BETAMAX VIDEO

stone roses

hi do you remember the betamax video
and what was the film you watched?

it was massive and its top loader cassette

i remember seeing e.t on it, we all got sweets and coke and sat in beside the fire to watch our first ever betamax video early 80s as i recall! :-)

mike65

Only ever saw Betamax in school, VHS at home. Rare Sony misjudgment.

steveone

we had a ferguson toploader. cost about a million pounds at the time.

Musha

Betamax were a smaller version of the VHS tape, Better quality and preferred version used in the US so not so much the bad choice for Sony. I worked in a Video Shop:o for most of the '80 while I was in school and we carried both until they began to phase them out. First Christmas we were open people would have hired out the empty boxes

steveone

Musha wrote: »

Betamax were a smaller version of the VHS tape, Better quality and preferred version used in the US so not so much the bad choice for Sony. I worked in a Video Shop:o for most of the '80 while I was in school and we carried both until they began to phase them out. First Christmas we were open people would have hired out the empty boxes

You've just reminded me-- you could actually go to the video shop and hire out a video player! I remember getting conan the barbarian from the shop in northside sc.

Antenna

Musha wrote: »

preferred version used in the US so not so much the bad choice for Sony

Betamax was overtaken by VHS in the US, just as it was here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax

Dudess

steveone wrote: »

we had a ferguson toploader. cost about a million pounds at the time.

They were reputed to be bloody expensive all right - wasn't it about a grand or something for a unit?

steveone wrote: »

You've just reminded me-- you could actually go to the video shop and hire out a video player! I remember getting conan the barbarian from the shop in northside sc.

Yeah, makes sense considering how expensive they were to buy. And there wasn't much money around. My uncle had a video recorder and he used to lend it to us for various intervals during the summer and Christmas holidays. Oh my god, the excitement! It was a massive clunky thing - that very '80s dull silver. And the top-loading thing took so, so long to rise. Really primitive looking back - but it felt fairly "space age" at the time. :pac:
The earliest movie I remember watching on it was Never Ending Story - it was in the cinema in 1984 (went to that too) so was probably out on video in about 1986.

steveone

I think our ferguson had a faux wood effect strip on it.. talk about silver...
and the tracking was always off on the damn thing, It would only work with movies from Orion. Remember them? when the ads were running on the tape and the Orion logo appeared you knew you were in for a good movie....
the rental video players used to come in a shoulder bag...

steveone

and that other land. whatsisname King- "whenever you rent, or buy a video......." wasn't he charged with doing bad things??