@Riddler95 It's not hard to believe VHS dominated home video market. It was because people taped stuff from TV and didn't want to bother with an LD player as well when they already had a VCR.
@jericotyler It's not odd either that Laserdisc was big in Japan, it was basically marketed by Pioneer which is a Japanese company and Japanese consumers will pretty much buy anything Japanese companies tell them to buy.
I just watched a Comparison video of BetaMax and VHS and it clearly showed that BetaMax was sharper than VHS. It looked much better in my opinion.
It is hard to believe that VHS dominated the Home Video market for so long. Laserdisc was so much better than VHS and it did not get as popular as VHS in North America.
@Riddler95 The VHS won the format war because was much cheaper, also the JVC (vhs creator) royalties for produce VHS by other marks and distribute movies were cheaper.
Also there were other factors like vhs tapes can handle 4 hours in SP mode (PAL).
Laserdisk maybe failed because discs were too big and expensive.
@macolest another thing is, laserdisks seem to be unknown by alot of people, not even my parents knew what a laserdisk was ( neither did i ) until a few years back.
@macolest The other main advantages of VHS were that it was slightly cheaper, and most porn studios preferred it (Pornography's done more for technological advance then people want to admit. Without porn, the internet wouldn't have taken off so quickly)
Laserdiscs managed to eventually find their niche as the "videophiles" prefered movie format.
I used to own an SL-HF750. Regrettably, I had to trade down to an SL-HF400.
As for the reason why, the heads in the 750 were so worn out that the machine definitely couldn't record well and playback was starting to go.
Unfortunately, the 750 used Pro4 video heads and finding a replacement head disc set is VERY hard and any heads that you could find were VERY expensive.
I couldn't afford the price for repair, so I had to trade down to a working low end Super Beta hi-fi.
@zombiehellmonkey it's not possible because the betamax BNC inputs (same as RCA) only supports 480i NTSC / 576i PAL (same as dvd) and if i play HD content it would be downscaled at that resolution. The final result would be the same as recording from a SD DVD - DVB source. Thanks
@macolest thanks for your reply. It is a beautiful machine, must be a real pleasure to use. I am going to try and get hold of one. Do you know how much that model would cost these days?
@zombiehellmonkey yes, it's a real pleasure to use and see the tape moving and the vumeters also the brilliant picture quality. In ebay was selling for 300 Euro more or less (this PAL model).
Amazing that the general public does not realize that everything we watch on television is either Beta SP or DigiBeta. Beta has always ruled the market!
Glad to see others still have examples of this model in full working order :) Did you own from new or was it an ebay purchase? I own 3 950s one of which is connected to freeview and dvd recorder/vhs combo. Dont like to use it too much due to the age and cost of new heads from sony, but the quality is awesome, far better than even my panasonic nvhs1000 svhs deck. Love the loading mechanism on the 950!
I have Beta hi-fi SL-HF100 and SLC9 betamax and watched movies on a 46in 200hz Bravia and the picture quality looked good better than my hi end VHS sony. I thought the picture quality would be shit from an orginal Poltergeist beta tape from 1983 Both players still work fine after 27-26 yrs old. Already i have had 2 pioneer DVD recorders die and the beta had to go back regular use until i got anothe DVD recorder
I have the same Betamax here. Of course the sound was good! This was Hi-Fi FM modulation stereo. Image-wise, it looked better on our smaller screens of the time. The best results were, of course, at higher speeds with ultra high-grade tapes. It is one if the best machines to transfer those old home-made movies because the mechanism is rock-steady and tracking is manually adjustable, for those older tapes, and those recorded at B-III, for instance.
LCD Tv's are bad for analog content, plasma is like crt tv's in this case and my plamas is 720p, then the scaling is less than a 1080 tv. (from 480ntsc - 576pal analog).
In this demo betamax is conected via composite video rca. there are no rgb or s-video output.
@macolest I have tried hooking up a JVC S-VHS machine to my 20 inch 1080i LCD television set, but it does not look as good as it would with a CRT television set, whether i use RF or S-video, doesn't make a diff.
Betamax is the best VCR recorder!!! Miko Mission still owns one!! and the creators of the Max mix 2!! the sound quility is really incredible, so amazing!! This guy has the best recorder on the world is like a spaceship!! with all this LEDs ligths,the recording tape sound IT'S A SONY, IT'S BETAMAX SHARPER PICTURE, HIFI!!
I've just finished watching a film called 'The Last Starfighter' from 1984 on my SL-HF100 in Beta HiFi and mines on a 37" 1080p LCD TV...The Quality (like yours) is amazing for a machine thats so old!!!
It has the same LED sound level meter as the 950...And amazingly all of the green LED's still work as does the remote :)
It has no problem recording or playing back 16:9...And it would shame even the most modern VHS machine!!!
