The best 70s/80s tape format was... ? [POLL]

[RobustReviews]

Hi all,

Just a quick straw poll (I can't find an option for a poll on here, so it'll have to be text replies), but if you're into this just state below which format you think was the superior one from domestic video cassette formats. I'll squeeze U-Matic in as there were some overtures by Sony to use it as a domestic format in NTSC markets for a short while on launch and a few found favour in homes in the 1970s.

Feel free to throw in a few reasons, but you need not write an essay. I may use some replies randomised in my doc' (they may appear in vision or be voiced).

- VHS
- Betamax
- V2000
- N1500/N1700
- U-Matic.
- Video 8

You don't have to have used or owned any of these machines, I'm just after a raw snap poll, even if it's perception based. Oh, I'm not interested in subformats, just a basic opinion as to which system should have won the format war.

RR

[lordsmurf]

Around 1987, I remember watching season 1 (or 2?) of Married With Children, and Steve was all proud of his new Super VHS machine. I though it odd, "what's super VHS", but that was it. At least 5 years went by before I looked into it again.

Betamax quality wasn't better than VHS. Such a revisionist myth. Nobody thought that at the time. It was just different. If anything, it was the format seen as worse.

What is N1500/N1700? ... Wikipedia ... Ah, old format. We didn't have anything like that, and I was honestly too young to pay attention. (But we did have a Magnavox Odyssey, pong, which I played until the Atari. FYI, I still have both units, both still work well.)

V2000, never saw it. Still have not seen it. Just aware of it.

U-matic was broadcast thing. I remember seeing it at the local cable company, back when we still had local indy cable companies. Long before Charter, Time Warner, Cox, etc. I remember when they upgraded to S-VHS gear at the cableco, and the high school (as the HS had their own cable channel back then).

In hindsight, Video8 was better than VHS. And not picking Hi8 over S-VHS-C was a mistake, for family 90s video recordings. But at the time, Video8 and Hi8 was the expensive "Sony thing".

VHS was fine, it's still fine. But good tapes needed, good camcorder/VCR needed. We (family) always knew that.

So, I guess I have to pick VHS.

Such a poll for pre-DVD optical formats would also be interesting.

[RobustReviews]

Thanks LS, V2000, N1500/N1700 were PAL market only (and I think, even more exclusively, European).

N1700 is probably the best in technical quality, initially, Philips engineers did not consider Betamax/VHS quality good enough for domestic use (!) but it uses an unacceptable amount of tape, there is still an extant Philips engineer behind the N-format who's produced a lot of test records comparing N system to VHS/Betamax and it's substantially 'better' in all respects, it was just heavy, cumbersome, difficult to manufacture etc.

It was a partial success at best, they revised the lessons from 1500/1700 for V2000, which arguably is the best domestic system but it arrived too late at too high a price point.

V2000 is really a next-generation system over VHS and Betamax and had a stack of improvements not feasible with the other two systems. V2000 can match professional systems for trick-play abilities and can play noise-free up to 7x forwards and backwards, can calculate tape position +/-1 minute when loading any random cassette, go-to feature, indexing etc were standard on all but the very basic Grundig machines. But it arrived 5 years after the other two launched which is sometimes forgotten.

N1500 was good quality, launched in 1972 but was eyewaterningly expensive.... Here's an early-mid 1970s UK advert for it. https://youtu.be/1FlPWh3r1uc

[latreche34]

If I go back in time my preferred formats for home recording had to be Hi8 and S-VHS which are not in the list, the down side is cassettes were too expensive for the average consumer, VHS is the most mediocre especially in EP and SLP.

[RobustReviews]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

If I go back in time my preferred formats for home recording had to be Hi8 and S-VHS which are not in the list, the down side is cassettes were too expensive for the average consumer, VHS is the most mediocre especially in EP and SLP.

I see where you're going, but they were both 'established' by this point, there were no real alternatives to either 8mm or VHS by the time S-VHS and Hi8 came along; that was the ratioinale behind ignoring the subformats for this poll.

My personal preference is either V2000 -or- if the war would have switched to an 8mm vs VHS fight, definitely 8mm as it's considerably better in every regard. Even 8mm in PAL looks rather sparkling if it's handled well.

