Videotape format war

From Academic Kids

The videotape format war was a period of an intense format war of rival incompatible models of video cassette recorders in the 1970s and early 1980s. It has gone in marketing history as the classic example of this kind of market competition.

Home video cassette recorders became available in the early 1970s, though the first system to be successful was Sony's Betamax. This was quickly followed by VHS (Video Home System) from JVC, and later by Video 2000 from Philips.

Sony had demonstrated a prototype system to the other electronics manufacturers in 1974, and expected that they would back a single format for the good of all. But JVC in particular decided to go it alone (despite Sony's appeal to the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry) and the classic format war had begun.

The first battleground was recording time. The original Betamax systems could record for a maximum of one hour, which was not enough for a whole feature film. VHS could manage two hours, due to larger cassettes and a less demanding performance; Sony responded by changing the specification, effectively creating a new (and incompatible) "Beta 2" format. Thinner tape allowed both formats to increase still further, and by the early 1980s Beta could record for 3h 15m, compared to 3 hours for VHS. With Long Play (LP) technology (available by the mid-80s), a VHS cassette could run for up to 8 hours.

(Many people say that Betamax was better quality than VHS, although reviews at the time don't back this up -- there seems to have been no difference visible to the naked eye. Any difference in quality was only detectable using test equipment.)

When home VCRs started to become popular in the UK, the main issue was one of availablity and price. VHS machines were available through the high-street rental chains such as Radio Rentals and DER, while Beta was seen as the more upmarket choice for people who wanted quality and were prepared to buy it. By 1980, out of an estimated 100,000 homes with VCRs, 70% were rented, and the presence of two competing formats meant that rental was an even more attractive choice, since you didn't have to worry about spending a fortune (about £2000 in today's prices) on a system which was going to become obsolete.

By 1980 there were in fact three choices, since the Video 2000 format from Philips and Grundig had arrived. Although an excellent system, full of impressive technology and with potential for future developments 'designed in', this third format never got much recognition, and quickly fell by the wayside. V2000 was cancelled in 1985, the first casualty of the format war.

By the time Betamax machines became easier to rent, VHS already claimed 70% of the market. At the same time, renting tapes was beginning to become popular, and for a while it seemed that every little shop on the street-corner had a rack of tapes. (As with many new technologies, pornography was a great attraction of home video, since you could watch in private; the famous "video nasties" -- films which were deemed too violent or gruesome for general release -- were also highly sought, since they couldn't be seen anywhere else.)

Yet again Sony missed the boat, being reluctant to sign licensing agreements with studios to have films made available in Betamax. So a combination of lower market share and a lack of software both strengthened VHS's hand, and gradually the public turned away from Beta. 1984 was Beta's best year, with a 25% market share, but by 1986 it was down to 7.5% and the writing was on the wall: Betamax joined Quadraphonic and 8-Track cartridges in that great attic in the sky. Sales dwindled away, and VHS emerged victorious - despite being the least sophisticated of the three main rivals. VHS however benefited from continuous development from all manufacturers (including Sony) over the years, and new innovations such as 4-head and 6-head technology, Hi-Fi stereo sound and the like saw it eventually surpass Betamax, making the format war largely academic by the turn of the 1990s.

In 1988 Sony began to market their own VHS machines, and despite claims that they were still backing Beta, it was clear that the format was dead -- at least in Europe and the US. In parts of South America Beta continued to be popular, and in Japan the format was developed into ED-Beta and SuperBeta, and was actually still produced up to the end of 2002. The rise of DVD finally took away the niche market that Betamax had survived in, for a total of 27 years.