Forgot how noisy the old players were (loading, ejecting). We had an old top loader VHS(I forget the brand) that lasted for probably 20 years (bought new in 1984). I still remember loving the sounds of the top ejecting to take a tape.
The LEDs seem to burn out on this unit as the years go on....I heard it has something to do with poor solder joints. The American counterpart, the SL-HF750, has the exact same problem.
Ha. I couldn't even get my old DVD player to play correctly on my flat panel LCD TV. Oh, there was picture and sound, but the picture was always in black-and-white. Never did figure that out.
I have an old sony betamax SL-HF100 and a SL-C9 models and hooked than up to my 46inch sony bravia and was amazed the picture was good on a LCD. Vhs on the otherhand is crap new player new tape and picture was good as the Beta's
@super65man i'd say it is beta max! unlike crappy VHS when you paused the video it actually paused it.. not like vhs with about 5 lines flying up and down the screen!
Very nice video. I'm in the USA and have owned several SL-HF750s (have 1 now). The LEDs burning out is a very common problem, something to do with solder connections. BTW, what is that tiny green light that lit up above the Play button? My 750 doesn't have that. It came on when you pressed Play.
amazing to find this on youtube! I never owned a beta until two years ago when I bought a c9 on ebay. Now own 1 fully working perfect condition c9, and 3 fully working 950s all from ebay. I never knew thought that you could open the drawer while it was playing! Just going to try it!
Not really. There was a larger video tape format that TV studios used. 1 inch type c I believe it was called. I'm sure you can find one of these for cheap because all videotape is obsolete.
Loved my 950 - but i'll say this very quietly the picture from my C9 was better, there said it now! Have neither now - GAVE my Beta machines and over 300 tapes to a fellow Beta nut. I wonder if he still has them?
I'm back into retro gear now and wish I'd kept the lot!!
First, I must say, that is perhaps the coolest looking Beta deck I have ever seen. Love the "CD" like loading tray. I am also impressed that you have a Beta copy of a movie in widescreen. Was this more common for Beta than VHS? I remember it being difficult to find VHS in widescreen and even then they didn't really show up until long after Beta was already out of the picture.
Beta was definitely better than VHS. Growing up, I had always assumed VHS was better just because it was the winning format. I later learned that this was certainly not the case.
@McLarenMercedes Oh, I know. That was when I was a kid in the 80s/90s. I learned a long time ago that the winners of format wars are often the results of cost and/or ease of use, rather than quality.
But, please correct me if I'm wrong, I thought sound quality on an iPod would be more related to the sampling rate and headphones, rather than the iPod itself.
if that comment was aimed at me, Yes, thankyou, I am fully aware that the deck in this youtube video is not a digi-beta! my reference to digi-beta in an earlier posting was to a guy who claimed to have a digi-beta at home and a $35,000,000 home theatre installation (?!!) sounds a lot like BS to me. Comparing blu-ray & digibeta is stupid anyway, but using compression & bitrates as a guide to which is "better" is also kinda stupid.
I'm not saying it's better than blu-ray. HDCAM SR and D5-HD are better than blu-ray. No one who has 35 million would spend it on a home theatre, more likely on huge house and a few sports cars.
I have to disagree. I mean, what other VHS machine could have provided perfect still picture, fast response to commands (as all Betamax decks did) and could do all of these things with the tape physically outside of the machine?
A DVD can do the first two things, but a DVD recorder takes even longer than a VHS machine to respond to commands! And I've yet to see a DVD player that can play a DVD in the same way that this can play Betamax tapes!
The IDEA of tape is dated - but the technology isn't!
Well, that's where the HDCAM SR comes in. It's tape, responds to commands quickly and has a reflective metal plate inside so you can see the tape mechanism. The betamax it self is dated, it's 250 lines, suffers from image noise and distortion and also can hold reds properly. But if you love tape and don't have $160,000 for an Hdcam SR, you could get an HDV or DVHS deck.
Anamorphic 16:9 isn't impossible in analogue, you just need to set the DVD player or Digital TV box to 16:9 for wide TVs and plug a VCR through the TV.
I know that Betacam is rather different to betamax but Betacam was developed from Betamax - in the same way that Super VHS was developed from VHS.
and Super VHS is confusing in the UK. Some machines use the phrase "Super VHS" and some are true SVHS. So, when talking to a UK user, the debate about "super VHS vs. Super Beta" is more complex. Do you mean SVHS or Super VHS?
My Beta player has 500 lines of resolution, so I'm not too sure how Super VHS beats the crap out of that. If I'm not mistaken, 400 lines was the most any VHS machine could squeeze out.
Oh, sorry. I wasn't sure of the relevence you were trying to make with your comment. Perhaps instead, you should have stated ED Beta 'beats the crap out of that format' or even Blu-Ray for that matter.