VHS gets a bad wrap, and no doubt had Betamax been victorious you'd find forums dedicated to the majesty of VHS. People are funny like that.

They're all impressive when you consider what they do with the technology available. They're all so similar in terms of quality (realistically), there's not a stinker amongst them with is quite amazing when you consider it.

We didn't get an EP speed in PAL land (well, I think there may have been some right at the very, very end) but it was just SP and LP here. As PAL needed a slower effective tape speed 8 hours (or even 10 on some tapes) was probably deemed good enough.

American football I think may have had a bearing on it, you can wrap a football (soccer) or rugby game up in under two hours including a 15 minute half time and a bit of top & tail punditry, AF seems to take forever with about 60 minutes of actual playing time. Especially at the start of the format war with shorter tape runs. I don't know how long a baseball game takes to play when televised.

Test cricket was unrecordable at the time, being played over 5 full days, not even V2000 could manage test cricket. I'm sure the Aussies and Kiwi's will agree though, it's five days well spent.

[dpalomaki]

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas.

Within the constraints of the listed formats in their final form (not what they could have been with a few tweaks):

VHS for the following reasons (not based on price):
- length adequate for program material like movies (at SP speed)
- large enough media shell for fumble fingered older folks to handle
- a relatively robust format mechanically speaking

The somewhat better video performance of other formats such as Video8 did not outweigh the drawbacks for the typical home user; e.g. more prone to drop outs, package small enough to lose more easily, thinner/weaker tape, tighter tolerances required.

I wonder to what extent Video8/Hi8 lost out on the home VCR (not camcorder) market due to mismanagement and inept marketing of the format for prerecorded media by Sony?

[cbehr91]

I guess sticking with consumer formats I'd say VHS and its children. If I were around back then and money was no option I would have picked S-VHS for home recording and camcorder recording.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpalomaki

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas.

Within the constraints of the listed formats in their final form (not what they could have been with a few tweaks):

VHS for the following reasons (not based on price):
- length adequate for program material like movies (at SP speed)
- large enough media shell for fumble fingered older folks to handle
- a relatively robust format mechanically speaking

The somewhat better video performance of other formats such as Video8 did not outweigh the drawbacks for the typical home user; e.g. more prone to drop outs, package small enough to lose more easily, thinner/weaker tape, tighter tolerances required.

I wonder to what extent Video8/Hi8 lost out on the home VCR (not camcorder) market due to mismanagement and inept marketing of the format for prerecorded media by Sony?

You're correct on the mismanaged part and weak tape. Hi8 was marketed to ENG and documentary videographers as an acquisition format, but it was explicitly stated by Sony techs to dub to BetacamSP or another format for editing, plus it was quickly found out tapes would shed oxide after just one pass. All sounds like a recipe for frustration/disaster if you ask me.

[BW37]

I'm going to put in a vote for Betamax, superBetahifi to be specific.

I think timing is important, in deciding what was "best" since best was a moving target. The market was changing as improvements were made. My first VCR purchase was in 1985 and by then superBetahifi was available. If I'd bought pre-superBeta my decision might have been different.

IIRC, VHS and Beta were rated at 240 and 250 lines of horizontal resolution respectively. SuperBeta was rated at 300. I'm sure they all were slightly "overrated", but to my eyes, the difference was very perceptible and superBeta was much closer to a live NTSC broadcast (about 330 lines max). And unlike sVHS, for which, at least initially and maybe in fact always, special, more costly, "superBetamax" tapes were not needed to take advantage of superBeta's improved resolution.

I also liked the fact that in BetaII, a "normal" L-750 tape could record 3 hours vs. 2 hrs for SP with a T-120 VHS cassette. This was enough for most of the sporting events I wanted to record (F1 races anyone???) and movies that ran over 2 hours. If necessary, I could use BetaIII and get 4.5 hours of recording that was arguably better than EP VHS and long enough for most any sporting event. But I strongly preferred BetaII image quality and seldom used BetaIII. The argument that VHS was better because if had longer record times never held any weight with me since my comparison was superBetaII vs. SP VHS. It probably did matter when comparing the original BetaI to SP VHS, but that was long in the past by 1985.

