CHAPTER ONE

     It's all my wife's fault. Back in 1975 she arranged the adoption of our first Betamax. It was an early Christmas gift for me and of course it was a SL-7200A. It was big, it was heavy and It was expensive. I sat it squarely on top of our twenty-five inch console TV and it covered almost every square inch of the surface. How did she come to know I was interested in video recording? She had been with me on several occasions when I had looked at open reel video recorders and we had discussed the possibility of home video several years prior to Betamax. But for the whole story let's go back a few years prior to 1975 and I'll lay a little ground work that will shed some light on why a lady would spend over a thousand dollars, in 70's money, on such a new and barely known technology as Betamax.
     I was fortunate that my dad had a television repair business. When I was a kid TV was still pretty new and I would often go with him on his service calls. I would watch as he took the back off the televisions and removed the tubes and checked them, so I never developed a fear of what went on inside (except for that high voltage section he told me to watch out for). I would spend time with him at his shop and if I was lucky, even helped out a little. I was about ten so I doubt he benefited much from my services but I certainly got a lot out of it. I developed a craving to learn about all the technical mysteries in life, which included electronics. I watched as my dad built kits from Heathkit for the various types of test equipment he needed. (Heathkit was a company that offered electronic gear and home electronics items as parts, by following the included instruction manual you would assemble it yourself.) My first kit building experience was an AM radio he bought me, which didn't work on the first try because I had made several "cold" solder joints. (Wires I had solered that looked alright but didn't get hot enough to make a goog connetion.) Dad checked everything out and showed me where I had made my mistakes. I corrected them and it worked. Nothing inspires a kid more than putting something together and having it come to life. Over the next few years I put together more kits, because now my dad was letting me build all his test equipment. Even though those early kits told you every step to make I was still able to pick up some knowledge along the way and a lot of confidence. It instilled in me that "I can do" feeling, and I was getting pretty good. When I went into high school I went right for the sciences, math and the technical stuff. I also got into cars, drag racing and girls. It was the sixties, man...and life was good for a teenager. About midway into my junior year I met my wife to be. Just over five feet tall and everything a young man could ever hope for.
     After graduation my first job was on a production line building cars. It was a great job and the fascination of seeing automobiles come together was just the thing for the sixties, when fast cars, drive-ins and car hops were the thing. The down side was that it was in a city too far away from my future wife. I stuck with it for a year until she graduated from high school and then I move back to my home town to became a married man.
     I took a job as a laboratory assistant at a research facility but their grant ran out so next I ran a photographic lab. A local radio station ran an ad soliciting anyone interested in becoming a radio announcer to send in a test recording for evaluation. I thought that sounded cool and I had the recording equipment (as you might expect) so on a whim I sent them a tape of me playing records and reading news copy. So began my career as a radio announcer. Oh I didn't start at the station that ran the ad because it was in a major market and I was too green. I did find employment at a smaller station nearby and worked there for about a year. I sent out numerous demo tapes to other stations and landed a position at the top rocker (slang