Is this a top loader or a front loader? The tape carriage pops "up" but it also moves forward - which would suggest to me a blend of top and front loader.
i´ve got a digital betacam video tape recorder, the audio and video quality is superior than the blue ray..another analogue video tape recorder that had the some blue ray video quality is the RCA TR70C a quadruplex video tape machine, this machine was made by RCA in the end of the 60s, this machine can do hi definiton recordings,,i´ve got one too......
Digital Betacam better than blu-ray? Umm....no. You can't really claim that a standard-definition format is better quality than a well-encoded high-definition image, and blu-ray audio specs exceed those of Digi-Beta too. Why on earth have you got a digi-beta deck anyway? It's not like you appear to know what you're talking about...
It's a betamax, not a betacam. And yes digibeta is better than blue ray in some ways beacuse it has less compression(90 mbps vs 40 mbps) and better colour spacing (4:2:2 vs 4:2:0).
So long as the compression artifacts are minimal then the main factor determining picture quality is the resolution. Sorry, but you cannot escape the fact that BD has six times the resolution of ntsc dig-beta. I'm not bashing digi-beta, it's my favourite professional format to work with (and blu-ray is a horrible overblown, unnecessarily complicated format that I wish had never been invented) but you can't argue with the picture resolution figures.
Problem fundementally is TAPE, I love tape, to be honest, but dropouts plague ALL formats and are the first to effect longevity. I've seen a Beta tape flake right off in the mechanism! IT was a total mess!!
If you buy good quality professional tapes they will last longer than any digital disc for sure, DVD+R/-R still has to proof itself by time, i also shoot HDV and want to have the masters on tape for this reason. I have the SL hf 950 ES myself and i have tapes from 1987 with movies on it from that time and they are still top notch, this machine is OLD SKOOL and one of the best machines ever, my experience is that the sony super beta pro mode is simular to S-vhs or even better color
My SL-HF-950 after 20 years still work in perfect conditions, i use to record some DVDs and laserdiscs and audio hi-fi from vynil records too, is the best video recorder of the 80s
That looks so awesome
pat20105 1 month ago
I don't know why, but I love big electronics like that.
jordanthewizard 4 months ago 6
weird, but interesting hm... never heard of such a strange-looking tape
92soothsayer 6 months ago
Looks shockingly modern for a Betamax. Where are the analogue buttons?!
louspintoo 7 months ago
That was really the very best era for consumer electronics design... What a gorgeous deck!
nasw 7 months ago
@nasw Yes, the best era !, nice hi-tech consumer electronics where produced
macolest 4 months ago
Much better than the DVD and Laserdisc. Follow me on twitter @ rafaelganiko
MsRafaelMix 7 months ago
Much better than the DVD and Laserdisc. Follow me on twitter @ rafaelganiko
MsRafaelMix 7 months ago
That is an EXTREMELY cool loading system! Reminds me of the very old Sony CD players!
ThePhoneUpdate 8 months ago
damn, so that's what we miss'd by buying a vhs >_<
arttu9 8 months ago
Yo, how much for that Betamax VCR. I want that.
TEACHYOUTEEWHY 8 months ago
good quality...
vhs wasnt bad..but i have never seen betamax in real life cuz only video cassette format was vhs around here
verik2kk 8 months ago
wow that is like a transformer
alexandercaicedo 8 months ago
@Riddler95 It's not hard to believe VHS dominated home video market. It was because people taped stuff from TV and didn't want to bother with an LD player as well when they already had a VCR.
@jericotyler It's not odd either that Laserdisc was big in Japan, it was basically marketed by Pioneer which is a Japanese company and Japanese consumers will pretty much buy anything Japanese companies tell them to buy.
panchamkauns 9 months ago
техника класс
maxvgs 9 months ago
are you mad!!!! you could have caused a parodox from using the old with the new!!!!
MrLangley59 9 months ago
grew up watching stuff on betamax
richardhaw 9 months ago
i want that vcr
jonthefuzz2 11 months ago
i like how you can eject it and watch the tape reel turn
tin701 1 year ago
What was the picture resolution of BetaMax?
VHS was 240 lines, but I don't know what Betamax was.
Riddler95 1 year ago
@Riddler95 Betamax was 260 lines, and SuperBetamax 300lines.
Thanks for comment.
macolest 1 year ago
Thanks for the reply.
I just watched a Comparison video of BetaMax and VHS and it clearly showed that BetaMax was sharper than VHS. It looked much better in my opinion.
It is hard to believe that VHS dominated the Home Video market for so long. Laserdisc was so much better than VHS and it did not get as popular as VHS in North America.
Riddler95 1 year ago 4
@Riddler95 The VHS won the format war because was much cheaper, also the JVC (vhs creator) royalties for produce VHS by other marks and distribute movies were cheaper.
Also there were other factors like vhs tapes can handle 4 hours in SP mode (PAL).
