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

This discussion is long-overdue.
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00:00 Intro
02:58 A closer look
04:50 The Beta / VHS Format War
11:33 Picture Quality Comparison
15:15 Home Video
17:41 What Betacam Is
21:52 Why videotape is usually pretty bad
25:57 More heads is more better
27:20 Three signals with two heads?
31:15 The tape moves really fast - this is a problem
32:40 Sony's ridiculous solution
34:28 Using the machine
37:31 Betacam's competition
39:42 bloops

[@scott8919]

I love Alec's snark. It's part of his charm.

[@Alec_Reaper]

Thanks

[@Delivery_Boy_Roy]

@@Alec_Reaper hi you sneak, wrong alec

[@aaronstanley6914]

Love that he doesn't care that the old VHS and batamax recordings make him look like he hasn't slept in a month.

[@jasonsteffens354]

I was today years old when I learned his name. And I’ve been watching for years…..

[@zombieregime]

Totally part of what keeps my attention actually eyes on watching his videos, instead of putting them on and fiddling with a project at my desk, gotta pay attention to catch those quick snarky quips one liners puns and straight up trolls he slips in both where they fit perfectly and when you least expect them 🤣

[@neilugaddan]

This really is my favorite channel. No unnecessary music. Straight to the point with a little history and with actual object. And the humor.

[@winterwatson6811]

no unnecessary music, but sadly also no unnecessary puppet show. rip techmoan’s skits, killed by youtube thinking that puppets=children’s content

[@hipithautaa]

No music is the best thing ever.

[@JohnLee-ue6gy]

Incompatibly smooth jazz is the most necessary of music.

[@the_undead]

​@@JohnLee-ue6gy I think they're talking about during the video and not the end

[@gblargg]

Ugh, the humor is what makes me watch significantly less of this channel. I want to let my attention be drawn towards the subject matter, not the presenter.

[@williamwong5627]

I was a cameraman during the mid 80s. We were using the Betacam cameras that cost $70000 each. When shooting outdoor, we had to carry the cameras along during lunchtime. We were forbidden to leave the cameras in the vehicle. The Betacam PAL tape ran for 20 minutes only. So at 19 minutes recording point, I had to alert my other partner to focus on the subject. Because I need to replace it with fresh blank tape. Those were the days.

[@SoloPilot6]

I was a shooter when DVCAM first arrived (was actually part of the testing for Sony). Try shooting in the field with $95,000 on your shoulder! I bought one of a LATER generation of Sony DVCAM camcorders several years ago for $300 (and now I'm on XDCAM)..

[@DanteYewToob]

Dude… that’s nuts! The most expensive thing I’ve ever held was a 20k medical device at a hospital that they let me look at after my surgery, and I didn’t even want to touch it… I couldn’t even imagine carrying around a Porsche all day, worrying I might drop it or something! Haha I never realized that those news cameras were so expensive! I knew they’d cost a lot, but I figured maybe like 10k or so… Did you know how expensive it was when you started, or find out later? Or was your boss like “That’s a 70,000$ camera, and if you break it you’d better flee the country.”? Haha

[@SoloPilot6]

@@DanteYewToob In our case, the Sony tech rep showed the declared value when it cleared Customs. All told, the two camcorders and the editing deck cost more than the station had cost to put on the air!

[@fuzzywzhe]

I'm an engineer and worked for RCA in the 1990's. Looking back at this stuff, it just seems, depressing to be honest. All this junk we worked on, all replaced by digital video encoding. I wouldn't want to go back to these bad old days. It's just all so enormously primitive. The idea we had analogue, and I remember when the MP2 format was finalized. In the early 1990's, we needed a million dollar machine to convert analog into MP2 digital. Now that runs on a $75 toy machine.

[@thedave7760]

@@SoloPilot6 DVCAM cameras were not worth the same as Betacam cameras no where near. The whole reason the BBC went with DVCAM was because they were roughly than half price of what the SP Betas and DigiBetas had cost even If it was no where near a good as DigiBeta and not quite as good as analogue SP.

[@davidelupi6523]

I started working in a tv studio this month and there's still a beta VCR in use, a much newer one with mpeg encoding (MSW-A2000P). On the first week they asked me to digitalize an old Betacam L cassette from '86 and with me being born in '95 and grown up with cartoons recorded on VHS from satellite TV i was absolutely blown away for how good the signal looked. Something i never witnessed with consumer analog PAL

[@AndyGraceMedia]

The DVW and MSW-A2000P decks are brilliant. So much stuff very high end technology in there for the time. The A means it's compatible with all the previous analogue formats going right back to Betacam Oxide (before SP) as well as digital Betacam SX and Digital Betacam/MPEG IMX formats. Necessary for a pro TV station with a huge back-catalogue of tapes. There was a good reason those high-end machines cost $100,000 when new.

[@electrictroy2010]

You know those DVDs you buy or rent with favorite shows like Star Trek TNG or Seinfeld or Friends? ALL of those shows were edited & stored on Betacam SP. Basically DVD quality on analog tape.

[@OrangeYTT]

​​@@electrictroy2010All 3 of those shows were shot on 35mm film. They were probably transferred onto Beta SP back in the day for broadcast. But since they still have the film reel, they can be scanned well past 4k today.

[@chrissyclark7836]

Pal was an amazing standard. The 25fps was closer to film so movies always looked better than NTSC. Pal, being the newer format also had 100 extra lines. I got to watch a straight from BBC archive transfer of a tom baker episode of dr who and the quality was amazing. Interesting bit of trivia. BBC use at least a half dozen tape systems over 40 years before settling on Betacam. The most terrifying used a metal tape... which when running full speed, you couldn't be in the room. If the tape snapped if would kill you.

[@dunebasher1971]

@@chrissyclark7836 The BBC never used metal tape for video recording. I suspect you're thinking of VERA, which is often erroneously claimed to have used metal tape, but actually used regular recording tape, one reel of which still survives on its distinctive metal spool at the Science Museum in London. The dangerous machines were the audio recorders which used steel wire running at high speed.

[@Steets]

The level of snark in this one is a sight to behold. Thanks again for an awesome video, Alec!

[@FaizCaliph]

😅

[@ndratzlaff]

You can tell by how their names are different 😂

[@2ndfloorsongs]

All hail the 🦈 SnarkMaster! 🦈

[@MikxPerson]

Alec Benjamin?

[@mikkowilson2]

One other *tiiny tiny little* difference between Betamax & Betacam for professional use is that Betacam has a timecode track, which is critical for professional video editing where the ability to reference any specific frame of video is a necessity.

[@TechnologyConnections]

Arrgh! I should have included this in the script. Oh well!

[@mikkowilson2]

@@TechnologyConnections If only KZbin had the same editing features of Betacam...

[@mikkowilson2]

(I mean other than audio replacement, video filtering, non-destructive trimming & clipping, and a full suit of closed captioning tools that KZbin offers. ... But no TeleText support.)

