Sony Betacam: Not the Beta you're thinking of (it's way better)

“You can tell by how their names are different”

Haha I loved this so much

I learned about this show from owen years ago but stuck around because i enjoy your content. I will continue to listen regardless of the outcome, also his roast was funny and i believe in good faith.

It used to be pro-grade. Now, you might call it 'retro-grade'

Ah, you're reminding me of my days back at PBS in 2006/07.

I work in the professional broadcast industry. I started circa 2003, and DigiBeta and Betacam tapes were common at that point - this is an excellent video and it takes a lot of skill to take such a complex subject and present it in such an accessible way. Truly nice work!

XLR...I am crying out loud.

So, betacam may be why remastered Simpsons episodes don't look too bad at all but you can still tell it's interlaced. Huh

Can we get a video on Minidisc and some other lesser known media storage formats.

Interresting project Joppe. I think it sounds weird, because the brain is really good at detecting time differences in sounds. Now that you are firering 360 degreed, its probably too much information for the brain to calculate.


Could be interresting to hear the effect if they were placed in the middle of a big hall.

These are actually weirdly affordable and abundantly available. I wouldn't mind having a couple to do niche projects

The tape format wars are not over!

MINI DV SUPREMACY! DIGITAL8 SUX! 🤣🤣

Component video is now named Yipibibir video

Excellent explanation of this interesting history. Having grown up in a tv repair family business and then a career in video production and broadcast operations from the 80s until today, I can attest to how completely this story was told. Great channel! And the public tv station in Canada I worked at just stopped accepting 1080i masters on HDcam tape 2 years ago. BTW I was the proud owner of a Toshiba-branded Betamax top loader in 1980. Wish I’d kept it…

Image quality seemed significantly better on the betamax. The betacam quality is really impressive. Thank goodness we moved away from tape for audio and video though, I don't miss the absurd amount of space they took.

I heard the Betamax will play in the Betacam is you blow on it.

I would love to see you compare BetaCam versus Ampex.

Wow, that takes me back. I learned video editing and production with those decks. My school upgraded their video editing lab, and I took them all out of the boxes and set them up. I do still remember what all of those ports on the back are.

Dude, its like you knew I was trying to cross my eyes and view the two pictures together😵‍💫

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lorem ipsum” got a chuckle outta me. 😂

This is quite possibly my favorite episode of yours! 😂😂😂 I can’t stop watching it! On my 4th or 5th time, makes me laugh most of the video! Keep up the great work!!!

Very informative video...wait, it's not even half over?! WTF 😂

I've explained the difference between Betamax and Betacam to people who conflated the two during a Betamax vs. VHS argument, many times over the years. I'm glad this video exists now so I can just link to it next time, which will save me a lot of typing.

Everyone says adult content moved vhs but I gotta say it was sports. That way you could skips the ads too.

how the fuck would a VCR know what speed to play a cassette ? I dont get it

just asking, were there any alpha max/cam ?

actually I feel the Beta II more blurry

I would have loved it if Video 2000 was thrown into the mix (with actual hardware). I know, limited pretty much to Europe. Nevertheless…

BETA NOT BATA 😡

It’s like magic

This info will surely come in handy, eventually...

When I was a kid, we had that exact same model BetaMax. I even remember that long row of silver channel select buttons on the top. The black strip displayed the channel number. So, yeah, we were on team Beta for years.

I love how the alorithm played this after the first post-pause techlinked with a story with sony using locked in proprietary formats only in a handheld device

The other difference between the two was that Betacam SP tape was metal formulated while Betamax was oxide

Oh sure, next you'll be telling me that Blu-Ray and XDCAM Disks aren't the same format...

Seriously though, Sony did the same thing with Blu-Ray and reused the tech for an professional format that was stable enough to reliably write to the disks in a handheld ENG camera.

I love your shows .. All of them . your funny when needed . and so true in the remarks too . im at awe in the tech you show us . well the insides . . i love the toung twisting words . lol . keep it up . 🐝

lol, the drying you're getting from the engineers that are proving you wrong is hilarious.

The one thing you missed was that the betacam is thr same tape spun 5 timea faster to capture 5x thr data to acheive the mastering quality.

The betacam player is just playing thr betamax tape 5 x too fast.

Also, it's possible that just america didn't understand beta, the rear of the world did.

The hilarious part?
Your constant attitude and doubling down to being wrong 😂

The earliest Betacam (non-SP) machines could use the same physical tapes in both machines, although the recordings themselves would be incompatible. Your comparison of Beta and Betacam compared an old top loader Betamax to a metal tape SP format UVW-series recorder that’s almost 20 years newer. You can also take an oxide-formulated Betacam (non-SP) tape and use it as a blank in a regular Betamax machine

The Beta-based Betacam formats were IMMENSELY superior to the VHS-based M/Recam/MII formats… it’s not even close. I had the chance to work with both in the late 90s / early 2000s and there is no comparison even just in the quality of the cassettes and machines, even before you get into MII’s horrible dropout rates and frequent mechanical troubles