Videotape format war

[1] Sony had demonstrated a prototype videotape recording system it called "Beta" to the other electronics manufacturers in 1974, and expected that they would back a single format for the good of all.

Steve Duplessie, the founder of research firm Enterprise Strategy Group, disagreed, saying that VHS won over Betamax due to its more open format.

[7] When Betamax was introduced in Japan and the United States in 1975, its Beta I speed of 1.57 inches per second (ips) offered a higher horizontal resolution (approximately 250 lines vs 240 lines horizontal NTSC), lower video noise, and less luma/chroma crosstalk than VHS, and was later marketed as providing pictures superior to VHS's playback.

[12][13] In 1988, Videofax magazine declared that Beta had lost the format war after Sony agreed to start adding VHS to the company's VCR lineup.

While Betamax was believed to be the superior format in the minds of the public and press (due to excellent marketing by Sony), consumers wanted an affordable VCR (which often cost hundreds of dollars less than a Betamax player);[16] Korean electronic manufacturers, such as Samsung and GoldStar (now LG Electronics), responded to Funai, Shintom, and Orion Electric for the availability of video cassette players (VCP) to movie rental stores, by offering first VHS VCR prices down to under $300 by year 1986.

Sony believed that having better quality recordings was the key to success, and that consumers would be willing to pay a higher retail price for this, whereas it soon became clear that consumer desire was focused more intently on recording-time, lower retail price, compatibility with other machines for sharing (as VHS was becoming the format in the majority of homes), and brand loyalty to companies who licensed VHS (RCA, Magnavox, Zenith, Quasar, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Hitachi, Sharp, even JVC itself, etc.).

As a result of the desire to enter the marketplace faster, the firms both spent less time on research and development and tried to save money by picking a version of the technology they thought would do best without exploring the full gamut of options.

Video 2000, a system developed by Grundig and Philips in 1979 was available for PAL and SECAM and distributed only in Europe, South Africa and Argentina.