for top-40 pop station) in a nearby major city. It meant that the wife and I would have to move, but we were young and willing to try anything. I spent the next six years as the top nighttime DJ in that market. I loved it! It was the time of the Beatles, Elvis, Woodstock, and two little additions to my family. Unfortunately, it was also the era of the Vietnam war. I was one of the very fortunate "Kennedy married's" and was never called to go to war, something I never regretted. I do, however, have a great respect for those that went because it was a thankless, bitter conflict that didn't come to a happy conclusion. Many of my friends went and I made it a point to tell them after they came back how meaningful their sacrifice was to me and our nation. Towards the end of my DJ days it became apparent to me that to move up in the radio business would require me to migrate from market to market, something I was less willing to do now that I was a father of a wonderful little girl. So I tried my hand at selling radio advertising rather than playing it. This would begin the next and longest period of my life, more on that later. What happened to my interest in electronics during this time? It was still there and it tied in well with the radio business. I studied for my first class radio telephone license test but only took and passed the first of the three part examine. I built a Heathkit color television that worked wonderful and was great fun. Can you believe color TV was new back then?
     It was during my early disk jockey years and around the time I built the television that I became interested in the possibility of recording video off the air. The only devices that could perform that feat back during this time period were large and made exclusively for the broadcast industry. There were some smaller reel to reel machines but they only recorded an hour and of course only could handle a studio type input. That is, no tuner, nothing directly off the air. I was lucky in a way because our city was large enough to have a professional electronics store and I was able to talk with the technicians inside about the Sony broadcast VTRs that they were selling and servicing. I had purchased a small portable black and white Sony television before buying the Heathkit and was very impressed with it. (I reasoned that because it was a portable, it would still be useful later when I moved up to the twenty-five inch color console I was planning to build later.) So here were video recorders made by a name I recognized. But how could one get it to record signals off the air from a TV? The guys at the store didn't have an answer because they saw too many obstacles to overcome in the production of a consumer item. Such as maintaining proper video and audio signal levels or how to make it user friendly. Little did we know that it was all about to be taken care of.
     I was into it big time and I remember reading all the electronic equipment magazines and seeing that something was up, something was coming. A local appliance store ran an advertisement of a video recorder they had in their store. The wife and I rushed down to look at it. It was big and it was impractical. It also didn't catch on. It was one of the early failed formats. Next we looked at a Sanyo V-Cord but it only recorded in black and white, bummer. We heard about something with a small handy cassette like the Sanyo unit, but in color and it was by a name I already respected, Sony. Nobody had one to show, they were in short supply, we couldn't find one anywhere, and their cost was astronomical. My wife worked for a retail drug company at the time and a company called Graybar supplied their small appliances. She decided to ask their salesman the next time he came by if he could locate one. And they did, just one! He told her he would bring it with him on his next trip, even though he couldn't understand why or who would ever want to record television programs. Well....just almost everybody.

