I will always remember that Pizza Hut ad that would run at the beginning of The Land Before Time VHS, and being so disappointed that the LBT character party hats in the commercial were no longer available at Pizza Hut, since that video had come out a couple years earlier. 😄
Back before cable, and there were only 3 channels, they showed cartoons on Saturday mornings, because kids did not have school or church in the mornings. Then cable came, made Nickelodeon, an all kids network, showed kid shows every day, soon after cartoon network came, and shows cartoons 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And more cable channels followed, and it killed off Saturday morning cartoons.
@@joeybaseball7352 Ummmmm no, Government over reach killed Saturday morning cartoons. www.google.com/amp/s/aminoapps.com/c/cartoon/amp/blog/what-killed-saturday-morning-cartoons-a-brief-explanation/vd7I_nujg3J8jN55nnER1eRWVEzx1r
We bought a VHS machine back in 1981 because we noticed there were about 10 times as many titles available on VHS compared to Beta at the local rental stores.
Some of my first memories of TV are of my mom watching the new episode of Saturday Night Live the following Sunday afternoon. And, this was the late '80's, so my first memories of TV specifically included Hans and Franz, the Church Lady, the Sweeney Sisters, etc. Best part though? My mom actually kept a lot of those tapes. She adored that particular era of SNL (she was in love with Phil Hartman), and avoided taping over the episodes so she could keep watching them. She did it almost religiously well into the early and mid 90s (the era that included Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, etc). The summer I was old enough to stay home by myself without a babysitter, I absolutely raided this collection and got a very, very good education in TV. ;) (Side note: the history of SNL would be a damn good throwback topic!)
This is such an adorable memory of a forgotten time. I’d guess those tapes might still be priceless if you have them but if they’re not old VHS tapes can resell really well if there are vintage commercials on them.
@@BigDaddyWes Maybe, but not by Mental Floss. I like their way of making videos, telling facts and history so I would be happy if they could make an episode about that stuff
I can still remember when my family got our first VCR; it was 1988. I had a dual VCR/DVD unit until 2008 (would love to have that back, not to mention the tapes and discs I had back then)
I had just a simple VCR (not a 'dual tuner') and I used a 'splitter' on the cable TV so that the signal would go both to the VCR and the TV at the same time. I would watch the Cable signal first, while the VCR was watching another channel and recording that other show, and a little while later I would flip a switch so I could watch the signal coming from the VCR and I would then watch the recorded VCR show. Then when DVD recorders came out, I did the same thing.
I think another thing that sunk Beta were the features. When I shopped for my first VCR I found that for the same price a VHS VCR could be programmed to record four events over two weeks, while the Beta VCR could be programmed to record only one event over three days. It seemed like while Sony was working to get the features right, VHS makers were working to make features available even if they weren't the easiest to use.
Kids these days can't understand just how much the video store was like stepping into a spaceship. Every Friday me and my dad would go down the video shop after dinner and get films. All my favourite memories of my younger days (i'm 48 born in 1975) were in that shop, the covers were amazing and it always ended the same way with my dad saying "what film do you want?" and me pointing to Cannibal Holocaust and my dad saying no so i pointed at Star Wars or Captain America cartoon. Just amazing in every way. great video!
I worked at an independent video store for 7 years; I went from a teenage kid who did nothing but sweep the floor and return movies to the shelf to being the assistant manager, until the day the store closed because the market was dying. The first time I ever got called the "C" word--I was still a teenage girl and the person who threw the word at me was an adult man--was when I was trying very hard to explain to him that he couldn't buy some new release movie that day upon its release because it cost us $100 to bring in and it was ONLY for rental, as per the movie studio. It'd come out at a reasonable price for purchase eventually, or he could buy a used copy a few weeks down the road. Wasn't good enough and he... called me that word. Sigh.
I remember all of that. My uncle bought a Betamax and later regretted it because he could hardly find anything for it. I remember that one of the quirkier things they did to sell tapes was to sometimes have them in different colors. I remember The Hunt For Red October came in a red case. Everyone seems to be nostalgic about Blockbuster but what I remember most is that the movies I wanted to see were always rented out. I seemed like every week I'd get stuck with, like, my 6th choice.
This was great. I'd forgotten McDonald's tapes of Batman & Dancing w/ Wolves (like wtf?) and how special the E.T. tape w/ the holograph on the bottom were even as the 90s were right around the corner. Also didn't know that Star Wars tapes came out after the movies had had their run. Also, I will plan on rewatching this at .75 speed b/c there was a LOT of info I didn't know. Guess you could say I am now the "Controller of the Universe" or whatever. haha
Our first VCR was in 1978 and an RCA ‘Selectavision’, it cost $1,300.00 of 1978 dollars and was two speed, SP and LP. The, then hard to find, blank tapes cost $25.00 for a one hour and $50.00 for a two hour tape. If you recorded a show there was a black drop out for a second at every pause to skip the commercials, that improved over the years with better, less expensive models. My mom got me the two tape set of the movie “The Ten Commandments” for Christmas the year it became available, I’m thinking in the 1980s, and it cost $110.00. Many of the prerecorded movies I remember buying were initially in that $50 to $100 dollar range. Expensive even now but a lot of money back then too!
Pre-recorded films on Betamax really did look better than VHS. Weirdly better. Way back when, I was able to compare two different films on the two formats on two similar TV sets. The superiority of Betamax was notable. The Betamax image had a quality somewhere between VHS and DVD.
Original Beta1 (double speed) had around 250 lines resolution compared to VHS 240 lines. Once Beta tape speed halved (Beta2), the difference became negligible - both at around 240 lines resolution. Beta1 quickly disappeared in the late 1970's. Your claim that Beta is inbetween VHS and DVD in terms of image quality is ridiculous. Chroma (colour) resolution on both VHS and Betamax was also comparably poor - DVD chroma resolution is massively superior to both.