[@SeanBZA]

@@TechnologyConnections Plus your edit deck has a provision for at least 2 players, and a recorder, with jog shuttle wheels for precise setting of edit points, which, in conjunction with the frame store on a lot of them, also allowed near seamless switching between different players, allowing you to have near zero blank frames between cuts. For the stand alone player you also got a wired remote, plugged in the back (and common across almost the entire range in connection and function, ignoring advanced features on older players without locking them up), and which gave you full control, including slow frame, jog, and also, on the later players with frame store on board, full variable speed slow motion, and reverse slow motion as well. Did horrid things with drive motor timing, in that it would have to play a frame, reverse to the previous frame, and drive forward to the next frame, all in the interval between frames. But you got that magic slow mo so beloved of sports commentators, allowing you to scrub forward and back for instant replay. Destroyed the tape fast though with it sitting there rubbing on a single spot though if you did it for long, so sports recordings they would have 2, overlapping the time in record for a minute or so, so you could rewind the one while the other recorded, so you always had at least the last 20 minutes of video to use for a blow by blow play. Then you need to speak about the digital recorders, exact same tape, exact same play mechanism, and with analogue playback ability on them, but recording could be fully digital, including full multichannel audio, with the audio tracks only there as guard band, so they got the audio 2 channel downmix if wanted.

[@FirstLast-gw5mg]

I'm guessing that the timecode track was also a necessity for accurately cutting and splicing together the two-components-multiplexed-on-a-single-head video track that was mentioned.

[@acdclover6143]

I love the camera shake when he sets the two tape recorders on the table. It really shows how heavy they were

[@gkkarthic1978]

The studio versions were a LOT heavier! the DWM2000s were the standard when I worked and weighed as much as 35-40 kg

[@user-lx3th5on8l]

Ha they were built like tanks 😅

[@danielharvey1489]

As a pro video editor since the 90's I worked all the way from Betacam SP, M2, BetaSX and DigiBeta. Watching this was a joy. Nothing beats those buttons, the sounds of the transports and the fast winding. Many thanks for his video and great channel.

[@AJSHOPE]

I worked for Game Creek Video (mobile television trucking company) until the end of 2008 and even though HD was pretty standard already, I remember the Betacam (or variation of it, I don't remember what was being used at the time as I was just an engineer, not part of the production).

[@Techtronos]

@@AJSHOPE broadcast television was in transition to HD during 2008. Upgrading an entire park of cameras to HD was hell of investment. And keep in mind thousands of tapes in the archive that had to be accessible. Pretty sure a lot of big TV facilities still have dozens of those in operation.

[@electrictroy2010]

Broadcast TV started broadcasting HD in 1998. Each station was assigned an NTSC channel for analog and ATSC channel for digital HD .

[@Techtronos]

@@electrictroy2010 CNN transitioned to HD in 2007 or so. In late ninetees high-end CRT TV were just too good to switch to HD TVs of that era. So while HD broadcast was possible it was not worth to ugrade yet.

[@nicolausteslaus]

As a black and homosexual transgender muslim, I totally agree!

[@VenomousCamel]

Those Beta/VHS/Modern transitions don't get enough love. They're excellently executed!

[@rockwithjerry]

Totally agree sir! That kind of editing is not easy.. he just makes it look that way!

[@Wtfinc]

The beta is clearly worse quality. How could anyone mistake it. I dig beta and im kinda sad it is so crap compared to vhs

[@rommbb]

@@Wtfinc probably masked by low quality TV's. captured digitally it's obvious to see the differences, but i would imagine on a 15-20in CRT set, you probably would have a harder time picking out all the differences

[@bergauk]

@@Wtfinc Truly not nearly as good as LASERDISC

[@vocabpope]

Jaw dropped

[@johncroll1467]

Former master control operator and engineer from the 1990s here - thanks for taking me back in time! We had Sony BVW-40s (Betacam but not SP) before we expanded to a couple more SP units. They were built to be serviced- they came with service manuals in big binders written in endearing Engrish. We also had extender boards, so one of those circuit boards could be pulled out, slide the extender in its place, then slide the board into it while bench servicing if the procedure called for it. They use special screws called Totsu which is sort of like a flathead but has a little tension finder on it so it could hold the screw without being magnetic. I used to run around with a clipboard to take down the hour meter readings as I cleaned the heads on a weekly basis so we could track our preventative maintenance schedule by replacing the brushes and slip rings on the head, heads, pinch rollers, etc etc…. If you ever wondered how commercials used to work in the 90s, we had a Sony Betacart. It’s a giant refrigerator sized thing, with four side loading Betacam players, and a vertical bank of 40 cassette holders, and (the best part) a robotic elevator that whisked up and down jockeying the tapes. The tapes were barcoded and the whole thing was managed by a central computer terminal with a floppy disk drive that predated HD diskettes, so we had a finite stash of DD disks. OK, you’re bored by now….

[@xerothedarkstar]

So that scene from Hackers was actually accurate? Edit: if that was what you were doing in the 90's you probably weren't in the target audience for that flick, my bad for assuming. The scene itself is basically two people fighting remotely for control of the automated tape changer.

[@suamme1]

I used to run company backups to a robotic DLT-IV data tape library and watching and controlling the arm was the best part about changing the weekly backup tapes. It was eventually replaced by a 1U LTO library that was completely enclosed and not nearly as much fun (but much faster with fewer tapes).

[@david.mcmahan]

Not bored at all. I toured our local TV station back in that era and have been fascinated by broadcast equipment ever since.

[@tvdan1043]

Former master control and tape room op from 1993-2006 here. I can still hear that Betacart elevator in my sleep sometimes. Mostly it's in nightmares though because it would be the sound the damn thing made when it jammed, followed by the alarm. CHKZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ... BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP The Betacart was a huge step up from the old TCR machines, but it was temperamental in its own way.

[@mspysu79]

@@xerothedarkstar Hackers was kind of accurate, first of all in the movie it was U-Matic, and a Betacart machine just used a clamp on the end of the robotic arm to grasp the cassette, not the overly complex but cool looking mechanism used in hackers.

[@basicfacekick]

I love the format wars. You have groups of engineers pulling out all the stops to out-do their competitors and it ultimately brings more value to the consumers. Brilliant minds at work that aren't making weapons of war or having to solve some unsolvable societal problem... just answer the questions of can Dad can record his entire football game and can Nan record one of her stories while watching another.

[@yommish]

Yeah forget those unsolvable actual problems facing society, we want better consumer goods.

[@crowth9639]

@@yommish dog, the sony/jvc/matsushita engineers ain't gonna stop cancer even if they were put to the task lmfao

[@ssh3mk]

The analog mechanisms needed to make it work at all is astonishing. Man, digital era solved not only the quality, but simplified everything down to a micro level. Also there is a happy bug crawling around at 11:35

[@villz1267]

If you only knew just the insane level of those microprocessors that accomplished this... The complexity wasn't removed. it was multiplied and outsourced to another industry :P

[@electrictroy2010]

Processors have advantage of being printable using a photomask & etching. Reduces cost vs. complicated analog board filled with discrete resisters, potentiometers, etc

[@electrictroy2010]

Digital format is also easier to edit downto the pixel level. That was never possible with analog. Digital is also more compact: Handheld video recorders in a phone vs. bulky S-VHSC camcorders

[@villz1267]

@@electrictroy2010 How many million engineering hours go into each buddy

[@sergiomendez9231]

How delightful! Looks like a lady bug! Didn't catch that the first time, so thanks!

[@kedo]

I don't know how you do it, but you manage to make me watch a 40 minute video on something I never cared about once in my life, and you do it consistently. Never seen a channel keep up this quality before, its insane. I love your work man.