CHAPTER TWO

     My wife called me at work to tell me the rep was at her store and he had the Betamax with him. He didn't have a regular schedule for stopping by and was checking in to see if she still wanted it. He felt he was doing us a favor and giving us a chance to change our minds, since it was so expensive. I had done my homework and was satisfied it was what we wanted. We had already borrowed most of the money to pay for it so we were committed. I talked with him on the phone and made arrangements to stop by his motel that evening to pick it up. Time crawled by but finally I drove over and knocked on the door. He invited me in and showed me the unopened shipping carton sitting on the table. It was huge! He said it weighed a ton. I asked if he would mind if I examined it before completing the purchase. He agreed, saying he too was curious, so we opened the box and checked the interior contents together. Next we sat the carton on the floor, removed the Betamax and sat it on the table. He and I looked it over. It was still big, even out of the box. Upon examination everything seemed in order so I handed him the check. It was a large amount. We were lucky that buying through the company my wife worked for got us a discount off the $1495.00 suggested retail price. But even so, the draft was for $1250.00. Check this out, factoring in for inflation that 1975 money comes to a total of $4268.00 for 2003! I was now the proud owner of one of the first SL-7200 units sold in the USA. It came with one K-30 thirty minute tape. I asked if they had some more back at their warehouse and he said there were two K-60 tapes and they were mine at $12.95 each, if I wanted them. I said affirmative, bring them on his next trip. (That works out to $44.25 per unit in today's money folks.) We boxed it back up and the two of us carried it to the trunk of my car. Along the way he asked me "What are you planning to do with this thing?" I told him I wasn't sure but I felt it was going to change the way people watched television.
     When I got home that evening my wife was waiting and we packed the box into the house. She was anxious to find out about it so we took it out of the box and set it on top of the television. I got out the instruction manual and proceeded to set it up. It took about thirty minutes. When I popped in the K-30 and pressed record I had high hopes that it really would record a television picture. After about five minutes I stopped the tape, hit rewind, stop, then play, and waited. Three seconds went by and what we had just watched appeared on our TV screen! We were thrilled. We didn't know why exactly, but it was just so neat that we could record television. I pressed record again and sat down to further examine the owner's manual. It seemed that unattended recordings could be made by using a clock/timer. Sony offered a companion DT-30 that would do the job, so I put it on my want list. Recording off the air without having to be at home! It was so cool. It wasn't too long before I became curious. How did this thing manage to record video? So naturally I removed the top and examined the inside. It was marvelous back then to see the interesting and unique components that went into recording a picture. I took the bottom off and looked at all the electronics, the long belts, the various levers and the pulleys. Later I began reading about how it had been accomplished using spinning heads and conversion of the video signal. I had liked Sony televisions but this was something entirely new to me. I was very impressed.
     Next I purchased the two additional tapes plus the optional timer and was regularly recording programs to watch later. I was becoming an old hand at this video recording thing. But a situation was becoming apparent. I found that there were some programs that I wanted to keep for viewing at a much later date or maybe even keep indefinitely. I began looking for blank tapes. Suddenly I found a basic flaw with being the first to having this new technology. No tapes! I had bought the only ones Graybar had. No electronics stores, retail outlets or specialty shops had any! When I asked about them, they looked at me like I had three heads (and I don't). Even the big mail order electronics firms offered....zip. Finally, after several months the Hi-Fi and TV specialty store that I had frequented in the past said they were getting several Beta machines in and should also have some tapes as well. Great! In about two weeks I was able to purchase four K-60 tapes at the retail price of $16.95 each. (That $58.85 per in today's money if your keeping count.) It was at this time I was told that the tapes were in short supply and the store would have to give preferential treatment to the people who had bought machines from them. I understood their point of view but I wasn't happy. Here I was hooked on this video recording thing and couldn't find a supplier of tapes. I had run smack into Sony's first problem with the Beta format. The video tape supply shortage.
     I don't remember exactly how many months went by before I was able to buy tapes in any quantity. I remember scouring various sources and finding just a few here and there, buying up what I could. I won't admit to being hooked but I really enjoyed being able to set my own schedule, deciding what I watched and when. The machines were now selling well and demand was increasing, so before long the tape prices came down and supplies were starting to become available. Everything was going along smoothly then a local appliance store began advertising another format. What this? Competition for my beloved Beta? I went over and checked it out. It was the Sanyo model again except this was an upgraded version that would record up to two hours in color. It was called the V-Cord II and now I began to worry. Two hours, that's twice as long as my SL-7200. Was recording time going to be a major factor? Was my Beta going to be overtaken by this other format? Before long Sony announced they too were introducing a two speed model, the SL-8200. It also would record up to two hours. This was going to compete with the new Sanyo models, and yet another new format that was just being introduced. More formats and none were compatible with my Beta. I had confidence in the Sony brand but didn't care much for this added competition. This format stuff was just going to dilute the market and confuse buyers. The battle was on and little did I know this was just the tip of the iceberg. Other manufacturers were joining in, taking sides and fighting for their share of the market. The great format war was about to begin.