God, as a 32 year old, I LOVED being able to tape shows as a kid on the VCR. Me and my little sisters had to do that a lot so we could watch something we'd miss! Also those clamshell Disney tapes were our live when little. Our grandparents kept almost all of them in a case below their TV so when we came over, we'd raid it and find the one we wanted to watch (MULAN) ;D Also, the video rental store by our house was THE PLACE on Saturday night for us to find those movies we wanted to watch. I know my parents loved it! We rented so many all the time. And if they didn't have multiple copies, you were SOL!
Yes to all of this, although heaven help you if you taped over someone's highly prized VHS taping of the Backstreet Boys performance on SNL (ya know, just for example).
@@MentalFloss YES!! This hit so hard because someone taped over when the Backstreet Boys sang on TRL "I Want It That Way' for the first time (you know, the #1 pop song of all time...)
Ideas for Throwback episodes? How about portable music apparatuses? I was sooo stoked my MP3 player could store 1GB of music! That was like.. three times as much as my friend's MP3 player! PS. How do I kindly rewind a TH-cam video?
Great video...I enjoyed it very much. I recently found/purchased a Quasar Top Load VCR (fully working) from 1984...our family’s first VCR. I love the nostalgia from 70s/80’s technology; I still have my original Commodore 64 computer (including monitor, tape drive and floppy drive) and have kept it going in the modern world (network adapter, SD card drive, etc.). Thanks again for a great video...Sub’d.
I love the VCR so much. I have been long waiting the day someone made a history video on it. I'm so glad you know your stuff to. So many people say stuff they don't know. So again thank you for this video. Long live the 80s and the 90s. Lol being a teen and wanting a VCR should not be a bad thing right? 🤣🤣🤣
Dang, good catch! It's always a bit tricky because we don't have time to fact-check our image selections. The photos we used were labeled as if they fit what we were referencing, but I suspected 1 or 2 of them could be off...
@@MentalFloss well, I got my diatribe erased. I was pretty close to finished but not yet. It is probably for the best but I will send the pertinent parts. OK so after a while looking it up thinking it was going to be placed in the madela effect column, I found it. CEDs. Wiki page- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc However it was only the laser disks that were known as LDs/Laserdisks. :/ I mentioned I used to work at a CD store that sold LDs too. I even retrieved pics for u then remembered I can't put them here. :( however- www.8-bitcentral.com/blog/2014/cedMovies.html - this is an article that has a picture of the player and all! Considering how thorough you were I was surprised you missed this nugget about the CED's. If you don't remember Fire by Bruce Springsteen's cover th-cam.com/video/d5PoIrcyd34/w-d-xo.html was ONLY available on the LD of a live show of his. There were a couple of other anecdotes and info that turns out to be I don't think you would care about them even by a long shot. So, here's the abridged version. In the original I opened with"Wow! An actual response! Should I feel flattered?" I thought better of it for the rewrite. Have a great day and I hope you enjoy the links. 😊
My dad was a Betahead too. He insisted it was superior because the cassettes were smaller, so you could have a bigger library of films on a shelf. He was sure they would out-compete VHS. One of the upsides when VHS started to win the war was that you could get Betamax movies for dirt cheap at yard sales, or sometimes people would even just give you their entire collection as they "upgraded" to VHS.
VHS won over Beta for several reasons. 1. Easier licensing. Becoming a licensee to make Betamax equipment was expensive and Sony wasn't always fair to deal with. JVC, on the other hand, made becoming a licensee to make VHS equipment very easy and very cheap, so most of the electronics industry supported VHS over Beta. And it wouldn't be long before companies that committed to selling Beta would jump ship and sell VHS, starting with Zenith Electronics. The best example of Sony's unfairness against one of their licensees would be Marantz. Marantz sold a linear stereo Beta VCR which used Dolby System type C for noise reduction. No too long after Marantz announced this, Sony introduced Beta hi-fi, which upstaged Marantz in a very big way as Beta hi-fi offered near CD quality audio regardless of tape speed, and blew the doors off of linear stereo. Marantz was angry that Sony didn't disclose Beta hi-fi to them as well as embarrassing them the way they did. The next Marantz VCR, and every VCR from them until they stopped selling VCRs, were VHS. 2. Better availability and variety of equipment. As it was easier to become a VHS licensee, more manufacturers made VHS equipment than Beta. This enabled a greater variety of VHS machines to be made available and covering a wider range of price points. You could buy a high end VCR from the likes of Mitsubishi or Panasonic, a good midrange model from RCA or Hitachi, or a budget model from Emerson or Samsung, and so much in between. 3. Longer recording time. Initially Beta was only available with one speed, which yielded only one hour of recording time on the longest length of tape that was available at the time (K-60, later known as L-500). VHS was available with two speeds for North America, yielding two hours and four hours on a T-120 cassette. Eventually, the 6 hour speed would be made available, helping people to record more on their tapes. Beta would make slower tape speeds available as well as longer lengths of tapes, but it was too little and too late. 4. VHS almost always caught up. Betamax innovated with many features such as visual search, the camcorder (Betamovie), and Hi-Fi stereo sound. But on almost every innovation that Beta delivered, and which Sony promised the competition couldn't match ... VHS matched it, and usually within a year. 5. Inconsistent support from Sony. Sony began having to juggle Beta with a totally different video format that they introduced in the early 80s: 8mm video tape. JVC, on the other hand, introduced VHS-C, which was VHS in a much smaller form factor. Since it was still 1/2" VHS, a cassette adapter was all that was required to play VHS-C recordings on regular VHS VCRs. Sony's support for Beta became fragmented with 8mm video tape whereas JVC's support of VHS was reinforced with VHS-C. 6. Better picture on Beta wasn't always obvious. On paper, Beta was capable