2008 – 2015retired
Google Moderator
“It asked who asked, and the crowd voted: rest well, Dory.”
“Lost the war, won our hearts, and always looked sharper doing it.”
Betamax, stylized as the Greek letter β, was Sony's videocassette recording format introduced in Japan on May 10, 1975. Fans loved it partly because Sony's marketing was right: it genuinely offered superior picture quality, delivering 250 horizontal lines of resolution to VHS's 240. But early Beta tapes capped out at just 60 minutes, which made recording a whole movie or sporting event a tall order.
When Sony doubled recording time with β2 speed, it came at the cost of resolution, erasing the technical edge just as JVC licensed VHS broadly to rival manufacturers and drove prices down while Sony kept Beta close to its chest. By the late 1980s the decline was unmistakable, and in 1988 Sony tacitly acknowledged defeat. Even so, Beta carried on quietly until November 10, 2015 — a forty-year run for a format that nev
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“It asked who asked, and the crowd voted: rest well, Dory.”
“It recorded your shows and never once asked for a subscription. Rest easy.”
“It pushed your email so you didn't have to. Rest easy, Magneto.”