My first VHS machine was an expensive 4 head Hi-fi stereo (linear track too) NEC that I bought strictly to dub Video8 family videos to send to the distant grandparents. I tried it for time shifting but was never happy compared to the Sony superBeta. It lasted all of 3 years or so with VERY light use and was then replaced with a remarkably good, quite cheap GE (Thompson) 4 head Hi-fi VHS machine (which still works). When the heavily used Sony died in about 1994 I decided that Beta was dead and never got it fixed, living with the GE VHS quality for time shifting until getting a DVD recorder in 2005ish. Interestingly, the DVD recorder never seemed as convenient as the tapes and the quality trade-offs for longer recordings were similar to or worse than video tape. I was happy to quickly move on to various forms of DVR for time shifting.

In retrospect, I think a working superBetaIIhi-fi VCR would have been a viable, cost effective format for time shifting all the way up to my first functional DVR. The biggest limitation would have been the need to control the cable box channel in conjunction with my "14 channel cable-ready" VCR, but I believe the technology existed... HDTV would have killed it just as it did my other SD recording devices...

Even though I spent good money as my camcorders progressed from V8 to Hi8 to DV, I never considered either Video8 or Hi8 as replacements for the Beta or VHS machines, I assume because the "desktop" versions with tuners, etc. were ungodly expensive and there was never a legitimate V8 or Hi8 video rental market.

My

BW

[hodgey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobustReviews

My personal preference is either V2000 -or- if the war would have switched to an 8mm vs VHS fight, definitely 8mm as it's considerably better in every regard. Even 8mm in PAL looks rather sparkling if it's handled well.

One potential issue with V2000 if it had won out would have been how to fit something to compete with hi-fi/afm audio on it while keeping it backwards-compatible like was done VHS (and on betamax to an extent). According to this interview with a philips engineer, there wasn't really frequency space for it due to the track following stuff. Maybe they could have managed something with depth-multiplexing like VHS or PAL Betamax but idk.

Speaking of stuff that didn't make it - there are some interesting videotape patent filings that seems to have never led to anything too, e.g:

Samsung seems to have been working on a backwards compatible VHS variant which would play as vhs in a normal deck but stored data for extra luma resolution separately to be read by a compatible vcr.

They also filed a patent for a two-direction vcr system with 2 video head drums (lol)

Double deck VHS vcr did come out, though seems someone was thinking of designing one where both tapes were driven by the same capstan and drum cylinder to save space which seems rather clunky. (also refers to a prior design putting tape both behind and in front of the drum but couldn't find it.)

Or how about a double deck camcorder for extra long recordings or multiple streams.

Someone else had the idea of a vcr with two head drums that would utilize them to be able to play back and record at the same time.

[RobustReviews]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgey

One potential issue with V2000 if it had won out would have been how to fit something to compete with hi-fi/afm audio on it while keeping it backwards-compatible like was done VHS (and on betamax to an extent). According to this interview with a philips engineer, there wasn't really frequency space for it due to the track following stuff. Maybe they could have managed something with depth-multiplexing like VHS or PAL Betamax but idk.

Speaking of stuff that didn't make it - there are some interesting videotape patent filings that seems to have never led to anything too, e.g:

Samsung seems to have been working on a backwards compatible VHS variant which would play as vhs in a normal deck but stored data for extra luma resolution separately to be read by a compatible vcr.

They also filed a patent for a two-direction vcr system with 2 video head drums (lol)

Double deck VHS vcr did come out, though seems someone was thinking of designing one where both tapes were driven by the same capstan and drum cylinder to save space which seems rather clunky. (also refers to a prior design putting tape both behind and in front of the drum but couldn't find it.)

Or how about a double deck camcorder for extra long recordings or multiple streams.

Someone else had the idea of a vcr with two head drums that would utilize them to be able to playback and record at the same time.

There's some great stuff here buddy, thanks for that, very useful. That reminds me, I need to reach out to Colin (Video99) about something, I might give him a call later. I forgot he had this interview. I've asked him kindly if he'll lend a few props for this documentary.

There was a double deck Amstrad/Alba machine, in fact I have a couple of them, and one has been turned into a time machine (aping 'Techmoan') for this documentary, preview clip here, the audiotape makes sense in context.

Cheers for sharing these, very useful, and thanks for reminding me to make that call

Oh, and an old bit I made some time ago, the wildly inaccurate telling of the history of video.... I had a dreadful cold when I was recording the V/O for this!