of having a better picture compared to VHS. In practice, most people wouldn't have been able to notice, especially on a typical television receiver at the time. And the difference, if perceivable, wasn't dramatic, and certainly not worth the tradeoffs in value that VHS did offer over Beta for most people. A thing about porn on Beta and VHS: Sony couldn't stop porn from being made available on Beta. That said, more of it was available on VHS, but mainly because software follows hardware. Producing prerecorded video cassettes was an expensive endeavor and many producers couldn't afford to do both Beta and VHS, so they had to choose one or the other. There were vastly more VHS machines in households than Beta machines at the time the home video revolution really started to take off. Given that fact, which format would you have chosen to sell your stuff on if you could only work with one? As for U-Matic, Sony really did initially intend for their 3/4" video cassette for the home, but it proved to be too expensive for that market as the video indicates. It was good enough, however, to replace film for television news field work, thus the idea of ENG (Electronic News Gathering) took off. The method of tape threading that U-Matic employed, U-pattern tape threading, was carried over to Betamax when Sony couldn't figure out how to make M-pattern tape threading work without stressing the tape too much. Sony would sell their M-threading technology to JVC, who would work out its problems and which, ironically, became the basis for VHS. Sony made Betacam, which is a broadcast format derived from Betamax and the successor to U-Matic. Betacam and Betamax both use 1/2" tape, both use the U-thread pattern, and small Betacam cassettes are mechanically compatible with Betamax VCRs (there are also large Betacam cassettes, which cannot physically fit in a Betamax VCR). That, however, are where the similarities end. Betacam records video onto the tape in a totally different way, so Betacam recordings will not properly playback on a Betamax VCR and vice versa. Panasonic would develop the M and M-II professional video cassette formats, which were derived from VHS. But M failed and M-II was only mildly successful whereas Sony dominated the professional market with Betacam.
I actually think he didn't, but it's such a popular line that the man who played Timmy titled his memoir "Timmy's in the Well." (Hat-tip to friend of Mental Floss Ken Jennings: www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-how-often-did-lassie-have-to-rescue-timmy-from-a-well By the way, shameless plug, if you're not familiar with KJ's "Kennections" quizzes on our site, I highly recommend them: www.mentalfloss.com/kennections/626824/whats-kennection
@@JimFortune Whoops my end parentheses messed it up. Should work now! www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-how-often-did-lassie-have-to-rescue-timmy-from-a-well
I used to work at a Kung Fu DVD distributor from 2006 to 2010. Some of the older film masters were on U-matic tapes. The later ones were on Betacam broadcast tapes. In any case, the U-matic tapes were a nightmare to work with as the tape becomes 'sticky' after a few years, so you need to rewind and forward the tapes every few years to avoid this issue. In any case, the U-Matic machine was also huge...
Thanks! Love the video store tidbits. I'd be curious what was going on, physically, to make media "sticky" (which I assume refers to the tape actually sticking, at least momentarily in the player?). It also brings up a question we entirely avoided in this video: how do you digitize video footage on magnetic tape? I know I could read an explanation and it would *kind of* make sense, but it still feels like magic to me.
It’s crazy to think being born in the 90s I always had a vcr and movies to watch as they were affordable at that point. Then in the early 2000s we had dvd. And today both are useless. I wonder what quality of life improvements we don’t even think about will come along.
@@MentalFloss yes and no. They did make VHS tapes, but what they were really known for (and what the name is synonymous with) were huge discs in cases. You would have to put the whole case into the Select-A-Vision machine which would grab the disc inside the case, then pull out the empty case. A needle inside would read it and play the movie. When the move was half way through you had to put the case back in, take the disc out, then flip it over to get the second half of the movie. I still have two Select-A-Visions and whole bunch of the discs (my Betamax sits on top of one of them haha)
This was actually my First exposure to 'Home Video' ... Two Local (far enough apart to avoid stepping on toes but close enough to use the 2nd as a fall back if they were sold out) Families acquired 'Franchises'... and rented them out of their Homes setting up the hoppers in their porch and living room respectively... we'd rent assorted movies every month, along with the machine (obviously) -- I saw Fast Times at Ridgemont High well before I should have... ' the next year our Cousins got a Top-load VHS which we borrowed regularly and only in '89 we finally got our own VCR...
The problem with physical media is that it tends to become obsolete relatively quickly. That's why I digitize all my content - and have done so from the very early days, with VHS. And they're still perfectly playable. Some very few titles I like enough to buy a more modern "remaster", only to immediately make a digital copy and put the physical media into a box with all the rest, never to be touched again.
Yeah, but having the physical copy is for whenever the digital content manager changes their minds and cuts off your access to it. This hasn't so much happened with video (yet), but it happens all the time with video games, so I will always get a physical copy of a game I like if there is one available.
@@erraticonteuse Good point with games. Though a lot of them require online activation/registration these days too :( I never get DRM video/audio anyway. When I have no choice, I immediately remove the DRM. So far, I can even play ancient QuickTime videos just fine.
Thats the beauty (ok, allowing for HD DVD) of the 12cm disc, whether CD, DVD, Blu Ray, 4K Blu Ray - easy to make backwardly compatible machines with different lasers for each format. In this world of streaming, long live the 12cm disc.
I had hundreds of Video cassettes. Then along came DVD, and made all vhs tapes, obsolete. I still have a bunch of old Disney tapes, and old personal tapes from the gigantic home video recorder we used the record home videos.