CHAPTER THREE

     The Great Time Machine it was called. Where had I heard that name before? Wasn't that the obscure format I had looked at before buying the SL-7200? The one from Quasar that didn't catch on due to mechanical problems and a bulky cassette design. Turned out it was the same company, but now with a different format and another bulky cassette design. It was able to record two and four hours. Quasar was the Matsushita Company, but the VCR was being sold as made by Panasonic. Nearly identical machines using the same format were also being advertised by RCA and JVC (also made for them by Matsushita). I was more than curious about these other formats because I had a sizable investment in my Beta. I felt it would be horrible should Sony loose out to some other format. In my continuing investigation I uncovered another failed format made in the early seventies called Cartrivision. It was American made, and way ahead of it's time because it was designed to be a movie rental system! I mention this because, little did I realize it then, how much the movie industry would later impact home video recording and not in a good way, at first (more on this later). Sony's reaction to this marketing attack from Matsushita was to round up several big Japanese manufacturers and pull them together under the Beta banner. They were major players too: NEC, Toshiba and Sanyo. They also all made units for some big name USA brands, Zenith, Marantz, Fischer, Pioneer, Sears, and Radio Shack. Through this alliance Sanyo and Toshiba dropped their V-Cord II format to compete head on with VHS. Sony also heavily promoted their solid commitment to Beta, advertising that it was here to stay and it would be the format of choice after all the dust settled. They fought back by releasing a longer tape, one that would record up to three hours in BII. The tape numbers were also changed. The K-30 became an L-250, now recording thirty minutes in BI or one hour in BII. The K-60 became the L-500 at one or two hours. The new ninety minute or three hour tape was called the L-750. A new slower recording speed which ran at half that of BII (called BIII) soon made the L-500 into three hours and L-750 into four and a half hours respectively. The numbering designations were different from the two and four hour recording times being used by the competition and not as easy to understand. VHS also introduced a slower speed called SLP or ELP to bump their maximum recording time to six hours. The more confusing numbering designations for Beta turned out to be an obstacle, one the Beta camp would eventually regret.
     I can look back at this early development of video recording now with the advantage of hindsight. It must have been very difficult then deciding how exactly to approach the public with the changes that were taking place, and at the same time maintain the high road of professionalism that Beta wanted to project. It would of been even more confusing to label the L-750 as the ninety minute or three hour cassette. Or call it the one and half hour or three hour cassette. But the lengths couldn't be made to come out nicely in easy to use time segments, due to cassette size, tape thickness and spool diameter restrictions. Beta had little choice but to label their tapes as they did. They were stuck between a rock and a hard spot by the constraints of their initial cassette design. All the while RCA was pounding home the message with mountains of adds that you can get more recording time using VHS than Beta. And to make matters even worse Sony and their new technology was about to be attacked by the television and motion picture industry.

CHAPTER FOUR

     One of the things video recording is good at is...recording. Primarily at this stage of the game this meant television programs, movies and other copyrighted stuff, and those industries didn't take it too kindly. They felt everybody would start bootlegging films, pirating television shows, taping sporting events; and the industry and the artists involved would lose great amounts of revenue on account of it. (Was this a possible contributing cause for the early demise of Cartrivision?) So now Sony was going to face a new challenge. In November of 1976 a joint lawsuit was filed by the Disney Company and Universal studios naming Sony as the sole defendant. Sony was accused of making equipment for stealing property owned by the studios. It was to the courts to decide if home video recording should be outlawed and the equipment for doing so be made illegal. It seems strange now, but this ended up going all the way to the supreme court (and was finally decided in January of 1984). While all this was going on everybody was cranking out VCRs and most of the movie studios began jumping on the huge movie rental bandwagon (Disney and Universal did hold off for a short while). Sony ultimately won the lawsuit and won us the right to video tape what we wanted (for our own use). But it was Sony, not Matsushita, or any of the other VHS manufacturers, or any of the tape duplication labs, or the tape rental companies that fought this battle. Sony alone. But they all ultimately ended up reaping great benefits from this landmark decision. I watched it all with great trepidation, but I was confident that the public would come out on top. While this was all going on VHS continued to gain market share on Beta and it was beginning to look like both formats were here to stay.

