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Comparing Beta & VHS on Quality: Was Beta Really Better?

Technology Connections · 710.5K views · 2017-06-21 · 9:51

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Overview

Technology Connections compares Betamax and VHS picture quality using footage from a 1979 RCA VCR and argues the Beta quality advantage was largely marketing.

On Hacker News

Cited as evidence that Betamax was not meaningfully better than VHS.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2022–2026

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Audio & video engineeringTech company stories & documentaries
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betamaxvhsvideo qualityformat warvcr

What people said

leoc · 2026-08 · Reference

While a worse format surely could have won something like the video wars, it doesn't seem that VHS was in fact the worse format overall: [LINK] (Part 2: [LINK] . Quality comparison: [VIDEO] ) Beta was basically optimised for one thing, reasonable cassette size, and the tradeoffs turned out probably not to be worth it.

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gwbas1c · 2025-11 · Reference

This just reminds me of the people who whine about Betamax (or CCS) being better. FWIW: Technology Connections did a teardown of why Betamax wasn't better than VHS: [VIDEO] And the whole series if you actually enjoy watching these things: [LINK]

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philistine · 2025-09 · Reference

In tests done by Technology Connections, the difference was so small as to be inconsequential. It was technically better at its slowest speed, but you could barely perceive the difference and more importantly Sony disabled the feature in the vast majority of machines sold. People wanted more than 60 minutes out of one tape. They wanted 2 hours. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Technology Connections, played through YouTube.

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