I recommend digitizing some of those old home movies. Well worth the money, in my experience. (I have no such recommendation, unfortunately, for the extensive library of movies that you can now probably access for free.)
You didn't mention the fact that JVC totally undercut Sony on cost. JVC didn't care if they were selling VCRs at or below cost as long as they won the format war. They made their money off of licensing the tech to other companies in the end.
I still have a little pink Hello Kitty TV with a DVD player ang VHS. I bought it for my daughter in 2002 SO she could watch all my old Disney movies I had on cassette, (I had them all st this time) all my old Looney Tunes. And....IT STILL WORKS!!
Two things. First while it was only a playback machine you didn’t mention the “record “type of playback machine where you had a disk that was pre-recorded. Secondly will be the died in home use it certainly did not in The production and television industry. OK three VCR tapes are transportable you can record at one place and take it to another. A little difficult to do with a digital disk although possible.
No, no, no! The Japanese Victor Corporation, JVC, named their system for the shape of the tape's path across the heads. They called it Victor Helical Scan, or VHS. NOT Video Home System!
LOL we had a Titanic line in there, I forget why it was cut. But I definitely remember the two-tape experience! Nothing to build suspense like a 30-second intermission.
The price is what did it, the betamaxx players which were actually better than VCRs were too much, VCR was chealer. BUT the VHS tapes i remember were soo much money to buy thats why everybody rented. I still have a few tapes that have $79.99 stickers. That was $200 possibly more in 1988. So the more affordable player won, VHS lives!! **Side note- Sony is the king of dead formats including Betamax, Mini disc, those terrible UMD discs, and now even blu ray is done with 4k UHD discs ushered in.
Oh dear. New episodes at "3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time"? You were doing so well up to that point. (Please just say Eastern Time all year 'round, and then you'll never have to think about it again.)
@@Rudolf_Edward bandwidth is how much data can be transferred. Speed is how fast that data can be transferred. Even at lower speeds, beta has higher bandwidth. They're interrelated but they're not the same.
*Betacam, not Betamax was the professional version. The shells were identical but the signal is totally different and the record speed is 4 times faster. ;)
Oh god that made me feel very old, but I love the suggestion, especially focusing on Polaroids. Or maybe even an ep that focuses on "old" technology that's been rediscovered by younger generations-I've seen a Polaroid pop up at many a party in the last 5 years (back when parties were a thing...)
I was part of an Internet Group to get BETAMAX to shutdown. If I remember right it was because Sony would not let any other companies manufacture the boxes.
Sell through: I can sell a movie with a $50 profit margin and sell 100,000 units. or I can sell a movie with a $5 profit margin and sell 10,000,000 units. First way, I make $5,000,000. The second way I make $50,000,000. HMMMM...which way should I go?
We looked into those connections and couldn't find any reliable verification, but it stands to reason that it might be an industry with a bit less of a paper trail, so hard to say it *isn't* the case, either.
Mental Floss from my understanding the adult entertainment industry has a lot of leverage on what format goes toward. A similar situation happen on why we got Blu-ray disk instead of HD-DVD.
Definitely on our list! Although we have one writer who I think might scream if she sees one more piece about Beanie Babies (it turns out the Internet cannot get enough of lists of valuable Beanie Babies.)
I will always remember that Pizza Hut ad that would run at the beginning of The Land Before Time VHS, and being so disappointed that the LBT character party hats in the commercial were no longer available at Pizza Hut, since that video had come out a couple years earlier. 😄
I'd like to know the history of Saturday morning cartoons
Back before cable, and there were only 3 channels, they showed cartoons on Saturday mornings, because kids did not have school or church in the mornings. Then cable came, made Nickelodeon, an all kids network, showed kid shows every day, soon after cartoon network came, and shows cartoons 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And more cable channels followed, and it killed off Saturday morning cartoons.
@@joeybaseball7352 Ummmmm no, Government over reach killed Saturday morning cartoons.
www.google.com/amp/s/aminoapps.com/c/cartoon/amp/blog/what-killed-saturday-morning-cartoons-a-brief-explanation/vd7I_nujg3J8jN55nnER1eRWVEzx1r
We bought a VHS machine back in 1981 because we noticed there were about 10 times as many titles available on VHS compared to Beta at the local rental stores.
Some of my first memories of TV are of my mom watching the new episode of Saturday Night Live the following Sunday afternoon. And, this was the late '80's, so my first memories of TV specifically included Hans and Franz, the Church Lady, the Sweeney Sisters, etc.
Best part though? My mom actually kept a lot of those tapes. She adored that particular era of SNL (she was in love with Phil Hartman), and avoided taping over the episodes so she could keep watching them. She did it almost religiously well into the early and mid 90s (the era that included Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, etc). The summer I was old enough to stay home by myself without a babysitter, I absolutely raided this collection and got a very, very good education in TV. ;)
(Side note: the history of SNL would be a damn good throwback topic!)
This is such an adorable memory of a forgotten time. I’d guess those tapes might still be priceless if you have them but if they’re not old VHS tapes can resell really well if there are vintage commercials on them.
The first inexpensive movie on videotape was Basket Case. It sold for $19.95 in 1984.
Highly appreciate the owl with mustache in the background XD.
Great one 💕I would like to see an episode about RPG, arcades or other game consoles 😬
Oo good idea. We have some computer game stuff coming up that you'll hopefully enjoy, but arcades & consoles are their own thing, for sure.
I feel like all of that has been well covered and documented all over TH-cam though.