CHAPTER FIVE

     Shortly after the introduction of BIII Sony announced that there would be no more reductions in tape speed from the Beta camp. An L-830 cassette was introduced giving Beta five hours of recording time but this would be it. Sony was conceding to VHS the battle over recording time. What caused this decision was not video head size or the rigid tape quality requirements, but the tape travel speed. VHS was to acknowledge the same results with their format. The slower the tape traveled in the path the more tricky it became to hold tracking center, keep the picture stable and maintain a uniform speed. Plus the audio was getting terrible. VHS extra long play (the six hour mode) was only able to record about 220 lines and the picture was grainy, unstable and had questionable color reproduction. BIII was a little better with 240 lines and a sharper picture. Independent lab reports bore this out, that the slowest Beta speed did have a better recording curve than did VHS. But there was another side to these slow speeds that no one talked about, something ugly. The very negative effect of machine condition reactions and high maintenance. Both formats knew that as their units were being used they began to wear and would require periodic service. They were mechanical after all and factors like dirt, component wear and abuse would take their toll. It could become a big factor, especially at the slowest speed. As the formats racked up a number of hours the slow moving tape would begin to wander around in the tape path. Things that should have been perfectly flat would deform and let the tape drift out of align. Surfaces that should have let the tape slide evenly and smoothly over them began to cause it to drag making it difficult to pull over the components with the ease required. Both format manufacturers were well aware of these problems and aggressively made modifications to combat fatigue and tape path wear. It made for better machines but the slowest speeds always remained the casualty of the tape speeds war. Always a disappointment and never the choice for the quality conscious. But it didn't seem to matter to the general public. Cramming the most video onto a single tape was all that mattered. Sony did do something interesting in the late seventies and early eighties, a different approach to the recording time issue.
     I remember going over to a friends house and him showing me a device sitting on top of his SL-8200 that allowed more that one cassette to be recorded unattended in his machine. I was very interested and he informed me that Sony was offering these to the public for $75.00, all I had to do was call them and order one. I thought it was neat and when I got back home I called Sony. They said that they were test marketing the AG-120 and would appreciate my input. I said yes. In several days it arrived and I placed it on my SL-7200. In the box was a shipping receipt but there was no invoice. I called Sony and asked how was I to pay for it and was informed there was to be no charge, just try it out and let them know my thoughts about using a changer. It was bulky, awkward and didn't operate very reliably (this was due to it's flywheel drive operation). I called Sony back as promised and reported that the unit wasn't impressive from a mechanical standpoint but I like the idea of being able to stack more than one cassette in my machine for unattended recording. They were very grateful for my input, thanked me and said improved designs would be coming out in the near future.

CHAPTER SIX

     Beta continued to improve. Sony was adding features and beating up on VHS, and VHS was fighting back. In addition to the added speeds there were special effects such as still, scan and slow motion. I wanted one of the new improved machines so I shelled out a fortune for a SL-5400. Back during these days the only place to buy a video recorder was your specialty electronics stores. You couldn't go to Walmart, K-mart or Sears and pick one up, so you paid top dollar. (This quickly changed and before long you could buy machines with the store's brand name on them but they still weren't cheap.) I soon sold the SL-5400 to a friend and then went for the brass ring, the SL-5800. It had it all, BII and BIII, variable slow motion, still pause, fast play and variable scan in forward and reverse. And almost everything could be controlled from my easy chair with the remote. To add icing on the cake I placed a very nice AG-300 changer on top if it so I could record up to twenty hours if I wanted (with the L-830 cassette). Naturally, being curious, I open up all three units and looked over the insides to check out the improvements made over the SL-7200. I noticed the threading assembly had been changed and was more compact. The tuner was no longer of the rotary type and received both UHF and VHF. The functions keyboard was now solenoid controlled and no longer was all mechanical. The machines were wonderful, did a great job of recording and the changer worked flawlessly. And tapes were now readily available... expensive, but available. I was leading a charmed life. It was around this time that several bigger changes occurred in my life. My wife and I had of second child, a handsome boy, and I change careers. I decided to go into direct sales. My wife was wary. Later she would tell me that her actual thoughts were along the lines of... I was crazy. The field I chose was selling to industry specialty welding alloys, brazing and joining compounds. As it turned out it was a wonderful decision. I got to go inside industry. See everything done, made and repaired. I became a problem solver, welcomed and respected by my customers. I had great materials and excellent support from my company. I was invited into surface and underground mines, drug companies, railroads, grain elevators, power plants, automobile plants, plastic manufacturers, refineries, farms and all kinds of general repair shops, the list was endless. I covered a three state regional area and I had almost every kind of industry as a potential customer. It was hardball, customers looked to me for help and I, in turn, saved them money and time. I was successful and I loved doing it.
     The company I worked for had a promotional products division and account executives were allowed to redeem bonus points they earned, based upon sales volume, for specialty merchandise. What we did with these products was left completely up to us. We could use them to buy gifts for ourselves or, if we wanted, we could give the points or products to our customers as promotional gifts. We were encouraged by our area managers to return some of the earned value to our customers, and to do it sincerely. I became very close friends with some people I met in industry and I did select several business associates to receive promotional items. As luck would have it one of the items made available to us was the Sony Betamax. I gave two away as gifts to my business contacts. One in particular, that I gave away as a retirement gift, arrived to him defective. I called the promotions division and they told me it would be faster if I would contact Sony's fulfillment division direct, and gave me the phone number. I did and they gave me the name of the local Sony distributor and suggested that I take the unit to them for a replacement. This was to begin my relationship with the Sony distributor and would solidify my love for Sony, and the Betamax.