[@spange_babs9130]

He even tells you that the video doesn't matter right in the beginning, yet here we are at the end of the video 😂

[@oldbones9205]

Man, you said a mouth full; about halfway in I thought, why the hell am I watching this; while I lived through the whole BETA VHS period, and remember the BETA and VHS sides of the video store, the fine points I just learned were never of concern to me; however, I watched every last second, then subbed. I do remember people saying BETA was better, but had both machines at one time or the other, and saw no noticeable difference in picture quality.

[@ronald4life1]

Amazes me too... Top notch energy and technical information in a great format that doesn't feel like it's dumbing it down (too much).

[@truckerdave8465]

He gets me every single time. ‘I don’t care this much about dishwashers’ but then I sit though not one but two long dishwasher videos. I don’t care about this either. I’m gonna watch every minute anyhow.

[@GeoffDeGeoff]

I literally had to go back and check that it was 40 minutes after reading your comment. It did not feel like 40 minutes at all!

[@SmellTheCheeeez]

I love how the Betamax player literally shook the camera when you *thunked* it down on the table.

[@DavidBurstrom]

Or it literally shook the video editor 😉

[@SmellTheCheeeez]

@@DavidBurstrom shhhhhhhhhhhhh, it’s funnier this way

[@voca-chan7953]

That's how you know it was built with quality parts and the build quality of an absolute tank.

[@robfenwitch7403]

Betacam surely

[@iamafish7]

He didn't even thunk it down. He placed it gently and it still asserted its dominance over the room.

[@raymondhuot1684]

As a electronic technician for over 30 years, I have worked on these machines and on camcorder as well. Your video is worth listening, it is a reference !

[@jobinjon]

I only have 17 years in myself, but I concur.

[@hitmusicworldwide]

Do you service BSP decks? I'm looking for a repair service . Hard to find!

[@gleep23]

I cannot imagine how much work this was for you, but seeing you seamlessly transition between current digital technology, and Betamax, VHS, and Betacam, really great work! Thank you so much for your work.

[@nathanjwill]

The delightful light-up buttons have another purpose: When the deck is being controlled from outside (via the "Remote" DB9 connector on the back), such as during editing operations, the lights would indicate what the deck was being told to do. (I spent a summer working in a video studio at the tail end of the linear editing era, and we had Panasonic M-II and S-VHS editing decks being controlled from editing software on a Windows desktop; the array of blinkenlights on the decks during an edit run was mesmerizing).

[@Thebrainymonkey]

There was a company in Oxford that used MII. I'd never seen it before. When they were sent BetaSP tapes from their clients, some runner was sent to me to dub every tape from BetaSP to their portable MII deck.

[@NielMalan]

As one of my mentors said, after I'd half-apologised for spending some time and effort adding LED indicators to a simple split power supply: more indicators is never a mistake.

[@hammondeggsmusic]

Ahh M-II. I did a co-op in school at a studio that had m2 machines and an Amiga with a video toaster. It could control the m2 machine and record individual frames (was neat to watch it rewind, play and briefly blink the record led to record the frame) from lightwave 3D. Had lots of fun setting up overnight renders with that!

[@darrennew8211]

I worked at the phone company research arm (Bellcore) during the early MPEG days (as in, back when it took hours per minute to compress mpeg). We had a whole rack of these recorders so we could have the original input and compare it to the compressed levels. That's when I learned how to use the color bars.

[@xmlthegreat]

​@@darrennew8211 okay so we have some really experienced old timers coming in here to give their knowledge. Appreciate it!

[@jasonsouliere703]

I lived through the VHS - BETA wars as a kid and ended up professionally producing broadcast video using U-Matic then eventually those 1800 machines. I preferred using those to cut video over the DVCam decks we upgraded to. Something you might find cool to try is entering the Service Mode on that 1800. You can activate every single solenoid and motor in the unit to prove each is working. I sometimes had to enter that mode to get a stubborn tape to eject. Still have one in my basement destined for the e-recycler I’m afraid. Anyhow thanks for the video.

[@Vinemaple]

Thank you so much... this was an indie-documentary tour de force! I'd forgotten how relaxing and enjoyable it is to just sit and listen to you talk over my head about fantastically ingenious consumer engineering!

[@The8BitGuy]

This was cool. I actually didn't know anything about how betacam worked. Funny story, when I was a kid, I used to record my Commodore 64 onto VHS and I could never understand why the quality looked so bad on playback. Because with regular TV recordings, which usually don't display small text and fine pixel arrangements, I simply couldn't tell that the quality was lower.

[@redmatrix]

It's great to see you here, David. I like it when my favorite youtubers interact with one another!

[@jettesides420]

I totally read this in Davids voice.

[@Bann]

Same

[@utkua]

this man screen captured before it was even a thing.

[@sylpisophia5612]

heyo, I also follow your channel :D

[@SudaNIm103]

Runtime really was a major factor. My grandmother was an early adopter and she sold her Sony Betamax and got a VHS VCR specifically because it would let her record CBS's entire Daytime Soap block while she was at work: The Young and the Restless, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Search for Tomorrow. (God I watched so much of that crap as a kid) The only other person I knew who had a VCR before most people did; My uncle Mike had thought the VCR was just a gimmick until the RCA VBT200 and he realized it could record live sports broadcasts and he got one not long after and they were still using that same VCR into 2000s!

[@video99couk]

Except in Europe, where a typical L-750 Beta tape runs for 3 hours 15 minutes where a E-180 VHS of the time was shorter at 3 hours. (Both formats had longer tapes, but these were the most popular in the early 1980s).

[@SudaNIm103]

@@video99couk Of course, but it would prove too little too late. I admit I don’t know much about how things played out in the European market; Here in the States VHS was already outselling BetaMAX 3 to 1 by 1980 and it had become clear that VHS was going to be the dominant format. BetaMAX sales would drop off precipitously, and the format limped along for a few more years but it was just a battle of attrition, the war had long been won.

[@LG123ABC]

@@SudaNIm103 The war had long been "won".

[@Prophes0r]

Audio/Video-philes often gloss over the size/recording time 'feature'. Don't get me wrong, I can (sometimes) tell the difference between an MP3 and a FLAC file at my desktop with my good headphones. But in the car? On a plane? On a phone? (Even with headphones) Outside a studio in general? No way. Space is still at a premium. 128kbps MP3 is FINE. Even now that space is 'cheap' there is still a good use for lossy-formats as long as you ALSO keep the loss-less ones. Back when 'going outside' and 'social' things were regular occurrences, a 720p portable projector and a 512GB MicroSD card with 600 movies on it, transcoded down to 720p, was a PERFECT way to set up a guerilla-drive-in movie. Was the video quality 'perfect'? Absolutely not. Did it matter when you were projecting onto the wall of a building? Nope.

[@fattomandeibu]

@@SudaNIm103 I dunno how it really played out either since I was a primary schooler, but as a kid who grew up in '80s England, I only have vague recollections of knowing 2 people who owned Betamax recorders and 1 dude with a Video 2000 that he used well into the '90s, with everyone else having VHS.

