out of the way. 00:35:46.062 --> 00:35:47.389 MMMM! 00:35:47.750 --> 00:35:53.012 Lastly, I should probably touch on the whole SP thing in Betacam SP. 00:35:53.012 --> 00:35:58.312 Upon release in 1982, Betacam used the same tape formulation as Betamax - 00:35:58.312 --> 00:36:04.574 in fact you could use a consumer Betamax tape in a Betacam machine and it would work just fine. 00:36:04.574 --> 00:36:13.289 But in 1986, Sony would update the format with the new Superior Performance line that used special metal-oxide tapes. 00:36:13.289 --> 00:36:15.740 That yielded a slight bump in image quality, 00:36:15.740 --> 00:36:20.512 and the switch to SP also brought with it many other quality-of-life improvements. 00:36:20.512 --> 00:36:28.420 The fundamentals of the technology didn’t change, and Betacam SP tapes can generally be played back on original Betacam equipment, 00:36:28.420 --> 00:36:34.935 but the new metal oxide tapes required stronger video heads and weren’t backward compatible for recording. 00:36:34.935 --> 00:36:38.779 Remember, though, that this machine is from 1993. 00:36:38.779 --> 00:36:45.781 Betacam SP was the de-facto standard format in large swaths of the video production world for decades, 00:36:45.781 --> 00:36:50.511 and would see continued use long after Sony developed digital replacements. 00:36:50.511 --> 00:36:55.488 As a matter of fact, the same year this machine was released saw the release of Digital Betacam, 00:36:55.488 --> 00:36:58.679 which was Betacam but Digital. 00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:03.408 That would be superseded by Betacam SX, then MPEG IMX, 00:37:03.408 --> 00:37:13.415 and finally HDCAM, which used the same basic Betacam cassettes to store 1080P digital video at a bitrate of 144 megabits per second. 00:37:13.415 --> 00:37:19.468 HDCAM received a few updates over the years, but with the advent of portable hard drives and flash memory, 00:37:19.468 --> 00:37:23.647 the need to store digital data on magnetic tape slowly diminished. 00:37:23.647 --> 00:37:31.801 And now, inside my camera there’s a piece of plastic about the size of a dime that I bought for $12 which does the job just as well and doesn’t need rewinding. 00:37:31.801 --> 00:37:37.282 Now, before we roll credits, you might be wondering where JVC might have been through all of this. 00:37:37.282 --> 00:37:39.366 Turns out, nowhere! 00:37:39.366 --> 00:37:41.969 They didn’t care at all to compete with Betacam. 00:37:41.969 --> 00:37:45.014 But RCA wasn’t dead yet in 1982, 00:37:45.014 --> 00:37:51.042 and they worked with their old pal Matsushita to develop their own professional videocassette based on VHS. 00:37:51.042 --> 00:37:53.664 They called it M. 00:37:53.664 --> 00:37:55.338 Just M. 00:37:55.338 --> 00:38:00.272 And it was pretty much the same exact idea as Betacam, but VHS. 00:38:00.272 --> 00:38:02.905 It ran with a much higher-than-normal tape speed, 00:38:02.905 --> 00:38:07.571 and its VHS-based cassettes held only 20 minutes of video. 00:38:07.571 --> 00:38:08.899 It flopped. 00:38:08.899 --> 00:38:15.472 Then, in 1986, M was updated by Panasonic (which is a subsidiary of Matsushita, in case you didn’t know) 00:38:15.472 --> 00:38:17.433 and became M II. 00:38:17.433 --> 00:38:18.521 Catchy. 00:38:18.620 --> 00:38:21.881 Just like Betacam SP it was a marginal improvement, 00:38:21.881 --> 00:38:25.988 but Panasonic did figure out how to cut down on tape usage. 