@@BigDaddyWes Maybe, but not by Mental Floss. I like their way of making videos, telling facts and history so I would be happy if they could make an episode about that stuff
I can still remember when my family got our first VCR; it was 1988. I had a dual VCR/DVD unit until 2008 (would love to have that back, not to mention the tapes and discs I had back then)
I had just a simple VCR (not a 'dual tuner') and I used a 'splitter' on the cable TV so that the signal would go both to the VCR and the TV at the same time. I would watch the Cable signal first, while the VCR was watching another channel and recording that other show, and a little while later I would flip a switch so I could watch the signal coming from the VCR and I would then watch the recorded VCR show. Then when DVD recorders came out, I did the same thing.
I think another thing that sunk Beta were the features. When I shopped for my first VCR I found that for the same price a VHS VCR could be programmed to record four events over two weeks, while the Beta VCR could be programmed to record only one event over three days. It seemed like while Sony was working to get the features right, VHS makers were working to make features available even if they weren't the easiest to use.
Kids these days can't understand just how much the video store was like stepping into a spaceship. Every Friday me and my dad would go down the video shop after dinner and get films. All my favourite memories of my younger days (i'm 48 born in 1975) were in that shop, the covers were amazing and it always ended the same way with my dad saying "what film do you want?" and me pointing to Cannibal Holocaust and my dad saying no so i pointed at Star Wars or Captain America cartoon. Just amazing in every way. great video!
I worked at an independent video store for 7 years; I went from a teenage kid who did nothing but sweep the floor and return movies to the shelf to being the assistant manager, until the day the store closed because the market was dying. The first time I ever got called the "C" word--I was still a teenage girl and the person who threw the word at me was an adult man--was when I was trying very hard to explain to him that he couldn't buy some new release movie that day upon its release because it cost us $100 to bring in and it was ONLY for rental, as per the movie studio. It'd come out at a reasonable price for purchase eventually, or he could buy a used copy a few weeks down the road. Wasn't good enough and he... called me that word. Sigh.
I remember all of that. My uncle bought a Betamax and later regretted it because he could hardly find anything for it. I remember that one of the quirkier things they did to sell tapes was to sometimes have them in different colors. I remember The Hunt For Red October came in a red case. Everyone seems to be nostalgic about Blockbuster but what I remember most is that the movies I wanted to see were always rented out. I seemed like every week I'd get stuck with, like, my 6th choice.
This was great. I'd forgotten McDonald's tapes of Batman & Dancing w/ Wolves (like wtf?) and how special the E.T. tape w/ the holograph on the bottom were even as the 90s were right around the corner. Also didn't know that Star Wars tapes came out after the movies had had their run. Also, I will plan on rewatching this at .75 speed b/c there was a LOT of info I didn't know. Guess you could say I am now the "Controller of the Universe" or whatever. haha
Mental Floss, this is my first time finding you and it's a great channel! Well done!
I remember being able to rent the VCR too right alongside the tape too.
Our first VCR was in 1978 and an RCA ‘Selectavision’, it cost $1,300.00 of 1978 dollars and was two speed, SP and LP. The, then hard to find, blank tapes cost $25.00 for a one hour and $50.00 for a two hour tape. If you recorded a show there was a black drop out for a second at every pause to skip the commercials, that improved over the years with better, less expensive models. My mom got me the two tape set of the movie “The Ten Commandments” for Christmas the year it became available, I’m thinking in the 1980s, and it cost $110.00. Many of the prerecorded movies I remember buying were initially in that $50 to $100 dollar range. Expensive even now but a lot of money back then too!
Pre-recorded films on Betamax really did look better than VHS. Weirdly better. Way back when, I was able to compare two different films on the two formats on two similar TV sets.
The superiority of Betamax was notable. The Betamax image had a quality somewhere between VHS and DVD.
Only a cyborg can notice the difference between beta and VHS. Beta is not even close to DVD.
@@saint_and_holy_unicorn. Betamax is still the superior tape picture quality wise. Also have you seen teen titans go too?
Original Beta1 (double speed) had around 250 lines resolution compared to VHS 240 lines. Once Beta tape speed halved (Beta2), the difference became negligible - both at around 240 lines resolution. Beta1 quickly disappeared in the late 1970's. Your claim that Beta is inbetween VHS and DVD in terms of image quality is ridiculous. Chroma (colour) resolution on both VHS and Betamax was also comparably poor - DVD chroma resolution is massively superior to both.
God, as a 32 year old, I LOVED being able to tape shows as a kid on the VCR. Me and my little sisters had to do that a lot so we could watch something we'd miss! Also those clamshell Disney tapes were our live when little. Our grandparents kept almost all of them in a case below their TV so when we came over, we'd raid it and find the one we wanted to watch (MULAN) ;D Also, the video rental store by our house was THE PLACE on Saturday night for us to find those movies we wanted to watch. I know my parents loved it! We rented so many all the time. And if they didn't have multiple copies, you were SOL!
Yes to all of this, although heaven help you if you taped over someone's highly prized VHS taping of the Backstreet Boys performance on SNL (ya know, just for example).
@@MentalFloss YES!! This hit so hard because someone taped over when the Backstreet Boys sang on TRL "I Want It That Way' for the first time (you know, the #1 pop song of all time...)
Ideas for Throwback episodes? How about portable music apparatuses? I was sooo stoked my MP3 player could store 1GB of music! That was like.. three times as much as my friend's MP3 player!
PS. How do I kindly rewind a TH-cam video?
The content on your channel is so interesting! As a small creator who also makes content about interesting facts, I am inspired 😊
Phillips n1500?? n1700??
Umatic wasn't really intended for household use
Great video...I enjoyed it very much. I recently found/purchased a Quasar Top Load VCR (fully working) from 1984...our family’s first VCR. I love the nostalgia from 70s/80’s technology; I still have my original Commodore 64 computer (including monitor, tape drive and floppy drive) and have kept it going in the modern world (network adapter, SD card drive, etc.). Thanks again for a great video...Sub’d.
