Comparing Beta & VHS on Quality: Was Beta Really Better?
Technology Connections0 HN recommenders · 2022–2026
710K views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2017-06-21
Technology Connections compares Betamax and VHS picture quality using footage from a 1979 RCA VCR and argues the Beta quality advantage was largely marketing.
Cited as evidence that Betamax was not meaningfully better than VHS.
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4 comments from Hacker News
We've all collectively fallen for Sony's marketing for Betamax. It was not clearly higher quality. [VIDEO]
In tests done by Technology Connections, the difference was so small as to be inconsequential. It was technically better at its slowest speed, but you could barely perceive the difference and more importantly Sony disabled the feature in the vast majority of machines sold. People wanted more than 60 minutes out of one tape. They wanted 2 hours. [VIDEO]
This just reminds me of the people who whine about Betamax (or CCS) being better. FWIW: Technology Connections did a teardown of why Betamax wasn't better than VHS: [VIDEO] And the whole series if you actually enjoy watching these things: [LINK]
While a worse format surely could have won something like the video wars, it doesn't seem that VHS was in fact the worse format overall: [LINK] (Part 2: [LINK] . Quality comparison: [VIDEO] ) Beta was basically optimised for one thing, reasonable cassette size, and the tradeoffs turned out probably not to be worth it.