50 years of video recorders: Sony's Betamax as a successful failure In 1975, Sony launched the first video recorders for the home. This was followed by the great format war with VHS, which Sony ...

Betamax, the video tape format that for decades held on as a niche product, is finally being laid to rest. DVD kills the video star. ... Sony's Betamax video tape recorder, ...

Sony announced last year that it would stop selling Betamax video cassettes, a rival to the VHS, after stopping production of its recorders in 2002. Beta-format VCRs were required to play or ...

Betamax sales hit their peak in 1984, when 2.3 million recorders were sold, the Associated Press reported. But its rivals already were dominating the market, and by 1988 Sony effectively conceded ...

According to the company, over 18 million Betamax video tape recorders have been sold world-wide since 1975. At the height of its popularity in 1984, approximately 50 million Betamax cassettes ...

WASHINGTON — Long before Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV and Amazon Prime, and long before DVD players (do you still have one?), there was videotape.

The original Sony Betamax video recorder for the NTSC television system could record for only sixty minutes. Meanwhile, JVC’s VHS could manage a hundred twenty minutes, ...

In 1975, Sony launched the first video recorders for the home. This was followed by the great format war with VHS, which Sony only partially lost.

Betamax was introduced by Sony on April 16, 1975, with the SL-6300 video cassette recorder (VCR) deck and the LV-1801, a television/VCR combination unit that incorporated the SL-6300 and an 18 ...

It may surprise you to learn that Japanese companies are still making video cassette recorders, but this fact won’t remain useful for too long — manufacturing will cease at the end of the month.

Some of the recordable DVDs on sale now from around 700 upwards may not survive the battle for market supremacy. DVD recorder prices are also expected to plummet next year. Rival manufacturers ...

Betamax, the videocassette tape recording format introduced in the 1970's, rose to a peak in the early 1980's, where it controlled a third of the UK video recorder market.