Love this throwback series. I love retro stuff i wish I could go back just for one day.
Now want to see Knight Rider starring Angela Lansbury...
Or "Murder, He Wrote" starring the Hoff.
@@MentalFloss With the recent advent of AI imaging that might be as far off as it would seem.
I love the VCR so much. I have been long waiting the day someone made a history video on it. I'm so glad you know your stuff to. So many people say stuff they don't know. So again thank you for this video. Long live the 80s and the 90s. Lol being a teen and wanting a VCR should not be a bad thing right? 🤣🤣🤣
Well researched! Short of one topic. The LD shown are the later versions.
Change cassettes or disks half way through!
Dang, good catch! It's always a bit tricky because we don't have time to fact-check our image selections. The photos we used were labeled as if they fit what we were referencing, but I suspected 1 or 2 of them could be off...
@@MentalFloss well, I got my diatribe erased. I was pretty close to finished but not yet. It is probably for the best but I will send the pertinent parts.
OK so after a while looking it up thinking it was going to be placed in the madela effect column, I found it. CEDs. Wiki page- en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc However it was only the laser disks that were known as LDs/Laserdisks. :/ I mentioned I used to work at a CD store that sold LDs too. I even retrieved pics for u then remembered I can't put them here. :( however- www.8-bitcentral.com/blog/2014/cedMovies.html - this is an article that has a picture of the player and all! Considering how thorough you were I was surprised you missed this nugget about the CED's. If you don't remember Fire by Bruce Springsteen's cover th-cam.com/video/d5PoIrcyd34/w-d-xo.html was ONLY available on the LD of a live show of his. There were a couple of other anecdotes and info that turns out to be I don't think you would care about them even by a long shot. So, here's the abridged version. In the original I opened with"Wow! An actual response! Should I feel flattered?" I thought better of it for the rewrite. Have a great day and I hope you enjoy the links. 😊
I find the massive bogie quite distracting. Once you see it, you can't unsee it...
Many years ago I saw an ad for a DVD rewind device. No, it wasn't serious, but I found it funny.
BETAMAX was definitely a big part of my childhood.
Do you remember why your family chose it over VHS?
My dad was a Betahead too. He insisted it was superior because the cassettes were smaller, so you could have a bigger library of films on a shelf. He was sure they would out-compete VHS. One of the upsides when VHS started to win the war was that you could get Betamax movies for dirt cheap at yard sales, or sometimes people would even just give you their entire collection as they "upgraded" to VHS.
VHS won over Beta for several reasons.
1. Easier licensing. Becoming a licensee to make Betamax equipment was expensive and Sony wasn't always fair to deal with. JVC, on the other hand, made becoming a licensee to make VHS equipment very easy and very cheap, so most of the electronics industry supported VHS over Beta. And it wouldn't be long before companies that committed to selling Beta would jump ship and sell VHS, starting with Zenith Electronics.
The best example of Sony's unfairness against one of their licensees would be Marantz. Marantz sold a linear stereo Beta VCR which used Dolby System type C for noise reduction. No too long after Marantz announced this, Sony introduced Beta hi-fi, which upstaged Marantz in a very big way as Beta hi-fi offered near CD quality audio regardless of tape speed, and blew the doors off of linear stereo. Marantz was angry that Sony didn't disclose Beta hi-fi to them as well as embarrassing them the way they did. The next Marantz VCR, and every VCR from them until they stopped selling VCRs, were VHS.
2. Better availability and variety of equipment. As it was easier to become a VHS licensee, more manufacturers made VHS equipment than Beta. This enabled a greater variety of VHS machines to be made available and covering a wider range of price points. You could buy a high end VCR from the likes of Mitsubishi or Panasonic, a good midrange model from RCA or Hitachi, or a budget model from Emerson or Samsung, and so much in between.
3. Longer recording time. Initially Beta was only available with one speed, which yielded only one hour of recording time on the longest length of tape that was available at the time (K-60, later known as L-500). VHS was available with two speeds for North America, yielding two hours and four hours on a T-120 cassette. Eventually, the 6 hour speed would be made available, helping people to record more on their tapes. Beta would make slower tape speeds available as well as longer lengths of tapes, but it was too little and too late.
4. VHS almost always caught up. Betamax innovated with many features such as visual search, the camcorder (Betamovie), and Hi-Fi stereo sound. But on almost every innovation that Beta delivered, and which Sony promised the competition couldn't match ... VHS matched it, and usually within a year.
5. Inconsistent support from Sony. Sony began having to juggle Beta with a totally different video format that they introduced in the early 80s: 8mm video tape. JVC, on the other hand, introduced VHS-C, which was VHS in a much smaller form factor. Since it was still 1/2" VHS, a cassette adapter was all that was required to play VHS-C recordings on regular VHS VCRs. Sony's support for Beta became fragmented with 8mm video tape whereas JVC's support of VHS was reinforced with VHS-C.
6. Better picture on Beta wasn't always obvious. On paper, Beta was capable of having a better picture compared to VHS. In practice, most people wouldn't have been able to notice, especially on a typical television receiver at the time. And the difference, if perceivable, wasn't dramatic, and certainly not worth the tradeoffs in value that VHS did offer over Beta for most people.
A thing about porn on Beta and VHS: Sony couldn't stop porn from being made available on Beta. That said, more of it was available on VHS, but mainly because software follows hardware. Producing prerecorded video cassettes was an expensive endeavor and many producers couldn't afford to do both Beta and VHS, so they had to choose one or the other. There were vastly more VHS machines in households than Beta machines at the time the home video revolution really started to take off. Given that fact, which format would you have chosen to sell your stuff on if you could only work with one?