Laserdisk maybe failed because discs were too big and expensive.
macolest 1 year ago
@macolest Laser discs had a big market in japan oddly.
jericotyler 1 year ago
@macolest another thing is, laserdisks seem to be unknown by alot of people, not even my parents knew what a laserdisk was ( neither did i ) until a few years back.
NESHero 9 months ago
@macolest The other main advantages of VHS were that it was slightly cheaper, and most porn studios preferred it (Pornography's done more for technological advance then people want to admit. Without porn, the internet wouldn't have taken off so quickly)
Laserdiscs managed to eventually find their niche as the "videophiles" prefered movie format.
spacehelmetforacow 8 months ago
@macolest Actually, SuperBeta was 500 lines (even better then Laserdisc, which did 420 lines).
It was basically the most high-resolution analog format that was ever sold as a "consumer format".
spacehelmetforacow 8 months ago
@macolest Do you know what the resolution of videodisc is?
someguy001001 4 months ago
@someguy001001 it's about 240 - 280 lines.
macolest 4 months ago
@macolest Acutally that is the resolution of VHS and Betamax. Videodisc was around 425. Not bad for 1970s technology!
schuchnet 3 weeks ago
Excelente aparato, eso es una maravilla de la tecnologia, ya no hacen aparatos así.
I love betamax, my mail djduke99@gmail.com
TheJordySantos 1 year ago
I used to own an SL-HF750. Regrettably, I had to trade down to an SL-HF400.
As for the reason why, the heads in the 750 were so worn out that the machine definitely couldn't record well and playback was starting to go.
Unfortunately, the 750 used Pro4 video heads and finding a replacement head disc set is VERY hard and any heads that you could find were VERY expensive.
I couldn't afford the price for repair, so I had to trade down to a working low end Super Beta hi-fi.
Watcher3223 1 year ago
Woah!! Talk about top of the line for the time!
Tdawg1978 1 year ago
you are kidding me! hey! DVD IS OUT and you can record it in DVD on your computer or in some stores!
choidis 1 year ago
dude.. whats the difference between this and a vhs??.. is that a high def vhs thing
SuperGarfield1982 1 year ago
its still the best videsystem ever made
dannyjaar 1 year ago
have you tried recording HD onto Betamax to see what it looks like?
zombiehellmonkey 1 year ago 2
@zombiehellmonkey it's not possible because the betamax BNC inputs (same as RCA) only supports 480i NTSC / 576i PAL (same as dvd) and if i play HD content it would be downscaled at that resolution. The final result would be the same as recording from a SD DVD - DVB source. Thanks
macolest 1 year ago
@macolest thanks for your reply. It is a beautiful machine, must be a real pleasure to use. I am going to try and get hold of one. Do you know how much that model would cost these days?
zombiehellmonkey 1 year ago
@zombiehellmonkey yes, it's a real pleasure to use and see the tape moving and the vumeters also the brilliant picture quality. In ebay was selling for 300 Euro more or less (this PAL model).
macolest 1 year ago
I immediately think of The Simpsons when I see this
yoda779 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I would like to buy your old beta. murante23@hotmail.com. I am from Spain
Tucci121 1 year ago
Beautiful Player!
Beta Rules!
Amazing that the general public does not realize that everything we watch on television is either Beta SP or DigiBeta. Beta has always ruled the market!
Greta video!
Brent
BrentAudi 1 year ago
@BrentAudi Yes! Beta is Better!
Thanks for your comment
macolest 1 year ago
Betamax looks amazing! I like the old cape fear more though...
16mmDJ 1 year ago
did you know the simpsons had a betamax player? just noticed it while watching lisa's pony
cinemastupid 1 year ago
Glad to see others still have examples of this model in full working order :) Did you own from new or was it an ebay purchase? I own 3 950s one of which is connected to freeview and dvd recorder/vhs combo. Dont like to use it too much due to the age and cost of new heads from sony, but the quality is awesome, far better than even my panasonic nvhs1000 svhs deck. Love the loading mechanism on the 950!
class37s 1 year ago
whoa! perfect freeze frame! im a bit young to remembr betamax. a shame it never got to where vhs was. by the way thats on kickass vcr!
3y3raven 1 year ago
Recorded from DVD?
09freitas 1 year ago
@09freitas Recorded from Sat - Receiver. Thanks
macolest 1 year ago
VERY, VERY GOOD!!
09freitas 1 year ago
@09freitas Thanks!
macolest 1 year ago
@macnerd93 so do i
3y3raven 1 year ago
I really wish betamax had won over VHS, the tapes were a bit smaller, and the quality seems better
macnerd93 1 year ago
Imagem muito boa!!
