Comment on Is it true that one of the reasons VHS beat Betamax was porn?
watson@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It may have contributed to the failure of Betamax, but there several reasons for the failure of that format.
It was expensive. From the cameras to the playback machines, even commercial distribution on Betamax tapes came with an expensive license and fee that VHS did not have.
Better max tapes (initially) were limited to 60 minutes. The HS tapes were initially 120 or 180 minutes.
Betamax machines and Betamax camcorders were much more bulky and heavier and more complicated to use than their VHS alternatives.
Despite its superior quality, Betamax came with a lot of drawbacks, all of which were the major contributors to its downfall. How much porn itself had to do with that, it’s probably not known, but it was not a major contributing factor.
Porn is probably a correlation with those other factors…
Also that quality was the only differentiation in the age of 480p seems a bit crazy to then try to get a licence fee out of it. I barely cared about the quality difference between VHS and DVD when it first came out until I got a better TV where I could actually see the difference, and I imagine the difference with beta max would be even smaller than that 😅
Back then, the TV and VHS picture quality was somewhere between 240p and 360p. Betamax was the first format available to consumers whose picture was 480p.
IIRC most TVs only supported 480i until DVDs came out
Most could go to 576p, but it was rare for that to be broadcasted in the United States. It was mostly a Europe thing. And even when it was a thing, and only went on for a year or two.
Album@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
I did a university report on BluRay vs hddvd and successfully called the winner based on the vhs/beta case.
Essentially your point 1 affected the indie film and porn industry which struggled to afford or obtain a license. Turns out those industries were key adopters.
FlexibleToast@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Except wasn’t hddvd cheaper and initially porn was using it?