[@razzledazzle4860]

I was a broadcast engineer in the 90's, and serviced many a Sony BetaCam VTR and camcorder. To this day, I've never seen or worked on anything as electromechanically complex, yet elegant, as the Sony BVW-75 VTR! Those dynamic tracking video heads were incredible, but replacing the upper rotating video drum assembly on them, was a day long job LOL! Thank you for the stroll down memory lane :)

[@cowprez]

BOTH formats are so incredibly mechanical that it is a wonder how they worked at all. All the mechanics of wrapping the tape around the head - are amazing. I remember you had to be careful 'watching' the video while fast-forwarding because the head would heat up (I think). Good stream. I never knew Betacam was a thing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

[@jamesisaac7684]

Watch the older video. He explained how it was done in as simple way as possible by him.

[@electrictroy2010]

The rotating drum is already spinning very fast. It can handle the friction-caused heat as it scrapes past the tape.

[@becauseimafan]

​@@jamesisaac7684I second this recommendation! It's a great video 😁

[@dunebasher1971]

I worked with Beta-SP and DigiBeta for over 15 years, and there were never issues with FFWD or RWD heating up the heads. Possibly that was only in the very earliest machines.

[@owenvogelgesang7314]

Finally! Someone attempts to clear up the Betamax vs Betacam confusion. The amount of times I've had to explain that Max and Cam are entirely different formats is too damn high

[@andrew_koala2974]

The 'Number' of times NOT the amount of times NUMBER refers to QUANTITY / COUNT AMOUNT refers to WEIGHT Undertake an extensive reading program to better educate yourself and improve your knowledge of the English language

[@schrodingerscat3741]

@@andrew_koala2974 Seriously?

[@Figitarian]

​@@andrew_koala2974 Amount is a totally acceptable word to use in this case. It doesn't just apply to weight, not sure where you got that from. Amount is generally used to describe uncountable values; number countable ones. And since how many times you have dealt with the same question isn't something most people would keep track of, "amount" seems like a totally valid word to use.

[@Lucien86]

@@Figitarian Great answer. The number is when the number is small and countable. The amount when its become a volume.. 😄

[@Galerak1]

@@Figitarian Let the errorists have their fun, it only makes them look infantile.

[@AddieDirectsTV]

For the record.... We actually STILL use BetaSP in broadcast. A LOT of news archive video is on it (and UMATIC!). Plus, when we still ran master control locally (it's hubbed out now), we got a LOT of paid programs coming in on Beta. In fact, we JUST removed that Beta deck not that long ago, even though old Master Control has been out of use for about 4 years now.

[@aworminmybook8234]

I feel sorry for you :( It's been pretty much dead at the network level for years. Even tne archives are digital. But as i look behind me in the edit room, i see a row of betacam tapes. Lol

[@mikkowilson2]

We still have this exact model of deck racked up, and a stack of them in storage for spares/parts. And a room full of every imaginable tape format of archived video from the decades gone by.

[@wilneal8015]

​@@mikkowilson2 Seems like There will be a LOT of Recapping in someone's Future! 😢🎱😵🤞🧐😈

[@mikkowilson2]

@@wilneal8015 Yeah ... The sad reality is that most of the content on those tapes will never see the light of day.

[@dadbike1100]

Oh man we went hard for DVC Pro and just a couple years ago finished copying the full archive of Andy Griffith to hard drive.

[@RGressick]

Thank you for your work on your videos. Yes your videos are longer then most content creators but i do love the thoroughness of all your videos. I love the research and the detail you get into. I ensure the hard work you put into all your videos. I feel knowledgeable afterwards. This was a cool breakdown again.

[@gkkarthic1978]

Beautifully done! Also, the best part about the Betacam SP VTRs (the DVWM2000 and similar models) was that each of the channels - Video, Audio, and Time Code were individually editable whether manually, or remote. You could mark-in, mark-out and record over the channel or channels you want to edit and for the duration - it was freaking amazing! When I was editing on these monsters, it felt as though I was operating a nuclear silo, LOL.

[@StarGateSG7]

Aaaahhhhh YES!!! The old "Split Edit" using that monster-sized multi-machine linear editing controller you could buy separate from Sony !!! I can't believe I've been doing this since 1987. OMG! Where did all the time go! V

[@johnnyc.31]

Fun fact: Professional Beta (DigiBeta & HDcam) was still going strong in the 2000s, but died very suddenly - not because hard drives were better yet, but because the Tsunami in Japan destroyed Sony production facilities & created a worldwide shortage of Beta tapes. Post houses had to figure out other ways to ship masters to stations. People were hoarding tapes for special projects that absolutely needed them, especially large tapes (hard drives were quite small & expensive for lengthy broadcast masters, especially HD data sizes). It was an interesting time in the industry. I remember having to call around to different shops and pay THEM to make a master for us just so we could use their remaining tape stash.

[@SirrelSquirrel]

I remember this, literally forced the entire industry to change workflows overnight

[@jobinjon]

I built a 2110 playout facility. Yet we had to put in the IMX and SR decks as we still have the odd advertiser who sends a tape, or the SD reruns for the afternoon that still mostly are on SX.

[@electrictroy2010]

2011 that was the year of the tsunami. Also note professionals use betaCAM which is completely different from consumer betamax .

[@SirrelSquirrel]

Ha, in the comment he's talking about 2110 which is where you use data cables and network switches to send video around a facility rather than traditional video cables and video routers. Yet despite that change some customers still use tapes, in this case Sony IMX and HDCAM-SR which were both successors to Betacam.

[@grafeugenius]

that's... a tragic yet intriguingly awesome way to have your era ended. literally died because of a natural disaster.

[@FooneTuring]

That splitscreen of Betacam/Betamax could not have been easy to do as seamlessly as you did. Well done, I see the work that went into that!

[@rmatthi6722]

3:03 "They both have model numbers divisible by 1800..." 😂

[@volkris]

I really appreciate all of the extra effort put into capturing video from the different formats!

[@dasrabaskus]

You're one of the few creators putting out almost hour long videos feeling like 15 minutes top, thank you :)

[@mikkowilson2]

Fun fact: One other use of Betacam (& UMatic) was to (by way of extra equipment) record audio to Betacam tape as a PCM digital audio signal, as a precursor to DAT, in the process of mastering early CDs ... With the digital audio sample rate of 44.1kHz (that we still use today) set in part by the constraints of recording onto video equipment. So if you stumble across a Beta tape that won't play in a Betamax/2/3 or Betacam/SP/Digital/SX/IMX/HD/SR player ... it might just contain a WAV file!

[@TechnologyConnections]

Boy do I have an interesting video coming up soon!

[@mikkowilson2]

@@TechnologyConnections TC / Techmoan crossover? DAT'd be amazing.

[@theEagleBeagle]

the 3/4" Umatic era was..... heavy

[@aworminmybook8234]

Yss, and pcm recording was also done to 3/4" and 1" type c videotape

[@SeanBZA]

@@theEagleBeagle Yes, Umatic players are all mechanical marvels, and all very heavy. 40kg of steel stampings in them, like somebody took an entire typewriter factory and poured it into a box.

[@Icehawk2k7]

Awesome video, brings me back 2003 when I was taking video editing in film school and we learned to use these exact Betacam SP units, I was always amazed at how precise and responsive they were when integrated with our Avid editing PCs and it was amazing seeing such clear video from a tape.

[@winmarkesconde5651]

when i was in grade school im so amazed at how the mechanical part of both vhs and betamax, my father used to fix them back in the day & i'm so eager to help him fixing the timing issue of the gears. great video as always.

[@Cinneray]

I used to work at a small-ish TV station and the sound of you rewinding the beta casette warmed my heart. Fun story: when I started I had no idea about the difference between betamax and betacam and was utterly baffled why we were using BETA when VCR clearly won the format war. Luckily I kept it to myself or I would have never hear the end of it.

