April 21, 2025 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, format wars are nothing new—Edison and Berliner battled it out over phonograph methods, and 8-tracks and cassettes clashed in the ’60s and 70s—but those battles took place away from the public eye. The fight between VHS and Betamax played out in living rooms across America. Here to tell the story of how VHS came out victorious is Bill “Engineer Guy” Hammack.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. That's our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorite Over the years, there have
been many format and console wars, including Nintendo versus Sega,
(00:34):
PlayStation versus Xbox, Apple versus Android, but there was one
full fledged format war that ruled them all years before.
We had to decide between streaming the latest video or
taking it home on DVD or Blu Ray, a format
war between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS. Again. The battle
(00:57):
lasted for more than a decade, with neither Betamax nor
VHS giving up. Bill Hammick is a professor of chemical
and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois. He is
known as the Engineer Guy as the creator and host
of his popular YouTube channel explaining the engineering of everyday objects.
(01:19):
In nineteen seventy six, Sony introduced the Betamax video cassette recorder.
It catalyzed the on demand of today by allowing users
to record TV shows and The machine ignited the first
new media intellectual property battle. In only a decade, this
revolutionary machine disappeared beaten by JVC's VHS cassette recorder. Here's
(01:44):
bill engineer Guy Hammick telling the story of how Betamax
was defeated by the VHS tape.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
This mighty machine sparked a revolution in our use of media.
It's a Sony Betamax video cassette recorder from nineteen seventy nine.
This monster weighs about thirty six pounds. The engineer refinds
it fascinating. There's nothing digital. It's a truly analog machine,
all moving pieces and parts.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
You're obviously a man who was having dravels at home.
You're constantly fighting with your family over what TV shows
to watch. Well, fortunately you're looking at a simple solution
to your problems. Sony Betamax.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Early adopters of the Beta Max used it to record
television shows, a revolutionary concept of the time because prior
to the Beta Max, you had to watch a show
when it was broadcast. It threatened the entertainment industry so
much that in nineteen seventy nine they argued that recording
television shows at home infringed on their copyright. It all
came to a head in a Supreme Court case Sony
(02:47):
Corporation of America versus Universal City Studios, where five justices
allowed home recording.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Sony Betamax.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Its only purpose is to serve you.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Although Sony won this court battle, they ultimately lost out
to a machine that used this size tape. This is
a VHS recorder made by Sony's great rival, JVC. Both
machines solve the same problem, how to store information compactly
on a tape. Here's the brilliant innovation used by both machines.
The machine grabs the tape drags it forward as this
(03:25):
silver drum starts to spin rapidly. The drum has two
electromagnets called heads arranged on opposite sides of the drum
that read the magnetic information on the tape. That rotating
head allowed for a compact recorder. In many previous recorders,
the magnetic heads didn't move, only the tape because there
was a limit to how fast the tape could move.
It took a lot of tape, about a seven inch
(03:45):
reel to record an hour, which meant that a movie
would need two seven inch reels inside a cassette. So
the rotating heads dramatically reduced the amount of tape needed,
reducing the size to where it could be easily held
in a cassette. So if the machines are so similar,
why did Beta Max lose to JVC. Many thought the
Betamax machine would win. It had the better image quality,
(04:08):
and the Beta Max is decidedly better built. Compare ejecting
a tape on the Betamax to the VHS. First watch
the Beta Max, Note how smooth it is, and then
watch the VHS. That's abrupt and we'll wear out the mechanism. Yet,
to my engineer's eye, the VHS was the better solution. First,
(04:30):
the VHS was lighter than the Betamax, twenty nine and
a half pounds compared to thirty six pounds for this
Beta Max machine. That's a huge difference for a mass
manufactured object. It impacts everything from material costs to assembly
time to shipping costs. So at the low end of
the market, the VHS machines were cheaper than Sony's Betamax. Second,
the earliest Betamax tapes played for only one hour. VHS
(04:53):
played for two hours, enough time for a movie.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Mary, You'll scare the fish were missing the big football.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, my VHS home video recorder is taping it right now.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Terrific.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Wa terrific.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I suppose it's over three hours?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
What Panasonic VHS takes.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Up to four hours of sports movie specials on one cassette?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Bob VHS for me, Oh gay, best catch of the day. Yeah,