As for U-Matic, Sony really did initially intend for their 3/4" video cassette for the home, but it proved to be too expensive for that market as the video indicates. It was good enough, however, to replace film for television news field work, thus the idea of ENG (Electronic News Gathering) took off. The method of tape threading that U-Matic employed, U-pattern tape threading, was carried over to Betamax when Sony couldn't figure out how to make M-pattern tape threading work without stressing the tape too much. Sony would sell their M-threading technology to JVC, who would work out its problems and which, ironically, became the basis for VHS.
Sony made Betacam, which is a broadcast format derived from Betamax and the successor to U-Matic. Betacam and Betamax both use 1/2" tape, both use the U-thread pattern, and small Betacam cassettes are mechanically compatible with Betamax VCRs (there are also large Betacam cassettes, which cannot physically fit in a Betamax VCR). That, however, are where the similarities end. Betacam records video onto the tape in a totally different way, so Betacam recordings will not properly playback on a Betamax VCR and vice versa. Panasonic would develop the M and M-II professional video cassette formats, which were derived from VHS. But M failed and M-II was only mildly successful whereas Sony dominated the professional market with Betacam.
240 lines... not actually true. VHS is capable of the of the full resolution of a PAL/NTSC signal. It IS however a little soft.
Technology connections has a multi part series on this if you want to learn more.
Omgggg I want a Clarissa Explains it All board game !!!! Where can I get that ??!?!?
Did Timmy ever actually fall in a well?
I actually think he didn't, but it's such a popular line that the man who played Timmy titled his memoir "Timmy's in the Well." (Hat-tip to friend of Mental Floss Ken Jennings: www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-how-often-did-lassie-have-to-rescue-timmy-from-a-well
By the way, shameless plug, if you're not familiar with KJ's "Kennections" quizzes on our site, I highly recommend them: www.mentalfloss.com/kennections/626824/whats-kennection
@@MentalFloss The first link gives a 404 error.
@@JimFortune Whoops my end parentheses messed it up. Should work now! www.woot.com/blog/post/the-debunker-how-often-did-lassie-have-to-rescue-timmy-from-a-well
@@MentalFloss Thanks. It works now, and is an interesting read.
I still have all my VHS tapes and DVD / VCR Combo.
I used to work at a Kung Fu DVD distributor from 2006 to 2010. Some of the older film masters were on U-matic tapes. The later ones were on Betacam broadcast tapes. In any case, the U-matic tapes were a nightmare to work with as the tape becomes 'sticky' after a few years, so you need to rewind and forward the tapes every few years to avoid this issue. In any case, the U-Matic machine was also huge...
Also, loved the video!
Thanks! Love the video store tidbits. I'd be curious what was going on, physically, to make media "sticky" (which I assume refers to the tape actually sticking, at least momentarily in the player?). It also brings up a question we entirely avoided in this video: how do you digitize video footage on magnetic tape? I know I could read an explanation and it would *kind of* make sense, but it still feels like magic to me.
It’s crazy to think being born in the 90s I always had a vcr and movies to watch as they were affordable at that point. Then in the early 2000s we had dvd. And today both are useless.
I wonder what quality of life improvements we don’t even think about will come along.
wasn't there also video2000 mainly in southamerica and europe?
Yes, there was.
I was kind of hoping you'd mention Select-A-Vision, the OTHER format from the era
Was that a type of VHS? I'm finding conflicting info online.
@@MentalFloss yes and no. They did make VHS tapes, but what they were really known for (and what the name is synonymous with) were huge discs in cases. You would have to put the whole case into the Select-A-Vision machine which would grab the disc inside the case, then pull out the empty case. A needle inside would read it and play the movie. When the move was half way through you had to put the case back in, take the disc out, then flip it over to get the second half of the movie. I still have two Select-A-Visions and whole bunch of the discs (my Betamax sits on top of one of them haha)
facebook.com/RcaSelectavisionVideodiscced/
This was actually my First exposure to 'Home Video' ... Two Local (far enough apart to avoid stepping on toes but close enough to use the 2nd as a fall back if they were sold out) Families acquired 'Franchises'... and rented them out of their Homes setting up the hoppers in their porch and living room respectively... we'd rent assorted movies every month, along with the machine (obviously) -- I saw Fast Times at Ridgemont High well before I should have...
'
the next year our Cousins got a Top-load VHS which we borrowed regularly and only in '89 we finally got our own VCR...
Love the owl statue.
The problem with physical media is that it tends to become obsolete relatively quickly. That's why I digitize all my content - and have done so from the very early days, with VHS. And they're still perfectly playable.
Some very few titles I like enough to buy a more modern "remaster", only to immediately make a digital copy and put the physical media into a box with all the rest, never to be touched again.
Yeah, but having the physical copy is for whenever the digital content manager changes their minds and cuts off your access to it. This hasn't so much happened with video (yet), but it happens all the time with video games, so I will always get a physical copy of a game I like if there is one available.
@@erraticonteuse Good point with games. Though a lot of them require online activation/registration these days too :(
I never get DRM video/audio anyway. When I have no choice, I immediately remove the DRM. So far, I can even play ancient QuickTime videos just fine.
Thats the beauty (ok, allowing for HD DVD) of the 12cm disc, whether CD, DVD, Blu Ray, 4K Blu Ray - easy to make backwardly compatible machines with different lasers for each format. In this world of streaming, long live the 12cm disc.
I had hundreds of Video cassettes. Then along came DVD, and made all vhs tapes, obsolete. I still have a bunch of old Disney tapes, and old personal tapes from the gigantic home video recorder we used the record home videos.
