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Old 10th Nov 2015, 12:39 pm   #1
brunel
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Default Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34776424
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 12:49 pm   #2
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

I'm just surprised they didn't stop them years ago.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 12:58 pm   #3
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

We tend to think of Betamax as a format which died in the 80s, but it survived throughout the analogue era in professional use as Betacam and until after that as Digibeta.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 4:08 pm   #4
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

Ah ok. Thanks for that Paul.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 4:59 pm   #5
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

Just read on Yahoo no more Sony Beta tapes after March 2016.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 5:40 pm   #6
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
We tend to think of Betamax as a format which died in the 80s, but it survived throughout the analogue era in professional use as Betacam and until after that as Digibeta.
Would that be the early digital studio recorders Paul? I seem to remember reading they used a system derived from Sony's video tape technology. PCM1 rings a bell?

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Old 10th Nov 2015, 5:57 pm   #7
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

The early pro recorders used U-matic decks for storage but Sony marketed a semipro model a bit later which used Betamax. That was the PCM-1 I think.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 6:39 pm   #8
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

There is a particarly "well written" piece on the Daily Mail website which attributes the success of VHS to porn. One reader comments that "Betamax tapes were made of asbestos"...

Seriously though, I do wish things like this were reported accurately and not treated as a cobbled together series of factoids.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 7:55 pm   #9
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

While not wanting to defend the DM’s journalism, it's true that VHS took off partly because the format dominated the video rental market, which was a huge driver in the mid 80s. Porn was a small but significant part of that.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 9:37 pm   #10
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

I believe the fact that Thorn were prominent in both the VCR and the rental markets helped.
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Old 10th Nov 2015, 11:25 pm   #11
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
The early pro recorders used U-matic decks for storage but Sony marketed a semipro model a bit later which used Betamax. That was the PCM-1 I think.
The professional PCM 1600/1610/1630 series processors used 525/60 U-Matic recorders and used a pseudo-video format which could be edited (up to a point) by ordinary video techniques.

The machines which used Betamax used the EIAJ pseudo-video format, which was simpler to implement but always gave an error on drop-in edits because words went across frame boundaries. The first machines were the PCM-1 and PCM-100, both 525/60. both big and bulky. The real breakthrough came with the PCM-F1, which was in the same size package as the SL-F1 portable Betamax. This was an excellent bit of kit, which revolutionised professional audio capture overnight, even if editing had to remain analogue for a few years...unless you had access to the Sony pro kit. This was followed by mains versions, the PCM 701/501/601.
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Old 11th Nov 2015, 8:55 pm   #12
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Default The last betamax tape

Here is a interesting article the last Betamax tape will roll off the production line in March 2016 – 40 years after the format was introduced

http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/10/betama...#ixzz3rDMq2eym
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Old 11th Nov 2015, 9:29 pm   #13
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Default Re: The last betamax tape

The last and only L-500.

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Old 12th Nov 2015, 10:57 am   #14
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

I was reading the Independent in the pub yesterday, and in their article, one of the reasons cited for Betamax being beaten by VHS as far as consumer VCRs were concerned was that the former had a maximum recording time of an hour
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Old 12th Nov 2015, 11:22 am   #15
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

If you worked in a widget factory and you made a badly fitting widget you would get a severe reprimand, maybe even pay docked or fired- if you worked in a hospital the consequences of mistakes are obviously dire- yet as a journalist you can continue to be highly paid for writing badly researched nonsense and spending the afternoon down the pub...the sub editor must be just as thick as well?
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Old 12th Nov 2015, 11:51 am   #16
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

...and presumably not old enough to remember video cassettes.
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Old 12th Nov 2015, 4:31 pm   #17
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

I feel pretty sure the BBC article has been silently altered since first appearing. It specifically mentioned 3hr vs 1hr and I don't see that now.

When I first saw that error on the morning the article appeared I sent a tweet to BBC Technology pointing out they had an L750 (3Hr 15Min) cassette in the picture. Other parts of the article seem a little different too.
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Old 12th Nov 2015, 10:23 pm   #18
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickthedentist View Post
I was reading the Independent in the pub yesterday, and in their article, one of the reasons cited for Betamax being beaten by VHS as far as consumer VCRs were concerned was that the former had a maximum recording time of an hour
When Betamax first started in NTSC countries the max recording with an L500 was indeed an hour. Later they halved the speed and introduced the L750 giving 3 hours (NTSC) and 3 hours, 15 minutes (PAL and SECAM).
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Old 13th Nov 2015, 9:48 pm   #19
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

I thought the earthquake and floods in Japan back in 2011 had damaged a tape making plant, which they weren't going to rebuild (because the format was almost obsolete).
I wonder whether that was a Sony plant & for what format.
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Old 13th Nov 2015, 10:43 pm   #20
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Default Re: Sony says goodbye to Betamax tapes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by winston_1 View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickthedentist View Post
I was reading the Independent in the pub yesterday, and in their article, one of the reasons cited for Betamax being beaten by VHS as far as consumer VCRs were concerned was that the former had a maximum recording time of an hour
When Betamax first started in NTSC countries the max recording with an L500 was indeed an hour. Later they halved the speed and introduced the L750 giving 3 hours (NTSC) and 3 hours, 15 minutes (PAL and SECAM).
I suspect all these BBC / Mail / Telegraph stories are lazy rewrites of a press release put out by Sony's PR people. That's where the 'one hour' business will have come from, but the context and significance has been lost in the rewrites as the journalists had no knowledge of the subject.

It may be even worse than that - the initial press release may have been picked up by an agency like the Press Association, and one of their staffers may have written the original story, which has then been rehashed by lots of news outlets. This sort of thing has always gone on, but financial pressures mean that it's now completely routine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
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