VHS the four hour system from Panasonic and other leading companies.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
The ultimate killer, though, was the rental market. Well. Beta
Max focused its ads and energies on time shifting. Their
ads featured headlines like watch whatever whenever. Well JBC, the
maker of the VHS system, created relationships with the nascent
video rental industry. When this market grew, VHS dominated in titles,
and you could for a while find both formats. Eventually
(05:47):
retailers began giving shelf space to the slightly more dominant brand,
which then dominated even more so. The Betamax versus VHS
dispels the notion that simply being first to market is
the most important issue. It reminds us that technical excellence
in one area isn't enough. Here the superior picture quality
of Beta Max. But did all technical aspects matter for
(06:10):
any mass manufactured object? The winner is usually the one
that is just good enough. I'm Bill Hammick, the Engineer.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Guy, and that is so true. Just good enough often
does it. And what a terrific story, and all of
us who are old enough to remember these days, my goodness,
just the simple idea that you could tape a show
and watch it later. For anyone under the age of
thirty five, this is nonsense to you. You can't even
imagine a world where you know, don't get to watch
(06:38):
what you want, where you want and when you want.
But back in the day there were three channels, three ABC,
NBC and CBS, and there was a PBS station and
if you held the rabbit ears up to the satellite
you could maybe get a little better picture. And it
all turned off at the end of the night with
the national anthem, and then it was just a gray screen.
(06:59):
Hard to imagine. And what progress in this great country
is or relates to content and the tremendous amount of
creativity that's been unleashed by technology for artists. The story
the battle of Betamax versus VHS and VHS the good
Enough winner and very special thanks to Bill Hemmick aka
(07:21):
Engineer Guy, for sharing this story. With us here on
our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
If you love the great American stories we tell and
love America like we do, we're asking you to become
a part of the Our American Stories family. If you
agree that America is a good and great country, please
make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and
seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.
Go to Our American Stories dot com now and go
(07:52):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American stories coming. That's our Americanstories dot com.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
from the arts to sports, and from business to history
and everything in between, including your story. Send them to
our American Stories dot com. That's our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorite Over the years, there have
been many format and console wars, including Nintendo versus Sega,
(00:34):
PlayStation versus Xbox, Apple versus Android, but there was one
full fledged format war that ruled them all years before.
We had to decide between streaming the latest video or
taking it home on DVD or Blu Ray, a format
war between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS. Again. The battle
(00:57):
lasted for more than a decade, with neither Betamax nor
VHS giving up. Bill Hammick is a professor of chemical
and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois. He is
known as the Engineer Guy as the creator and host
of his popular YouTube channel explaining the engineering of everyday objects.
(01:19):
In nineteen seventy six, Sony introduced the Betamax video cassette recorder.
It catalyzed the on demand of today by allowing users
to record TV shows and The machine ignited the first
new media intellectual property battle. In only a decade, this
revolutionary machine disappeared beaten by JVC's VHS cassette recorder. Here's
(01:44):
bill engineer Guy Hammick telling the story of how Betamax
was defeated by the VHS tape.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
This mighty machine sparked a revolution in our use of media.
It's a Sony Betamax video cassette recorder from nineteen seventy nine.
This monster weighs about thirty six pounds. The engineer refinds
it fascinating. There's nothing digital. It's a truly analog machine,
all moving pieces and parts.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
You're obviously a man who was having dravels at home.
You're constantly fighting with your family over what TV shows
to watch. Well, fortunately you're looking at a simple solution
to your problems. Sony Betamax.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Early adopters of the Beta Max used it to record
television shows, a revolutionary concept of the time because prior
to the Beta Max, you had to watch a show
when it was broadcast. It threatened the entertainment industry so
much that in nineteen seventy nine they argued that recording
television shows at home infringed on their copyright. It all
came to a head in a Supreme Court case Sony
(02:47):
Corporation of America versus Universal City Studios, where five justices
allowed home recording.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Sony Betamax.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Its only purpose is to serve you.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Although Sony won this court battle, they ultimately lost out
to a machine that used this size tape. This is
a VHS recorder made by Sony's great rival, JVC. Both
machines solve the same problem, how to store information compactly
on a tape. Here's the brilliant innovation used by both machines.