I recommend digitizing some of those old home movies. Well worth the money, in my experience. (I have no such recommendation, unfortunately, for the extensive library of movies that you can now probably access for free.)
@@MentalFloss those disney tapes might be worth cash if they are the limited editions that got vaulted all the time
Wait, laserdisc with VIDEO on it came before CD with just sound on it?
great video thank you
You didn't mention the fact that JVC totally undercut Sony on cost. JVC didn't care if they were selling VCRs at or below cost as long as they won the format war. They made their money off of licensing the tech to other companies in the end.
i thought the title of this video said “how beta max beat vhs” and i almost cried
I still have a little pink Hello Kitty TV with a DVD player ang VHS. I bought it for my daughter in 2002 SO she could watch all my old Disney movies I had on cassette, (I had them all st this time) all my old Looney Tunes. And....IT STILL WORKS!!
Two things. First while it was only a playback machine you didn’t mention the “record “type of playback machine where you had a disk that was pre-recorded. Secondly will be the died in home use it certainly did not in The production and television industry. OK three VCR tapes are transportable you can record at one place and take it to another. A little difficult to do with a digital disk although possible.
My dad has Star Wars on video disc, among other classics.
No, no, no! The Japanese Victor Corporation, JVC, named their system for the shape of the tape's path across the heads. They called it Victor Helical Scan, or VHS. NOT Video Home System!
Tell it to Wikipedia. It’s Video Home System.
13:31 laughs in Titanic.
There was also a 2-cassette version of Gulliver's Travels.
LOL we had a Titanic line in there, I forget why it was cut. But I definitely remember the two-tape experience! Nothing to build suspense like a 30-second intermission.
I remember watching The Sound of Music on two tapes
@@MentalFloss it was the worst pause lol
Wait, when the fuck was the VHS larger than Betamax? All the Betamax casettes I ever saw were thicker than VHS, am I crazy?
i miss vhs i like how i can buy them for 25cents now i have like 2000
Video rental stores didn't just rent tapes they rented the machines too.
The price is what did it, the betamaxx players which were actually better than VCRs were too much, VCR was chealer. BUT the VHS tapes i remember were soo much money to buy thats why everybody rented. I still have a few tapes that have $79.99 stickers. That was $200 possibly more in 1988. So the more affordable player won, VHS lives!! **Side note- Sony is the king of dead formats including Betamax, Mini disc, those terrible UMD discs, and now even blu ray is done with 4k UHD discs ushered in.
Sony did that often, same with minidisc...
17:48 did you mean "piracy" not privacy? as in coping the movie
Ah! Yes, definitely piracy. I watched this video 15 times and somehow heard "piracy" every time...
Oh dear. New episodes at "3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time"? You were doing so well up to that point. (Please just say Eastern Time all year 'round, and then you'll never have to think about it again.)
Betamax had a lot of bandwidth over VHS machines, giving them much higher quality video than VHS.
… Until they dropped speed to catch up with the longer recording times of VHS…
@@Rudolf_Edward bandwidth is how much data can be transferred. Speed is how fast that data can be transferred. Even at lower speeds, beta has higher bandwidth. They're interrelated but they're not the same.
Folks who are into this kind of stuff may also enjoy the channels "Techmoan" and "Oddity Archive."
I like bangs.
Butter is a food group.
Bang is good, but Reign is a bit better
Please add proper English subtitle
Ah, thanks for the reminder. Done!
I still use me vcr
In live tv broadcasting, a "video" is still called a "beta". So in the end, Betamax wins?... XD Just kidding of course.
*Betacam, not Betamax was the professional version. The shells were identical but the signal is totally different and the record speed is 4 times faster. ;)
This video pretends Laserdisc didn't exist.
IT EXISTED.
You...must have missed when it was mentioned??
Brine shrimp in a big tank. Brine shrimp power. 🍤
Polaroids or just film photography in general!! Maybe?lol
Oh god that made me feel very old, but I love the suggestion, especially focusing on Polaroids. Or maybe even an ep that focuses on "old" technology that's been rediscovered by younger generations-I've seen a Polaroid pop up at many a party in the last 5 years (back when parties were a thing...)
Is that a nose ring?
I'm still gonna ask for one thing, bring back John Green
Did she ever notice there's something in her nose before uploading this video!
I was part of an Internet Group to get BETAMAX to shutdown. If I remember right it was because Sony would not let any other companies manufacture the boxes.
Sell through: I can sell a movie with a $50 profit margin and sell 100,000 units. or I can sell a movie with a $5 profit margin and sell 10,000,000 units. First way, I make $5,000,000. The second way I make $50,000,000. HMMMM...which way should I go?
Me again. *JESUS* this is funny!
Yes ... I, too, remember this from my ... childhood ...
Be kind, please rewind.
I heard another reason why VHS won, is from the porn industry... essentially just like sports fans they want more tape time for cheep.
We looked into those connections and couldn't find any reliable verification, but it stands to reason that it might be an industry with a bit less of a paper trail, so hard to say it *isn't* the case, either.
Mental Floss from my understanding the adult entertainment industry has a lot of leverage on what format goes toward. A similar situation happen on why we got Blu-ray disk instead of HD-DVD.
@@otakuworldwide It didn't hurt that you also watch Buy-Rays on the PS3.
tl;dr porn was on VHS.
Beanie babies!
Definitely on our list! Although we have one writer who I think might scream if she sees one more piece about Beanie Babies (it turns out the Internet cannot get enough of lists of valuable Beanie Babies.)
…ubrupt ending there….
…not very fitting is it?……
One greedy individual, ads every other minute.
vhs is trash!!!
dvd and bluray is better!!! disc are better then old 80s crap