[@MCAlexisYT]

..what VCR?

[@DavidLindes]

@@MCAlexisYT I’m going to give the OP the benefit of the doubt and assume they just had a brain fart and meant VHS. But, it’s also possible they’re being thrown by the fact that some pro gear was called a VTP (Video Tape Player), instead of a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder, which of course can apply to all of these formats, though not to open-reel formats, of which I think there maybe were some at some point?? But I don’t have any personal experience with those.)

[@Ceelvain]

People are benevolent most of the time. They might have laughed a bit. But would very likely have explained it. And simply went on with their lives. After all, it's an easy mistake to make. If you gotta make a mistake, better make it as early as possible so that you can build more knowledge in steady ground.

[@stevehunter5505]

@@DavidLindes I worked for many years in TV as a sound recordist and well remember the U-matic format used in ENG in the 80's. However, in 1982 when we were sent to Spain to cover the world cup I was very surprised to be given this massive open reel video recorder (I think the reels were stacked on top of each other) to use as a "portable" VCR coupled to the camera with an umbilical. We'd never used this and it took around half a day to figure out how to use it properly. You would do a take, then the machine would rewind itself 5 secs. Take two and the cameraman would see a flashing red light as the device started and after 5 secs would then switch to a steady red light and you were recording. It used an automatic edit system incorporating a 5 sec. run up in order to sync up with the previous take. I seem to remember the make being Bosch Fernseh but don't quote me on that.

[@8bits59]

@@MCAlexisYT There was a format called VCR that Philips made, but I'm assuming that's not what they meant.

[@NachoMist]

man this video unlocked the weirdest childhood memory, my father was a reporter for local news and in the mid 90s to very early 2000s he was using a UVW-1800 (before upgrading to a DNW-A225 in the early 2000s) and seeing it in this video i can distinctly remember as a toddler i once put a pop tart in the cassette drawer 🤣

[@Wagonman5900]

That's funny.

[@JoshuaPlays99]

I can only imagine the panic your father had getting the crumbs out of it

[@ArniVidar]

I mean.. at least it wasn't a Popsicle. 🙈

[@brucemarkham2054]

Thank you for setting the record straight on this. It clears up some confusion for me. I edited video at a local TV news station in the late aughts and was thoroughly mystified by the Betacam tapes everywhere. They had the larger/older tapes in their archives, and the smaller/newer HD tapes in contemporaneous use. No one was knowledgeable enough to explain to me the history of the distinction between Betamax and Betacam, or that there even _was_ a distinction.

[@TheRealXyzven]

All your transitions in editing were FANTASTIC! I was watching a full on PBS show about Betamax vs Betacam!

[@JeanFredericP]

I have to say something! The script, editing and the overall production of this video is astonishing. Having followed this channel for multiple years, it doesn't surprise me, but I hope others can see all the work behind making such a video. I'm only 17m44s in the video for now, but I'm hoping to see some outtakes or bloopers at the end. I love those!

[@xp8969]

Omg yes, I came to say litterally the exact same thing word for word, this is legit his best vid yet

[@hlloyge]

I worked with U-Matics, Betacam, and even GASP! Ampex VPR-6, I loved them all. Ampex was my favorite, it was oldtimer when I was working in broadcast, but we still had TV shows on these tapes, so it was used. Learning to thread tape on them was a scientific achievment :) I enjoyed this video, it made me go back in time. There are lot of details that comes with more expensive devices, we had Sony BVW-75P machines, they were crazy good and were my daily use machines.

[@RodCurrin]

I started editing on Ampex VPR-2B 1 inch machines. Threading them was 'fun'. What wasn't fun was if someone let the tape play off the end and you had to thread it from the take up reel! That was MUCH harder. I was working for a broadcaster when Betacam was introduced. They came to demo it to us. What was really impressive was that colour (South African spelling!) bars off tape looked like straight from the generator - absolutely clean divisions between the bars. Later I worked on Sony BVW-75P and BVW-65P (player version) in a 3 machine edit suite. It was amazing how many generations you could copy and still have good quality.

[@MarJay1980]

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!

[@DarMokChannelSTMoments]

I am of that age that I remember this battle of the tapes. I had a VHS Recorder at the time and remember just how magical it seemed to be able to record shows and watch them later. And don't get me started on trying to tell our parents that you didn't have to a show as it was being recorded or the whole idea of programming a recording. I do though remember seeing a friend's original Bata recorder which knock me for six, to see the quality of the onscreen search function. There was hardly any break up of the video compared to my VHS and I did consider because of this to change my recorder but I think because of price consigns and the explosion of Blockbusters made the decision for me. Great upload, I will be looking for more like this one.

[@jesuitx]

As someone that used to work in the broadcast engineering space, it's wonderful to see this topic finally covered by someone like you!

[@JeremySeitz]

My favorite part of editing video on BetaSP back in the day - the Jog/Shuttle wheel. That was so cool, scrolling frame by frame or bouncing around. Really satisfying.

[@QualityDoggo]

some VHS machines eventually got jog wheels, but man it does not look very good to try and go "frame by frame" (well... actually field by field) on VHS 😂

[@craigavonvideo]

I actually prefer editing tape-to-tape rather than non-linear on a PC.

[@morrisonAV]

Excellent job explaining a complex subject. That was a TON of editing work and is greatly appreciated by all of us nerds. Well done!

[@mokkingbird]

Those snap transitions for the picture quality comparisons were magic! They were so satisfying that I watched them each about a half dozen times.

[@KairuHakubi]

hearing about how color is kinda cheated to work really explains both how tapes looked and how tape errors look, with the colors becoming separated from each other. and it sounds like betacam basically pulled an old NES music trick out of the hat, recording rapidly in alternation to cheat 'two things' out of one thing's room of things. Also, I'm realizing now that I've seen Betacams in operation on tv shows, when a TV studio is pulling up footage, fastforwarding it, etc. the sound brought back memories. .. how have I never noticed that Large and Small have the same initials as Long and Short???

[@sc0tt_p]

In TV Betacam tapes that would be played on air always had to have bars and tones so we could use a TBC to correct the colors, most local shows (churches) didn't understand the purpose and would just steal color bars from some vhs tape and stick it on the beginning on the tape so they weren't from the equipment that shot the video so correcting to those colors never worked and usually meant we'd have to stop an ingest and find a frame to try and color correct with.

[@gmirwin]

@@sc0tt_p As a consumer, I never knew what those were for. Learned something else today.

[@sc0tt_p]

@@gmirwin yeah, they are supposed to be calibrated to the tape, both audio and video. You use the scopes to align the colors, set white and black levels, and audio level. Bars go into a leader board which most people have seen as the countdown. That final sudden beep is supposed to be exactly 30 frames from the first frame of the show, which helps you start the tape exactly where it's suppose to.

[@zik316]

I was genuinely impressed with your editing of this video. The seamless transitions from analog to digital were quite impressive.

[@JohnJackson66]

I remember when the company I worked for (Quantel) sold very expensive hardware just to make this possible.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

Pretty simple to line up separate video recordings in the editor timeline on separate video tracks and just chop them around, time consuming, but simple.

[@JimmerofOz]

@@JohnJackson66 The paint box guys? I am guessing it was like a multi input vision mixer?