09freitas 1 year ago
I have Beta hi-fi SL-HF100 and SLC9 betamax and watched movies on a 46in 200hz Bravia and the picture quality looked good better than my hi end VHS sony. I thought the picture quality would be shit from an orginal Poltergeist beta tape from 1983 Both players still work fine after 27-26 yrs old. Already i have had 2 pioneer DVD recorders die and the beta had to go back regular use until i got anothe DVD recorder
910364 1 year ago
@910364 Really very nice! post a video please.
I don't have dvd standalone recorder, because i record from pc tv capture card, but still sometimes use this betamax to record tv programs!
macolest 1 year ago
what movie is this?
galea91 1 year ago
@galea91 Cape Fear remake from 1991
macolest 1 year ago
THAT is a big cassette tray! Cool how you have Cape Fear BM to play on your HDTV.
TheSecondEvolution 1 year ago
¬¬
mexicaneagleTV 1 year ago
What is the maximum digital storage of a betamax tape? I heard dtheater VHS is 50GB.
alterbr33d 1 year ago
I have the same Betamax here. Of course the sound was good! This was Hi-Fi FM modulation stereo. Image-wise, it looked better on our smaller screens of the time. The best results were, of course, at higher speeds with ultra high-grade tapes. It is one if the best machines to transfer those old home-made movies because the mechanism is rock-steady and tracking is manually adjustable, for those older tapes, and those recorded at B-III, for instance.
gznubouit 1 year ago
LCD Tv's are bad for analog content, plasma is like crt tv's in this case and my plamas is 720p, then the scaling is less than a 1080 tv. (from 480ntsc - 576pal analog).
In this demo betamax is conected via composite video rca. there are no rgb or s-video output.
macolest 1 year ago
Great sound quality for such an old BETA machine!
talldude123 1 year ago
@talldude123 This film has Beta HIFI sound, that is 20hz-20khz (CD quality). Awesome!
thanks for comment
macolest 1 year ago
@macolest I have tried hooking up a JVC S-VHS machine to my 20 inch 1080i LCD television set, but it does not look as good as it would with a CRT television set, whether i use RF or S-video, doesn't make a diff.
talldude123 1 year ago
1:02 A badass movie!
jason24568 1 year ago
Betamax is the best VCR recorder!!! Miko Mission still owns one!! and the creators of the Max mix 2!! the sound quility is really incredible, so amazing!! This guy has the best recorder on the world is like a spaceship!! with all this LEDs ligths,the recording tape sound IT'S A SONY, IT'S BETAMAX SHARPER PICTURE, HIFI!!
franarts3D 1 year ago
I feel the word no-compression here. Good job.
hardstuff72 1 year ago
Great Demo!!! I'd love an SL-HF950!!!
I've just finished watching a film called 'The Last Starfighter' from 1984 on my SL-HF100 in Beta HiFi and mines on a 37" 1080p LCD TV...The Quality (like yours) is amazing for a machine thats so old!!!
It has the same LED sound level meter as the 950...And amazingly all of the green LED's still work as does the remote :)
It has no problem recording or playing back 16:9...And it would shame even the most modern VHS machine!!!
Beta IS Better!!! :)
88GTi 1 year ago
Awesome! post a video.
Beta is always better!!
macolest 1 year ago
Your betamax looks more high tech then the plasma screen.
TigerRaptorFX 1 year ago
Sure!, it is
macolest 1 year ago
@TigerRaptorFX i know right vhs looks like teletubbies compared to this
jeffgod2 1 year ago
Forgot how noisy the old players were (loading, ejecting). We had an old top loader VHS(I forget the brand) that lasted for probably 20 years (bought new in 1984). I still remember loving the sounds of the top ejecting to take a tape.
laserstun 1 year ago
I loved my 950
macmitchdog 1 year ago
The LEDs seem to burn out on this unit as the years go on....I heard it has something to do with poor solder joints. The American counterpart, the SL-HF750, has the exact same problem.
MyTVcollection 2 years ago
Ha. I couldn't even get my old DVD player to play correctly on my flat panel LCD TV. Oh, there was picture and sound, but the picture was always in black-and-white. Never did figure that out.
Teflon65 2 years ago
blimey it looks to modern to be a betamax
doctorwhokris1980 2 years ago
wow! I'm suprised... for such an old video player and tape, and on a widescreen plasma...that looks pretty good :D
MACGuY2004 2 years ago
I have an old sony betamax SL-HF100 and a SL-C9 models and hooked than up to my 46inch sony bravia and was amazed the picture was good on a LCD. Vhs on the otherhand is crap new player new tape and picture was good as the Beta's
910364 2 years ago
awesome! post a video please.
Beta is Better!
macolest 2 years ago
Dude,that is the coolest VCR i have ever seen!
blaster2012 1 year ago
there is no way that was beta max no way what did you really use
super65man 2 years ago
@super65man i'd say it is beta max! unlike crappy VHS when you paused the video it actually paused it.. not like vhs with about 5 lines flying up and down the screen!
