Originally posted by: lordjedi
From that article:
"But rather than demanding better pictures for today's TV sets, consumers have shown more interest in LP (Long Play) modes that reduce the picture quality to provide longer recording times."
So in essence, nobody cared that Betamax looked better (and lasted longer if I'm not mistaken). They wanted the longer recording times (just like I mentioned previously) at the expense of quality. And who could blame them. Most people didn't have huge televisions or hi-def (didn't exist at the time in the home market). VHS looked "good enough" so there was no reason to go Betamax. That and a lot of people would record over and over again. As long as they could see most of the picture, nobody cared if it had any visible distortions. Hell, I remember making copies and not knowing why the screen went dim and bright and I didn't care about that either (years later I found out it was Macrovision protection).
From that article:
"But rather than demanding better pictures for today's TV sets, consumers have shown more interest in LP (Long Play) modes that reduce the picture quality to provide longer recording times."
So in essence, nobody cared that Betamax looked better (and lasted longer if I'm not mistaken). They wanted the longer recording times (just like I mentioned previously) at the expense of quality. And who could blame them. Most people didn't have huge televisions or hi-def (didn't exist at the time in the home market). VHS looked "good enough" so there was no reason to go Betamax. That and a lot of people would record over and over again. As long as they could see most of the picture, nobody cared if it had any visible distortions. Hell, I remember making copies and not knowing why the screen went dim and bright and I didn't care about that either (years later I found out it was Macrovision protection).
I agree, most people that I knew in the 1970's had a TV set that was 19" or smaller (heck- I don't remember having a color TV in our house 'till the mid-70s).
I'm just saying that I think the difference between Beta and VHS is greatly exaggerated by most people, and I can understand how someone would be willing to give up 10 lines of resolution to not have to split a movie up onto 2 videotapes.
From Wikipedia:
"Betamax offered a slightly higher horizontal resolution (250 lines vs. 240 lines in PAL & NTSC), lower video noise, and less luma-chroma crosstalk than VHS, and was marketed as providing pictures superior to VHS's, however the introduction of B-II speed (2-hour mode) to compete with VHS's 2-hour Standard Play mode, reduced Betamax's horizontal resolution to 240 lines. The extension of VHS to VHS HQ produced 250 lines, so that overall a Betamax/VHS user could expect virtually identical luminance resolution, and almost identical chrominance resolution (53 vs 50 lines), wherein the actual picture performance depended on other factors, including the condition and quality of the videotape, and the specific video recorder machine model."
If I understand that correctly, at its highest quality (1-hour mode) Betamax only offered 10 more lines of horizontal resolution than VHS, with slightly less video noise and luma-chroma crosstalk. In the 2-hour mode (which is what you would need to tape a movie) Beta and VHS were about equal.