The machine grabs the tape drags it forward as this
(03:25):
silver drum starts to spin rapidly. The drum has two
electromagnets called heads arranged on opposite sides of the drum
that read the magnetic information on the tape. That rotating
head allowed for a compact recorder. In many previous recorders,
the magnetic heads didn't move, only the tape because there
was a limit to how fast the tape could move.
It took a lot of tape, about a seven inch
(03:45):
reel to record an hour, which meant that a movie
would need two seven inch reels inside a cassette. So
the rotating heads dramatically reduced the amount of tape needed,
reducing the size to where it could be easily held
in a cassette. So if the machines are so similar,
why did Beta Max lose to JVC. Many thought the
Betamax machine would win. It had the better image quality,
(04:08):
and the Beta Max is decidedly better built. Compare ejecting
a tape on the Betamax to the VHS. First watch
the Beta Max, Note how smooth it is, and then
watch the VHS. That's abrupt and we'll wear out the mechanism. Yet,
to my engineer's eye, the VHS was the better solution. First,
(04:30):
the VHS was lighter than the Betamax, twenty nine and
a half pounds compared to thirty six pounds for this
Beta Max machine. That's a huge difference for a mass
manufactured object. It impacts everything from material costs to assembly
time to shipping costs. So at the low end of
the market, the VHS machines were cheaper than Sony's Betamax. Second,
the earliest Betamax tapes played for only one hour. VHS
(04:53):
played for two hours, enough time for a movie.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Mary, You'll scare the fish were missing the big football.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, my VHS home video recorder is taping it right now.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Terrific.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Wa terrific.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I suppose it's over three hours?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
What Panasonic VHS takes.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Up to four hours of sports movie specials on one cassette?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Bob VHS for me, Oh gay, best catch of the day. Yeah,
VHS the four hour system from Panasonic and other leading companies.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
The ultimate killer, though, was the rental market. Well. Beta
Max focused its ads and energies on time shifting. Their
ads featured headlines like watch whatever whenever. Well JBC, the
maker of the VHS system, created relationships with the nascent
video rental industry. When this market grew, VHS dominated in titles,
and you could for a while find both formats. Eventually
(05:47):
retailers began giving shelf space to the slightly more dominant brand,
which then dominated even more so. The Betamax versus VHS
dispels the notion that simply being first to market is
the most important issue. It reminds us that technical excellence
in one area isn't enough. Here the superior picture quality
of Beta Max. But did all technical aspects matter for
(06:10):
any mass manufactured object? The winner is usually the one
that is just good enough. I'm Bill Hammick, the Engineer.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Guy, and that is so true. Just good enough often
does it. And what a terrific story, and all of
us who are old enough to remember these days, my goodness,
just the simple idea that you could tape a show
and watch it later. For anyone under the age of
thirty five, this is nonsense to you. You can't even
imagine a world where you know, don't get to watch
(06:38):
what you want, where you want and when you want.
But back in the day there were three channels, three ABC,
NBC and CBS, and there was a PBS station and
if you held the rabbit ears up to the satellite
you could maybe get a little better picture. And it
all turned off at the end of the night with
the national anthem, and then it was just a gray screen.
(06:59):
Hard to imagine. And what progress in this great country
is or relates to content and the tremendous amount of
creativity that's been unleashed by technology for artists. The story
the battle of Betamax versus VHS and VHS the good
Enough winner and very special thanks to Bill Hemmick aka
(07:21):
Engineer Guy, for sharing this story. With us here on
our American Stories.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Folks.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
If you love the great American stories we tell and
love America like we do, we're asking you to become
a part of the Our American Stories family. If you
agree that America is a good and great country, please
make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and
seventy six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters.
Go to Our American Stories dot com now and go
(07:52):
to the donate button and help us keep the great
American stories coming. That's our Americanstories dot com.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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