[@usernameak]

@@JohnJackson66 ... and now it costs nearly nothing.

[@JohnJackson66]

@@JimmerofOz It was the GenQ series that first allowed mixed format editing

[@markradaba]

Excellent video! This really helps explain the differences between the formats and the myths between the video formats in layman's terms.

[@2rueblue]

Oh, I do love this channel and thank you for all your hard work attempting to educate and entertain us. All the very best from Scotland

[@kellybraille]

My father had a huge collection of beta tapes when he passed away (as well as a betamax machine), and some of the movie titles were suspiciously... modern? We quickly found out that every single Beta tape was... an "adult film" that he had later just re-labeled with popular movie titles. My mom didn't find the humor in this, but I thought it was HILARIOUS. Damn. I miss you, Dad!

[@kellybraille]

Oh that's DOUBLE hilarious that people thought Beta DIDN'T have dirty movies! Ha! I'd bet money that Dad collected those partly just for that reason. Omg that's so funny. I can't wait to tell my sister. Ha! Dad is still throwing punchlines from the grave. Love you, Dad! 😂

[@electrictroy2010]

I label my pron tapes with hand labels (stuff 1, stuff 2, etc). I’m surprised your dad did extra work of using Hollywood titles

[@electrictroy2010]

In the early 80s Playboy released video on laserdisc, VHS, and Beta so pron was definitely available across all formats

[@josephkelly4893]

Your dad sounds like a legend. Peace

[@kg-Whatthehelliseventhat]

Dad's should let us know that they are cool before it is too late. I found a bunch of weed, porn and 2 guns in my dad's trunk... damn dad. Wtf were you into?

[@ronindebeatrice]

Top tier editing. The transitions were delicious. You're the best damn technology historian in the biz.

[@CousinHubertRetrogaming]

Hello! Can you tell me what model is your sony 14inch tv @2:44 ? I have about the same model, but japanese, in red finish and im looking for a working flyback to replace mine that is weak

[@vhm14u2c]

Back in early 80s, I visited a television station studio for local abc broadcasts and news. They had a few betacam machines with those large cassettes. At the time, I knew it was something for professional use only, but didn’t realize how advanced the machine truly was. Thanks for sharing!

[@KevinVinck]

It’s honestly kind of wild how long Betacam was around for. We were still shooting on it in high school (along with S-VHS) in 2006 and at the TV station I worked at we were still receiving some paid programming on Betacam tapes as late as 2014.

[@russellhltn1396]

Think about the cost to convert the format for a newsroom. You'd have to convert cameras and edit bays at the same time to avoid dubbing the tapes. Betacam probably lived as long as it did because until HD, the newer formats didn't offer that much improvement. As long as they could buy tapes and parts, they kept the old ones running. And as the well-financed stations replaced their equipment, they donated their old stuff to high schools and cable-access stations.

[@PH96Official]

2014?????

[@darkseid1975]

I worked at a videocassette/CD/audiotape manufacturing plant in the late 90s. We had literally hundreds of recorders in racks for the "Normal Speed Duplication" area, pulling off of the masters in the "Digital Betacam" format that literally just recorded video on hundreds of tapes at a time. We also had a "High Speed Duplication" area that worked very differently, but was also neat.

[@magister61]

Thank you for your clarification for those of us who use the metric system, otherwise I would never have known that 60 minutes is an hour

[@k8zhd]

Wonderful, as always! You do an excellent job of explaining complex technology in a comprehensible and entertaining way. And I loved your summation of Betacam as "equal parts hilarious and impressive." That is how I felt often in my 40+ years designing analog video products -- NTSC itself still amazes me. I once interviewed at General Electric to work on their Telaria theater video projector, and I could hardly keep from giggling during their explanation of how it operated. And then the demonstration of its actual operation left me quite impressed.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

The incredible amount of editing it must have taken to line up the the switching between the digital/VHS/Betamax/Betacam signals is well appreciated. Thank you!

[@EmptyResponse]

34:14 [Various Delightful Mechanical Noises] I absolutely LOVE your subtitles, friend.

[@randall522]

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…

[@surviver5738]

Ayy, I appreciate the two star trek clips shown! Even though I don't fully understand your technobabble, I do appreciate learning and I always end up learning watching your videos, with a lot of rewinding.

[@coyote_den]

That particular Betacam machine didn't just demux the chroma, it digitized Y/C for timebase correction, which was required for genlocking to studio sync on the REF VIDEO input. It also had drop out compensation, if the tape had a dropout the DOC would fill it in with previously captured samples. That's what a lot of the boards in there are for. Demuxing is essentially "free" when you're doing TBC, you just read the Pb/Pr samples out in parallel at 1/2 the sample rate.

[@AaronSmart.online]

Consumer VHS VCRs typically had dropout compensation, though only line-based. I guess you're talking full frame?

[@Liam3072]

Hmmm... I know some of these words...

[@susilgunaratne4267]

Betacam more complicated than genlock, TBC, Y/C...remarkable difference is separate recording of Y, R-Y & B-Y by an ingenious method of CTDM - Compressed Time Division Multiplex. So no more cross color distortions, other spurious artifacts or reduced Y-levels, since Y info now occupies one full track while R-Y & B-Y time compresed & occupies 1/2 ,1/2 divided next line. Video head has separate chips for Y & Chroma components.

[@susilgunaratne4267]

​@@AaronSmart.online DOC normally done at line level. In Digital media it's ' error correction & concealment' much complicated than analog type DOC.

[@wiesejay]

I think he’s talking about taxation

[@Respectable_Username]

Fascinating when you swapped the video from Beta to VHS, I got instantly hit with a wave of nostalgia. A lot of the TV I watched as a kid was on VHS tapes, and a lot of those were hand-me-downs from my Aunt who had recorded a bunch of kids shows from the TV for my older cousin. Seeing those VHS artefacts with the blocky colours and hard edges is big nostalgia!

[@jg-bd3hr]

I just wanted to thank you this was something I was always curious about but didn't have the time to research. You made it very clear and understandable thank you😃

[@scotty74065]

Oh wow, another great video on old technology. I can't imagine how much effort (and hours of work) you put into this, and it really shows. Thank you for that. The comparison shots were really enlightening, I've never really seen Betamax in action (I'm from Germany, I've never met any Betamax fans here, only some Video 2000 fans that held onto it into the 90s). I would say I've also never seen Betacam in action, but I guess I've seen countless hours of it on TV (I think it was also the de facto standard here in the TV broadcast business).

[@electrictroy2010]

Betacam was the Professional TV standard worldwide.

[@electrictroy2010]

Old 80s/90s shows are still stored in vaults full of Betacam tapes

[@tonybossaller4074]

My college media department used Betacam for everything. I remember the nightmare over-the-shoulder camcorder that took the full size Betacam carts. The student editing decks though where all S-VHS with a single Betacam to bring all their footage over. But I was so sorry to see you didn’t have the jog-dial interface with the Betacam unit. Those were soooooo smooth and satisfying. Your scrubbing through the footage alone brought back so many memories. ❤

[@grandetaco4416]

We used three quarter inch tape, separate camera and a separate decks, it was so cumbersome back then and weighted a ton, I can still feel the deck strap on my shoulder. I'm glad we live in the future now.