Davey656 2 years ago
@Davey656 wow thats great quality
super65man 2 years ago
Betamax is ulitimate VHS. Why does the good never go anywhere?!?! (i.e. Laserdisk)
jupiter0225 2 years ago
@jupiter0225 I agree.Laserdisc was the bomb!
UnknownThomasFan1 1 year ago
Very nice video. I'm in the USA and have owned several SL-HF750s (have 1 now). The LEDs burning out is a very common problem, something to do with solder connections. BTW, what is that tiny green light that lit up above the Play button? My 750 doesn't have that. It came on when you pressed Play.
videoholic2000s 2 years ago
WOW. This is a cool VCR. I wish I could find one like this. Do not ever get rid of this unit. Its RARE!
chrisstv1979 2 years ago
Good-design!!!
kuri1600 2 years ago
hey thats a really cool loading system
misterintellivision 2 years ago
Very nice. I wish my SVHS vcr looked that good on my Plasma.
watchitnz 2 years ago
Wow, Con razón decían que Panasonic Y Sony hicieron una muy fuerte competencia, VHS vs Betamax
maurojas1234 2 years ago
amazing to find this on youtube! I never owned a beta until two years ago when I bought a c9 on ebay. Now own 1 fully working perfect condition c9, and 3 fully working 950s all from ebay. I never knew thought that you could open the drawer while it was playing! Just going to try it!
class37s 2 years ago
QUE RELIQUIA
mmiiggeelliittoo 2 years ago
best analogic image and sound quality ever!
hiromi2 2 years ago
Not really. There was a larger video tape format that TV studios used. 1 inch type c I believe it was called. I'm sure you can find one of these for cheap because all videotape is obsolete.
jbrazele 2 years ago
How does Betamax, or VHS, handle widescreen?
wrongsideoftime 2 years ago
Cannot handle, but I put tv in zoom mode
macolest 2 years ago
Those electronics in the 80s had really cool designs . Now everything looks so generic.
nothinghappens1 2 years ago
I bet his HF950 has better picture quality than his camcorder. =)
mattemovies 2 years ago
Btw, I recently bought a HF950 myself. Everything works, perfect condition! Love it!
mattemovies 2 years ago
yes!! :)
macolest 2 years ago
Crap camcorder because is a Photo Camera (powershot is s1)
macolest 2 years ago
It looks like a modul to the international space station .... lol ;)
netkongen 2 years ago
beta rocks
GemmaTCat 2 years ago
a High end Sony Beta ..incredible image and sound stereo!
Congrats folk! keep it forever..even his exterior design is a
pleasure for the eyes
philosoma9 2 years ago
Man look at that still frame.
mickk44flungie 2 years ago
I commented before and i say it again hasn't anyone heard of 1080 P High Defininiton , or a PVR with 720P.
jhaughia 2 years ago
Have you ever heard of Kiss My Ass , jhaugia? It has 99999 lines of resolution.
MRLOL785 2 years ago
This VCR was Sony's flagship back then. No surprise both picture quality and mechanism reliability are still superb after twenty years.
UHF43 2 years ago
Loved my 950 - but i'll say this very quietly the picture from my C9 was better, there said it now! Have neither now - GAVE my Beta machines and over 300 tapes to a fellow Beta nut. I wonder if he still has them?
I'm back into retro gear now and wish I'd kept the lot!!
mikeismad61 2 years ago
First, I must say, that is perhaps the coolest looking Beta deck I have ever seen. Love the "CD" like loading tray. I am also impressed that you have a Beta copy of a movie in widescreen. Was this more common for Beta than VHS? I remember it being difficult to find VHS in widescreen and even then they didn't really show up until long after Beta was already out of the picture.
rburton76 2 years ago
I want one of those
ashthepokemonmaster 2 years ago
does that have a hi-fi switch in back! cause i found my dads which looks a lot like yours.
aosthfan98 2 years ago
Very cool!
This is when Sony was so inventive, and on the edge far from everyone!
Great that you have such a good player. I have never found one of these players that worked correct.
Glad that you have one!
Testament to Sony!
Brent
BrentAudi 2 years ago
Why is it so crap? Betamax was PROVEN to be better than VHS :)
AidanLunn 2 years ago 14
Beta was definitely better than VHS. Growing up, I had always assumed VHS was better just because it was the winning format. I later learned that this was certainly not the case.
rburton76 2 years ago 7
@rburton76
IPod may be the most popular mp3 player on the market by far, but any audio magazine will tell you the soundquality had never been among the best.
McLarenMercedes 1 year ago
@McLarenMercedes Oh, I know. That was when I was a kid in the 80s/90s. I learned a long time ago that the winners of format wars are often the results of cost and/or ease of use, rather than quality.
But, please correct me if I'm wrong, I thought sound quality on an iPod would be more related to the sampling rate and headphones, rather than the iPod itself.
rburton76 1 year ago
@AidanLunn
Yeah, all tv stations and recording studies used Betamax, whereas the regular consumers (to whom price and value was more important) picked VHS.
