The video in its beginnings.
The first industrial cassette format was Sony’s U-matic. The 1971 pros were happy: the cassettes lasted longer than film reels, had 400-line resolution and excellent quality thanks to a nearly two-centimeter (¾ “) wide tape and high scroll speed, and two-inch sound. channels.
The format was not suitable for home use: the cassettes were huge, with a limit of 90 minutes. The recorders were even bigger. So, despite further improvements, the Sonievskys ¾ did not conquer the world.
But it was conquered by JVC, having released the 76th Video Home System cassette format. Or simply VHS, which in 1984 had become the main consumer video format.
Cassettes with 12.5 mm (½ inch) tape can store up to six hours of 240-line video, although more often they can store up to three hours. The cassettes were not copy-protected, which was already a good argument against the use of the proprietary Betamax, a competitor format from Sony, the heir to U-matic.
VHS players were cheaper. Furthermore, Sonya miscalculated by banning the sale of pornography on her cassettes.
But even though Betamax lost the war for the user market, its Betacam version was actively used in the professional niche. In television broadcasts, for example. Because VHS was not suitable for professional use: with each re-recording of the cassette, the quality decreased and the distortion increased. This is a consequence of composite recording, which accumulates what is known as crosstalk. A component signal was recorded on Betacam – the video was divided into luminance and chrominance channels, reducing wear and tear during re-recording.
For professionals, it was equally important that Betacam cameras write directly to their cassette, and there was no need to run cables to a separate recorder. And this is extra comfort and mobility.
Betacam was developed in parallel with other formats, but it was always a professional solution.
Rumor has it that Betakam cassette recordings are still being played in some places.
VHS coexisted well with us until the massive arrival of “home theaters” and cheap DVDs, and in the West at that time new formats appeared.
Eight years after the release of VHS, Sony launched a competitor: Video-8.
The format was compact – eight is just the width of the film. The format gave slightly better quality than VHS with a resolution of 250 lines. Not to be confused with ’65 Super 8 – a popular home format that used film. But the G8 didn’t capture the consumer video market, although it did gain some popularity – these convenient little cassettes found their niche, becoming the standard for Handycam camcorders. Your parents probably have a cassette of their wedding somewhere on their table.