[@tonybossaller4074]

@@grandetaco4416 And every… single… battery pack… had memory issues so the “up to 60 mins” of life meant we usually carried four or five for a one hour shoot. :( Yes, modern battery tech is amazing and I am so jealous that half the students probably use handheld camcorders or cell phones now. So jealous. Hehe.

[@craigavonvideo]

@@tonybossaller4074 We used to use Battery Belts rather than descrete cells to power portable VTRs and Cameras back in the 80s.

[@dashcamandy2242]

I remember high school days, Panasonic S-VHS camcorders slung over shoulders, editing on Panasonic decks with the editing controller's jog shuttle... Twenty-some-odd years later, when editing videos on a PC, I find I really miss that convenience. Maybe someday I'll invest in one for PC. We had one Sony Hi8 Handycam, and one Sony Hi8 recorder deck, but the school didn't want to invest in the hardware to connect the two for true Hi8 editing. Because of the inconvenience of transferring to another format, most of the students refused to use the Handycam or even touch Hi8 at all. While they do staged scenes with the cameras on tripods, I'm filming a semi-dramatic chase scene on the Cross-Country trail with a palmcorder!

[@tonybossaller4074]

@@dashcamandy2242 Years ago, I had a Contour Design Shuttle Pro which wasn’t quite the smooth jogwheel the Sony unit had, but was worlds better than my then best option the Kensington TurboRing. (That ring was an amazing jog-dial but Kensington discontinued it… And the Orbit Pro’s just wasn’t the same.) So you might check that out. I have no idea where mine ended up. :p

[@Markimark151]

This video isn’t pointless, because lot of us who worked in television broadcasting used Betacam well into the mid 2000s! I used to work in tape editing for press releases from colleges. We used the Sony Betacam VTR for video recordings, and we also archived video on DVDs or digital files on computer!

[@pricyprice3474]

I love the small detail of shaking the camera when you put each machine down on the table.

[@colloidalsilverwater15ppm88]

Excellent, finally I am aware of technical details about VCR war. Thank you from the bottom of my old heart.

[@justapeasant8949]

Something that is more impressive than a Betacam is just how long Sony's U-Matic was used in TV production. Well into 2000s. There are U-Matic tapes out there with promotional material for Revenge of the Sith (2005), and other feature films that were released in theatres in 2008 or later.

[@sunspot42]

It’s amazing how long U-matic persisted. I’m kinda surprised it wasn’t repurposed as a digital video format using metal tape and modern head designs - in theory it would have been easier to do than with Beta, but mechanically the 3/4” decks were just much more complicated and expensive to produce, so I can see why Sony held off until the tech made it possible to achieve with 1/2” tape. A 3/4” digital deck could have been delivered years sooner, but would have been hellishly expensive and the costs would have never come down much even as the electronics got cheaper because the mechanisms would have remained expensive and bulky. They were probably also worried about a digital, VHS-derived format stealing their thunder.

[@NJRoadfan]

My university's media department was using U-Matic SP until around 2000 or so when they finally went digital. I got a tour of their facilities and asked why they weren't using Betacam SP. Their only answer was "media services provides these tapes, so that is the format we use"

[@freeculture]

Well the "U" loading mechanism was still used by Sony for decades, even in their VHS deck they ironically made around 92... VHS loading is usually an "M" so that's where that silly name comes from, i think...

[@justapeasant8949]

@@freeculture That's true. Unlike Sony, JVC didn't mind deviations from their original VHS patent. There were all sorts of loading mechanisms variants on VHS devices. As for Sony, in their mind the Betamax (not referring to their U-Matic) was perfect by the virtue of being THEIR design, therefore (Sony) didn't allowed any sort of engineering freedom for third party manufacturers of it's PERFECT design when it came to Betamax's tape transport. Sony was, and still is a weirdo company when it comes to these sort of things*. *Control freaks😠

[@king_plasma]

6:36 The format launched with a maximum recording time of 60 minutes (that's one hour for those of you who speak Metric). THAT JOKE IS TOO GOOD DARN IT, I was rolling on the floor.

[@MobileTech296]

The screen shake as you plopped those behemoth units on the table was hilarious. 😂 Also, a lot of people (myself included) used the VHS EP option almost exclusively to record TV back in the day because, as you said, it gave the most bang for our buck. On our terrible mid-80s TV with terrible resolution I never really noticed a difference.

[@lillydogpoo65]

Long time viewer, first time caller. Great job breaking it down AND keeping my attention...oh and cool jacket my man! Keep the content coming😎

[@jadney]

You asked about the time offset from the Betacam offset heads: It's really a non-issue once you think about it, because the offset that's put in when recording is automatically undone by the same offset during playback. This is simply due to the fact that the same heads are used for both record and playback. I'm assuming that Sony was careful to make the positional offset between the heads the same on all their heads, so tracks recorded on one machine would play back correctly on any other Betacam machine. Hope that's clear. Thanks for an informative video. I'd always wondered what Betacam was all about, and never knew that it started out using the same Betamax cassette. BTW, loved the TOS Star Trek clips.

[@HitoPrl]

Exactly what I thought, the two signals are recorded with an offset and later read back with the exact same offset.

[@bmcquillan]

Further, I think that the issue of the heads being separated is compensated for by having the following head offset slightly higher so that it hits the edge of the tape at the same time as the leading head in the helical scan.

[@photostrand]

Professional Video Engineer here. I loved this video. Amazing content. I learned on Betacam decks. They were amazing. And they were used well into the 2000s. To answer the question about the offset heads, I'm pretty sure, if I remember right, that the Chroma and luma heads being offset in the record didn't matter because they were also offset in playback. So the Chroma is still reading simultaneously to the luma at the same spot where it was written. I don't think that there was color information being recorded in the blanking interval. That doesn't jive with my understanding of how analog video worked. A few more things: We just called this stuff "Beta" and left out the Cam part in the professional space. We all knew it was Betacam, not Betamax. And we called the tapes "Beta 90" and "Beta 30" The original Betacam only died because the tsunami in Japan wiped out the factory that made the tapes. I remember this happening. Suddenly no one could get any tapes and they were selling for thousands of dollars on eBay because everyone was desperate for them. Then Sony announced they would not rebuild the factory because it was a dying format and not worth it. And overnight the entire professional video industry was forced to finally let go of our beloved Betacam for good. Another thing to note: the Chroma channel is derived from a 4:2:2 sub sample in component video. So it essentially has half the information as the luma channel. That's why you only needed one head to record it. You were recording half the information. And for tape size, the Beta 30 tapes being smaller was absolutely essential. When doing eng work and putting the tape into a shoulder mounted camera, this smaller tape was a god send. And in a television studio, where you may be storing hundreds of half hour TV shows, the smaller 30 min tapes were ideal for lowering storage. We used to have pallets of tapes in the professional space. If you only needed 30 min for your sitcom, having a smaller tape for it was much much better than storing even VHS sized cassettes. And finally, if you see this comment, I have some Beta Decks that still work and have the jog wheels. It was great to see how much you loved the satisfying feeling of operating a professional beta deck. You should try it with the jog wheel! It's a joy. I will gladly loan you one to play around with.

[@Ericisnotachannel]

My favorite part of this one is all the callbacks to videos I've already seen. Excellent work as usual.

[@jeremypilot1015]

I went to college in 1995 for radio and television production and broadcasting. These were the exact machines we used and they were so much fun to use the shuttle jog to move forward and back in the video you could scrub through to the scene to the very frame you needed to edit and splice in another track and back seamlessly.