McLarenMercedes 1 year ago
@McLarenMercedes They didn't use Betamax, they used Umatic and various other formats that had the "Beta" suffix in their name.
AidanLunn 1 year ago
its awesome!! how it comes out the videotape
elysky 3 years ago
pr90 - you will have to use a TV capture card, or a digitizing device between the Betamax and a PC, such as a camcorder.
AidanLunn 3 years ago
old stuff its cool
allanpineda 3 years ago
i like how the whole face comes out lol
YJMproductions 3 years ago
Cape fear
macolest 3 years ago
My grandfather has one of these things, he bought it new in 1987. Quite a good machine, but a bit dated in this day and age.
TVperson1 3 years ago
if that comment was aimed at me, Yes, thankyou, I am fully aware that the deck in this youtube video is not a digi-beta! my reference to digi-beta in an earlier posting was to a guy who claimed to have a digi-beta at home and a $35,000,000 home theatre installation (?!!) sounds a lot like BS to me. Comparing blu-ray & digibeta is stupid anyway, but using compression & bitrates as a guide to which is "better" is also kinda stupid.
njm1971nyc 3 years ago
I'm not saying it's better than blu-ray. HDCAM SR and D5-HD are better than blu-ray. No one who has 35 million would spend it on a home theatre, more likely on huge house and a few sports cars.
TVperson1 3 years ago
I have to disagree. I mean, what other VHS machine could have provided perfect still picture, fast response to commands (as all Betamax decks did) and could do all of these things with the tape physically outside of the machine?
A DVD can do the first two things, but a DVD recorder takes even longer than a VHS machine to respond to commands! And I've yet to see a DVD player that can play a DVD in the same way that this can play Betamax tapes!
The IDEA of tape is dated - but the technology isn't!
AidanLunn 3 years ago
Well, that's where the HDCAM SR comes in. It's tape, responds to commands quickly and has a reflective metal plate inside so you can see the tape mechanism. The betamax it self is dated, it's 250 lines, suffers from image noise and distortion and also can hold reds properly. But if you love tape and don't have $160,000 for an Hdcam SR, you could get an HDV or DVHS deck.
TVperson1 3 years ago
I like the almost anamorphic wide 16:9 which we all know is impossible in analog video!
I own a HiFi 750 SuperBeta machine where the heads stopped spinning shortly after buying it! I need it fixed
MetallicBill 3 years ago
Anamorphic 16:9 isn't impossible in analogue, you just need to set the DVD player or Digital TV box to 16:9 for wide TVs and plug a VCR through the TV.
TVperson1 3 years ago
now that's just inappropriate. come on, a betamax on a plasma!?
you need a vintage 1975 tube color tv for that.
no i am not complaining though.
kargaroc386 3 years ago
That was to show that this machine was light years ahead of its time.
Older style TVs could never show off what these machines could do.
AidanLunn 3 years ago
This TV set would be progressive based and would remove half of the resolution.
Super VHS beats the crap out of this format though.
TVperson1 3 years ago
and SuperBeta beats the shit out of Super VHS!!!
AidanLunn 3 years ago
No it doesn't, I don't understand why you would think that super beta is 280 lines and super vhs is 400 lines with Y/C separation.
TVperson1 3 years ago 2
Sorry, I meant Betacam, not super beta.
I know that Betacam is rather different to betamax but Betacam was developed from Betamax - in the same way that Super VHS was developed from VHS.
and Super VHS is confusing in the UK. Some machines use the phrase "Super VHS" and some are true SVHS. So, when talking to a UK user, the debate about "super VHS vs. Super Beta" is more complex. Do you mean SVHS or Super VHS?
AidanLunn 3 years ago
Well yes, Betacam SP is better than SVHS, broadcast medium VS top consumer medium. I'd love a BetaSP machine.
I meant the SVHS with 400 lines, not Panasonic super drive.
Have you guys got auto 16:9 detection VCRs in the UK?
TVperson1 3 years ago
We have auto stereo detection, but I don't think we have auto widescreen detection.
AidanLunn 3 years ago
My Beta player has 500 lines of resolution, so I'm not too sure how Super VHS beats the crap out of that. If I'm not mistaken, 400 lines was the most any VHS machine could squeeze out.
balboabeaver 2 years ago
500 you say, that's an ED-beta. I was talking about super-beta.
TVperson1 2 years ago
Oh, sorry. I wasn't sure of the relevence you were trying to make with your comment. Perhaps instead, you should have stated ED Beta 'beats the crap out of that format' or even Blu-Ray for that matter.
balboabeaver 2 years ago
I didn't know that many people knew about Beta-ED, I've only ever seen a photo of the one machine.
