It's VHS vs. Beta Again! And this time, it's about the cassettes
Happy No Effort November!
I have a little thing about Beta and VHS that I've had bouncing around in my brain for a while. And now, it's a video! I went a little overboard getting B-roll for this, so much for "no effort", but I can say that the script was very much a no-brainer. As in, my brain didn't work too hard. Just more Beta-bashing. I can't help it, it's fun!
Captions (and a thumbnail) will be coming soonish!
Comments (25)
Yeah the HD-DVD joke made me subscribe as a Patron as well. Been watching you for a long time but I just couldn't hold out anymore. You're doing fantastic work here!
Love dthis video, thank you! haha very funny lead in with the tape length you had me going for a while
This episode finally got me to sign up for a pateron account, and I don't even have a Netflix account. Keep it up!
My wife listens to these videos in the background while I watch them at dinner. :) A couple of times, they've really gotten her attention (she really loved the videos about the People Mover). She grew up in the VHS generation and asks if you'd consider making videos about the following: (1) Explain the mystery of how you're able to record a TV program or movie off of TV onto your VHS tape, and how it's possible to re-record over the same tape multiple times - how many times can you do this before the tape wears out? (2) Review a dual VHS/DVD player-recorder and how you could record from one format to the other. (Why would anyone record a VHS tape from a DVD?) She's been bugging me for a while to ask this, and I finally did. :) It's her birthday later this month so this could be an awesome birthday present! :)
You killed in this one. Thanks for making me laugh while I learn. And for the reminder about how much a format war from the 80s affects our lives today (not at all)
So glad you decided to leave the betamax machine clock flashing 12:00
Should we contact the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Magnetic Media? :P
Just imagine the dropouts when trying to splice those back together! :-)
I love that you used a Sony VHS machine, to make a point? 😃
This video was just packed with awesome jokes. Like it was all the stuff you needed to get out but might be a bit too much for a lot of people.
This feels like a great spoof of “no effort” that actually took a whole bunch of effort to produce! I loved it, but I’m not sure if it meets the original goal of “lower effort” videos for a busy month :-) Ewen
No, I'm not mad that Beta didn't win the format war. I'm mad Video2000 didn't win. It was the best format and that's a fact! ;) (But seriously, it really was...)
Not least of which the fidgetiness of the cassette. And the completely hole-less design with a slide down tape guard or whatever that thing is called.
That was great and fun. I love your "slide" B-rolls. Maybe worth showing on TC2 how you do them. I think I saw the sliding device laying in a corner of the room if a previous HQ video.
Highly entertaining as well as informative. My complements Sir!
😂 “touch”{es}
I loved the comedy in this video. We need more "less serious" videos like this one. And then, we need the most serious video you can make just to counteract it.
I appreciate the fact that you used a Sony VHS player. That bit of cruel irony probably still stings them to this day.
And to further the whimsical nature of this video your demonstrator machine for VHS was a Sony!
Oh man, I laughed out loud at the voiceover of the lengths of the tape. And it's "bay-ta" because that's the way Snake in The Simpsons said it when he was looting and stole a "bay-ta" machine by mistake. :-)
I deliberately used my laptop's built-in mic to make it just that extra bit of terrible ;)
I think one of the main reasons Sony decided to go with the metal tape detection instead of optical as in their previous U-Matic design is the simple fact that the light bulb in the early U-Matic machines was constantly burning out, not good when your machine shuts down while it is on the air.. I must have replaced 5,000 U-Matic bulbs over my career as a TV engineer. Later U-Matic machines used an LED as well.
Interesting fact! I would have presumed U-Matic to also use a foil leader. I actually have one U-Matic tape somewhere (with no way to play it, unfortunately)
So you get people telling you you’re pronouncing Beta wrong and it should be Beeta - whereas I get people telling me it should be Bayter. It’s almost like we’re from different counties or something.
How strange!