In our glorious age of streaming services, we never need to worry about recording anything ourselves - we just click “Continue Watching” and chill. But in the sad, not-too-distant past, you couldn’t always just open up Netflix and binge all nine seasons of Suits whenever you felt like it. Instead, if you missed your favorite soap, tough noogies. That is, that was the way things were until the magical VCR entered the American household. Out of the house? No problem! Just pop in a cassette and you’re golden. The only problem was that two companies wanted the glory of becoming the standard format on which people would record their shows - and neither was going down without a fight. 

Daniel teaches Rob and Ray about the infamous format war between Sony’s Betamax systems and tapes, and JVC’s competitor, the VHS; how the history of recorded and broadcast video on recorded tape media took some strange twist and turns involving World War II and Bing Crosby; Rob’s and Ray’s favorite streaming services; the legal challenges Sony faced from studios terrified that home recording would be the death knell of movie distribution; and why home recorded media is no longer something consumers really seem to want or even have access to.

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TEAM

Ray Hebel

Robert W. Schneider

Mark Schroeder

Billy Recce

Daniel Schwartzberg

Natalie DeSavia

SOURCESPodcasts

Everything 80s Podcast 

Everything Everywhere Daily

Tech Stuff

Articles

Betamax vs VHS: The Story of the First Format War | by Jamie Logie | The Startup | Medium

Videotape format war - Wikipedia

Betamax vs VHS: The Differences & History | Legacybox

The Difference Between VHS and Betamax Tapes and How VHS Became the Household Tape – Capture

Sony History Chapter 2: Sony Goes to Battle for Its Favorite Child

The Real Reason Betamax Failed Spectacularly - History-Computer

Tales In Tech History: The Betamax Revolution

EPISODE CLIPS

The Bing Crosby Show (1954) “Bing’s Debut on TV”

Sony Promotional Video for First Betamax (1975)

Panasonic and JVC VHS VCR Commercial (1978)

JVC Vidstar Commercial (1979)

Comparing Beta & VHS on Quality: Was Beta Really Better?

Super Bowl XII Highlights (Steelers vs. Cowboys)

Top Gun VHS with Diet Pepsi Ad

JVC HR7100 VCR Ad (1983)

Sony Betamax Einstein Ad (1980)

First Betamax Salesman Training Video (1977)

ADDITIONAL MUSIC & SOUND EFFECTS

“This Was A Thing” Theme Songs composed by Billy Recce

"Happy Bee,” “Special Spotlight,” and “Night in Venice”

• Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

• Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Additional Sound Effects from Final Cut Pro, iLife, and Logic Pro