Sony Finally Kills Betamax
from the not-dead-yet dept
When I was a kid, I remember a friend of mine being so proud of his parents’ Betamax machine (which they had on top of their VCR), as he told me all about how much better the Betamax was. I didn’t see another Betamax for many years, and had pretty much assumed that (like all the stories about VCR vs. Betamax) it had died off. Then, when I was working for a large technology company, I noticed that the PR group had all sorts of oddly shaped cases that looked sort of like videotapes, but not quite. That’s when I realized the higher quality Betamax tapes were still being used in some niche areas. However, now, after all these years, DVDs are finally doing what VHS could never accomplish. Sony is finally killing off the Betamax, as DVDs and other digital systems have made it obsolete.
