Betamax was seen by the industry as being the better technology, but VHS won out for a number of reasons. There were issues with the length of tape in the cartridges and it is said the market was skewed by tape rentals being available only in VHS format.
Today, the concept of only being able to record an hour’s worth of TV programme without having to change cartridges is alien; terabyte hard drives have done away with the piles of tapes stacked beneath the TV, not to mention the complex programming of recording.
Standing on the sidelines, effectively, in the late 1970s was Philips, in another instance of it backing the wrong technology horse. It worked with Grunding to create the V2000 format. Seen as being technically superior to both Betamax and VHS, the format was late to market and, essentially, had missed the window of opportunity.
The arrival of consumer electronics in the home brought with it a spike in the number of burglaries. But, allegedly, when burglars encountered a V2000 machine in the house they had broken into, they took the tapes, but left the player – the tapes had a value, but not the machine.
With the writing on the wall, Philips transitioned to the VHS system and pulled the plug on V2000 in 1988. Now, Sony will stop making Betamax tapes in March 2016. The end of an era.