[@otama]

I love watching objectively pointless, but educational videos! Keep on going :D

[@JoeyRiz]

Even into the mid 2000s HBO in NYC used betacam. My cousin worked there before I got into the industry and actually had the job of digitizing many of HBOs betacam tapes. Fun time checking out all the crazy gear they had.

[@nnnnnn3647]

I stopped sends tapes with my productions to TV around 2016.

[@LukanSpellweaver]

I really do just love this channel. I cannot wait to see how festive holiday lights piss you off this year

[@StompboxBreakdown]

Outstanding video. I couldn’t believe the size of the boards and sheer amount of potentiometers in the Betacam board. One of your best videos, learned a lot I didn’t consider.

[@aceoft3482]

I spent a lot of time with those decks in an edit bay preparing for the morning news between 1am-3am in the early 2000’s. The edit controller that we used to control two at once was next level. We would play those decks like instruments. We also had a giant automated machine made by Odetics that would keep four of those decks loaded up full of commercials for master control. I had always been into recording equipment previously, and getting to go work in broadcast was a dream come true at the time. So many cool toys and smart engineers. I left just as everything was converting to digital.

[@timdowning3600]

wow, so I'm picturing one of those robotic tape libraries for server data backups. then I start thinking about the synchronization needed. I have edited both 3/4 inch and betacam SP, and IIRC Betacam SP had to roll the tape back 3 seconds, then start playing. (I saw the technician working on one of them and it took three seconds to go from where the drum was just barely skimming the tape, (to prevent wear on the tape while giving you a freeze frame, to having the tape fully wrapped around the drum.) The complexity of having all those tapes perefectly cueued, (Probably used timecode, or a single frame signal) starting them rolling exactly three seconds before cutting to that deck, then rewinding back to cue, must have been a sight to behold.

[@Techtronos]

Used a whole WALL of those back in the day when i was recording at the studio. Good times.

[@Techtronos]

@@timdowning3600 5 sec preroll happens on edits, so the decks have enough time to synchronize properly. There is also preview feature so you can preview cuts before actually recording anything. Play function works as youd expect, like on any other vtr. Betacam decks also have advanced head controls so you can fast forward or play backwards without ruining image.

[@Jadeschannel255]

Ok

[@horizontalblanking]

This takes me back… in the late 80s I worked at a video duplication facility. We didn’t handle Betamax (it was already dead) but did everything else: 3/4”, Betacam, 1” type C, and even occasionally 2” Quad and 1/2” EIAJ! I labeled all the VHS tapes that came out of duplication, boxed them up and shipped them out. Years later I became a producer for the video production side of the company. Good times.

[@NinerowCenter]

I like your videos about old video and audio formats. They always steal my attention

[@usvalve]

20:57 The diagram of helical scanning shows tracks more like Quadruplex! Helical tracks travel from one edge of the tape to the other in about half the circumference of the drum, so the angle is very shallow with a great overlap.

[@mdickinson]

love the captioning. "And for the perfect example of such shenanigans, we need look no further [WHUMP] than this."

[@claysweetser4106]

Don't forget the "This much groovier piece of kit [THOMP] is a Sony SL-5400"! 😂

[@erinfinn2273]

​@@claysweetser4106 So THAT'S what Marty McFly was talking about when he said "heavy"!

[@agranero6]

In Brazil Beta was very uncommon, but here in São Paulo (the biggest city) at the then economic center on Paulista Avenue there was one rental Store that only had beta. It took me a time to realize why: many movies were Japanese: Japan Consulate was on the same building or very near I can't remember. I deduced that Japanese movies were common in Beta.

[@lesterawilson3]

27:58 - "Because Betacam uses compressed time division multiplexing, *silly*!" LOL!

[@lesterawilson3]

Of course any old school phone guy knows that TDM allows you to get 24 phone lines (or 23 B channels + control D channel) on 2 pairs of wire - AKA a T1 circuit.

[@PierreMarcGiroux]

As always, it's a true pleasure to hear you tell me about things I didn't know I would find interesting.

[@birdbrain4445]

It's amazing how pervasive that myth about adult content is; I've seen it crop up multiple times even in techy circles, even in circles that generally know about their tech history. I ofc know better (your videos on the topic being a reason why, though I had familiarity with it before then) and I knew Betacam was a separate thing already - but I didn't know too much about it until now. Excellent video as ever, love the snark. That Betacam VCR is an absolute monster, I love it. The quality of footage it records made my jaw drop - I don't know why, it is indeed broadcast quality - but that night and day comparison with Betamax is insane. It really looks incredible for analogue video tape.

[@silent5950]

My mother worked in news production and directing through the late 90s and even she thought it was true!

[@Pauldjreadman]

If you want better quality? get a date?lol

[@gymnasiast90]

What’s interesting about this myth is that in The Netherlands, the myth is instead told about Video 2000 - the third format, created by Philipsm that barely anyone outside The Netherlands has heard about. Like with Betamax, it is unfounded.

[@Pauldjreadman]

@@gymnasiast90 Oh yeah that. I think Technoan did a video on that.

[@birdbrain4445]

@@gymnasiast90 That's really interesting. I only know about Video 2000 because of the old format war retrospective Alec did, talking about how it was from a North American perspective and so wouldn't cover that. I live in the UK and I don't know exactly how the war went down here but I think it was just VHS vs. Beta here mainly - and I think VHS even more thoroughly crushed it here. And yeah no doubt for the exactly same reasons - Philips had no say on what content was distributed on the format - it isn't true.

[@Wh0isTh3D0ct0r]

27:31 Okay, that deadpan pronunciation of "YPbPr" actually did make me laugh out loud. Well done, sir.

[@simonbyrd6518]

Seeing the Betacam deck play audio at high speed reminded me I once had a job in the 90s involving scanning VHS tapes of local news and they had a rare machine that could do the 2X pitch correction thing, which saved me lots of time, kinda making me a superstar above the other employees.

[@byersbw]

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!!!

[@themune2541]

26:52 "The quick brown fox jumps over the lorem ipsum" I'm stealing that for my next T-shirt print lol.

[@falsogangster]

That's a nice Betacam unit, it was heavily used in broadcast studios and professional video editing. FYI the hours meter data shown has to be multiplied X10 in order to see the real time in hours. You can also connect it to your monitor through the composite video out labelled as "Super" (Superimpose), that will display extended information from the menus :)

[@AdamvanAlderwerelt]

I'm a video engineer and actually learned a lot from this video. I only got into the industry 8 years ago, and I work in live events, so by the time I started, we were already all-in on Flash drives and hard drives for media storage, though we still use BNC and XLR connectors every day for our equipment. Thanks for making this video!

[@Zenkai76]

thinking about the time I was a kid and my parents renting VCRs in a store that carried Beta and VHS it's fascinating to see the history of it all. I was always told BETA had a better picture because it had a wider tape but never once used a Beta machine, renting one wasn't an option in my town and I never knew anyone who owned one. I do remember my parents buying our first used VCR that was RCA with the big popup cabinet, and remember being disappointed that I couldn't play any of my friends HBO recorded tapes because they recorded in EP when the VCR we had only did SP and LP. It was a big lesson to learn when I was 12.

[@Bukki13]

0:50 knowing alec, there’s a 50/50 chance that shake is edited in