What is Betamax?
Betamax refers to the videotapes developed by Sony®: that are now essentially unused except by a few hobbyists. Initially released in 1975, they entered into a fierce competition with JVC, which released the VHS system the following year. For years VHS and Beta fought a competitive battle to see which system would be used more by consumers. VHS eventually won the war of the videocassette, though now, both systems are in far less use because DVD players, and DVD recorders (DVR) and services like TiVo® produce a much higher quality picture. A Betamax tape was smaller than a VHS tape by a few inches. Like VHS players and recorders, Beta players used azimuth recording, a slight angling of the recording heads to keep sounds, images and the like from bleeding together. This is also called cross talk. The ability for folks at home to record a TV program or watch a movie made Beta popular at first. Other electronics companies soon began to release Betamax players, and brands like Aiwa, NEC,