00:38:25.988 --> 00:38:34.700 Apparently, the large MII cassette was pretty much the same exact size as a normal VHS cassette and still managed to hold 90 minutes of component video. 00:38:34.700 --> 00:38:41.388 And they developed a baby cassette that only held 20 minutes but would make for a pretty compact camcorder. 00:38:41.388 --> 00:38:46.405 M II fared a little bit better, with NBC deciding to go with it for a while, 00:38:46.405 --> 00:38:50.272 but it still was a drop in the bucket compared to Betacam. 00:38:50.272 --> 00:38:52.142 So, here we are. 00:38:52.142 --> 00:38:56.385 The most important thing I want you to take away from this video is, 00:38:56.385 --> 00:38:57.832 say it with me now, 00:38:57.832 --> 00:39:00.870 BETACAM IS NOT BETAMAX. 00:39:00.870 --> 00:39:08.394 Sony reused the same cassettes and the same first four letters when creating this new format which was needlessly confusing, 00:39:08.394 --> 00:39:12.464 but the two are not compatible in any way. 00:39:12.464 --> 00:39:13.821 The next time someone pulls a 00:39:13.821 --> 00:39:17.857 “well, aktually, TV studios used Beta so it was clearly better” 00:39:17.857 --> 00:39:21.692 I want you to well actually right back and send them this video. 00:39:21.692 --> 00:39:23.784 Or, just, correct them on the spot. 00:39:23.784 --> 00:39:25.880 They don’t need to see the whole video. 00:39:25.880 --> 00:39:28.854 Uh, but if you were sent here and made it to this point, 00:39:28.854 --> 00:39:31.279 well I’m glad we’re now on the same page! 00:39:31.935 --> 00:39:33.647 At least, we'd better be. 00:39:33.647 --> 00:39:35.128 I don’t wanna have to do this again. 00:39:36.342 --> 00:39:37.333 Thanks for watching. 00:39:38.390 --> 00:39:40.834 ♫ incompatibly smooth jazz ♫ 00:39:42.935 --> 00:39:47.343 But after a decade’s long game of telephone made even worse by the internet, 00:39:47.343 --> 00:39:48.495 mmbeh [sigh] 00:39:48.495 --> 00:39:49.537 crap! 00:39:49.537 --> 00:39:51.957 Welp! Iuhrururgrestart gonna restart that line. 00:39:51.957 --> 00:39:56.838 I have good news! You’re watching the videooooh no. 00:39:56.838 --> 00:39:57.990 That’s…ugh 00:39:57.990 --> 00:40:02.283 …some sorta proof that Beta was better is either being very dishingenuous… 00:40:02.283 --> 00:40:05.160 I kinda said “dishingenuous” didn’t I? 00:40:05.160 --> 00:40:10.273 If you would like to skip it, go ahead and jump to heh heh hawah heh hawrh ha heh-ha 00:40:10.273 --> 00:40:12.959 Sony knew right away that they had a problem on… 00:40:13.583 --> 00:40:14.894 S… stop it! 00:40:14.894 --> 00:40:19.810 ...stretch Beta’s recording capacity to 90 minutes with the introduction of the L-seven - 00:40:22.075 --> 00:40:23.064 I think I hit it. 00:40:23.064 --> 00:40:25.393 Suspiciously absent from this machine [bonk]. 00:40:25.393 --> 00:40:26.316 Oh… 00:40:27.432 --> 00:40:30.912 At this point, you beta believe that Betacam ain't Betamax. 00:40:30.912 --> 00:40:35.094 It sure is astounding how angsty uncles could, through nonstop whining to their family and friends, 00:40:35.094 --> 00:40:38.287 change the broader understanding of how the format war happened, isn't it? 00:40:38.287 --> 00:40:40.648 Face it, Dave, you backed the wrong horse. 00:40:40.648 --> 00:40:41.656 It's OK. 00:40:41.656 --> 00:40:42.648 Mistakes happen. 00:40:42.648 --> 00:40:43.407 Let it go.