If you were a child of the 80s, you might remember the epic battle between Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s VHS for the king of the home video market. Much like HD DVD versus the Blu-Ray of not so long ago, media stakes have been up for grabs since the early inception of home video. But for those not in the know, Betamax, is not, in fact, a character from a Disney movie, rather the competitor of VHS and the Home Video blitz of the early 80s.
According to Wikipedia— The VHS format’s defeat of the Betamax format became a classic marketing case study. Sony’s attempt to dictate an industry standard backfired when JVC made the tactical decision to forgo Sony’s offer of Betamax in favor of developing its own technology. JVC felt that accepting Sony’s offer would yield results similar to the U-Matic deal, with Sony dominating.
The debate over who had the better tech stretched over the next years leading to JVC taking the lead in the market industry. By 1980, JVC’s VHS format controlled 60% of the North American market.The large economy of scale allowed VHS units to be introduced to the European market at a far lower cost than the rarer Betamax units. In the United Kingdom, Betamax held a 25% market share in 1981, but by 1986, it was down to 7.5% and continued to decline further. By 1984, 40 companies made VHS format equipment in comparison with Beta’s 12. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it, too, began producing VHS recorders (early models were made by Hitachi), though it still continued to produce Betamax recorders until 2002.
With the fate of Betamax hanging on by a thread, a logical ally came to the rescue. Broadcasting found the medium a beneficial one. Used by many in the media field as a method of recording and editing at a higher bandwidth, new organizations utilized the clearer format. But like all technologies, newer innovations gave way to better formats, in this case digital. With the advances leading to the inevitable demise of magnetic tape such as Laser Disk, DVD and Blu-Ray, Betamax as a commodity became obsolete.
As of November 15, 2015, Sony announced they would no longer produce the outdated tech, ending production in March of 2016. Who knows what is on the horizon for future recording purposes? But what is certain is that development of new tech shows no sign of slowing and companies will have to continue to adapt accordingly.
