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Reply to @zeke@nicecrew.digital
🎇Tulla Flicka🎇@GoyGirl@nicecrew.digital (2026-09-19 10:40:50)
My grandpa had some weird thing called a beta player? The little VHS tapes. Ha! He was an engineer & mechanic, & learned all the current things, though.
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UnrepentantWhiteDevil@zeke@nicecrew.digital (2026-09-19 10:42:59)
Beta-Max. The Jap answer to the VCR. It was actually better, but it never really caught on.

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Jezza™@jeremiah@shitposter.world (2026-09-19 10:59:25)
@zeke @fknretardlol @Dagnar @GoyGirl @LordOfTheKangs @Rlyn @ShowMeYourLibrary it didn't catch on because of its "better" recording limit of an hour and twenty minutes. Its single advantage was the possibility of being used for digital audio (like a DAT) with adapter hardware for the recorder.

Once VHS hit the market, Beta was continuously playing catchup in both recording length and video quality. For example, to reach the low-end VHS 2 hour length with existing tapes, Sony gave you the option to cut quality in half on their second gen machine.

It wasn't a fixed standard and evolved over time, as VHS did. Eventually, it could fit 5 hours on a tape (VHS could do 8.)