TVperson1 2 years ago
The Betamax of my dreams
thx2468 3 years ago
I miss top loaders! I hope they come out with a retro VCR-esque DVD player with a top loader tray!
ObiTrev 3 years ago
There are actually plenty of those, they resemble the portable CD players with plastic lids!
MetallicBill 3 years ago
do you worked with digital Betacam?and some professional studio video recorders to appoint this theory?
guimbadriver 3 years ago
I use Betacam tapes for superbetamax pro mode, but i not worked in a professional studio, i'm only a betamax fan.
macolest 3 years ago
Oh that tape loader is so cool!
PowerPcTricks 3 years ago 2
without a doubt the best Beta ever made.
Was that a super beta tape or just a beta?
microsoftiscrap 3 years ago
Yup Top loaders are best for tapes :)
cutebikerwannabe 3 years ago
Is this a top loader or a front loader? The tape carriage pops "up" but it also moves forward - which would suggest to me a blend of top and front loader.
AidanLunn 3 years ago
Sony called it "linear skating" mechanism.
UHF43 2 years ago
Still got my Betamax..I enjoy it a lot more than my VCR..lol.
EZA757 3 years ago
Betamax kicks ass.
1981Myname 3 years ago 3
VHS is what you should say. Sanyo's model number was in fact VCR for their Beta decks!
MetallicBill 3 years ago
i´ve got a digital betacam video tape recorder, the audio and video quality is superior than the blue ray..another analogue video tape recorder that had the some blue ray video quality is the RCA TR70C a quadruplex video tape machine, this machine was made by RCA in the end of the 60s, this machine can do hi definiton recordings,,i´ve got one too......
guimbadriver 3 years ago
Digital Betacam better than blu-ray? Umm....no. You can't really claim that a standard-definition format is better quality than a well-encoded high-definition image, and blu-ray audio specs exceed those of Digi-Beta too. Why on earth have you got a digi-beta deck anyway? It's not like you appear to know what you're talking about...
njm1971nyc 3 years ago 2
It's too dated to be a threat
MetallicBill 3 years ago
It's a betamax, not a betacam. And yes digibeta is better than blue ray in some ways beacuse it has less compression(90 mbps vs 40 mbps) and better colour spacing (4:2:2 vs 4:2:0).
TVperson1 3 years ago
So long as the compression artifacts are minimal then the main factor determining picture quality is the resolution. Sorry, but you cannot escape the fact that BD has six times the resolution of ntsc dig-beta. I'm not bashing digi-beta, it's my favourite professional format to work with (and blu-ray is a horrible overblown, unnecessarily complicated format that I wish had never been invented) but you can't argue with the picture resolution figures.
njm1971nyc 3 years ago
Problem fundementally is TAPE, I love tape, to be honest, but dropouts plague ALL formats and are the first to effect longevity. I've seen a Beta tape flake right off in the mechanism! IT was a total mess!!
MetallicBill 3 years ago
Jesus, how old was the tape?
TVperson1 3 years ago
If you buy good quality professional tapes they will last longer than any digital disc for sure, DVD+R/-R still has to proof itself by time, i also shoot HDV and want to have the masters on tape for this reason. I have the SL hf 950 ES myself and i have tapes from 1987 with movies on it from that time and they are still top notch, this machine is OLD SKOOL and one of the best machines ever, my experience is that the sony super beta pro mode is simular to S-vhs or even better color
onlyvik 2 years ago
"high definition" on Quad - no, it can't do that.
In your imagination, it can.
but in pure technical reality, it can't.
Quad production stopped in the early 01980s - I doubt that they had 1000+ lines of resolution even back then!!!
AidanLunn 3 years ago
and super beta is even better
chinasherry1961 3 years ago
Beta is better. Thanks for posting
teendude16 3 years ago
joder con el betamax si señor
¿no sabras dodne me puedo hacer con uno no???
jejejej si señor salu2
dejametranki 3 years ago
Weird loading mechanism- does it wear out much?
There was a porno called "Cape Rear".
eyeh8nbc 3 years ago
hey, good in plasma tv,i make a test with my Panasonic video projector, man just see the results, crisp and clear pictures, total color fidelity....
guimbadriver 3 years ago
I think this is the sony beta hi-fi 750 model, I do jot think it is the 950?
teendude16 3 years ago
The model is: sony Betamax sl-hf950 pal/secam.
macolest 3 years ago
Depends if you bought a USA model, as I did
MetallicBill 3 years ago
My SL-HF-950 after 20 years still work in perfect conditions, i use to record some DVDs and laserdiscs and audio hi-fi from vynil records too, is the best video recorder of the 80s
guimbadriver 3 years ago 2
Very interesting! So how is DVD quality on Betamax? Does it suffer or not? I think - not very much anyway.
Vladislaw81 3 years ago
You ARE forgetting the SL-HF1000 of 1986, that is the head honcho home deck!!
MetallicBill