CHAPTER SEVEN

     I took the defective unit to the distributor as soon at my job allowed. When I walked in the door I noticed there was a long counter with double doors behind it and a set of double doors at the end, opposite the entrance. I had carried the unit in with me and I sat it on the counter. Very quickly a man appeared through the doors behind the counter and asked if he could help me. I explained what had happened and he remarked it sounded like a blown fuse to him but no matter, they would just replace the unit. He asked to see my delivery receipt, which I gave to him. He then proceeded down the counter and through the doors at the end. I should mention here that the receipt had my name and address on it. After a couple of minutes he came back into room, went back behind the counter and came up to me. He said for me wait a few minutes as he was going into the warehouse to get a replacement and would be right back. He went through doors behind the counter and was gone.
     I glanced around and found there was a small showroom behind me with a few different Sony items on display. The was a six inch and twenty-one television, several speakers, a Betamax, and other general items. Suddenly the doors at the end of the counter opened and into the area walked someone I recognized. He walked up to me, shook my hand and asked how I had been doing since high school! We had been good friends in school and I remarked it was a real pleasure to see him again. He told me that he was the general manager and would I like to have a look around. Of course I said yes. The replacement Betamax was sitting on the counter by now and he said we would just leave it there for now, it wasn't going anywhere. We talked about old times as we walked around looking at stock, the loading area and the service area. Working on a Betamax in the repair shop was also someone I knew from school. It was like a reunion! The manager remarked that it was a small world and a lot had happened since school. So I watched the repairs for a short while and then I was asked by the manager if I would mind coming into the office. After we arrived I was invited to sit down and asked if I would like a soda or coffee, which I declined. He then asked me about the returned Betamax. I explained how I had obtained it through the promotions division of my company, how the process worked and how the price I paid was lower than retail. He asked how would I feel about buying wholesale from his distributorship and using my points for other things. He commented that if I was going to bring Sony products into this area he would prefer that I get them from him. I said that sounded great. He added that he would make available to me anything they carried, even item not from Sony. After about four hours we ended our discussion and we walked back into the counter area. I asked if it would be okay if I could say goodbye to the technician in the service area and he said that would be fine. As I walked back to the shop I heard him tell the counter person that I would be buying direct from them in the future and to get a wholesale catalog prepared for me. When I returned he went over the catalog with me and how to decipher the code so I could arrive at the correct price. I thanked everybody in sight again, picked up the new Betamax and left. It was a good day.

CHAPTER EIGHT

     In the months that followed I cultivated a close relationship with everybody at the distributorship. Betamax continued to evolve and I knew of no better way to remain on top of everything than to frequent the sales and service center. I couldn't go to Japan but this was the next best thing. The first major change for Betamax was front loading. Gone was the top loading door and with the introduction of the SL-5000 the cassette was now placed into the machine through a square opening on the left front. Shortly after this Sony introduced (and added to their line up) the SL-2500 and the portable SL-2000 both with the new 711 chassis. They had miniaturized tape path components and a new way for the tape to be pulled from the cassette. The tape envelope (the way it wrapped around the drum) remained the same, and everything was still compatible. It was very ingenious. This newer design made the smaller thin line units possible and it was the one Sony would continue up to the end. By now I was selling a few units to friends, family and, every once and a while, to business associates. Naturally, I bought a SL-2500 and added the AG-400. changer. A little later I sprung for the SL-2000 with a HVC-2200 camera. I had become a true videoholic. Now I was heavily into recording, editing and preserving the TV shows I liked. And recording the kids. Car shows. The zoo. Anything I could point my camera at or get off TV. I still have most of those tapes even today. Occasionally on my visits to the distributorship the manager and I would go to lunch. During one of these lunches he asked me if I ever considered working on Betamaxes, for him. (He knew I was into electronics from our previous conversations.) He said he wasn't looking to replace the technician he currently had but it was always good to have a back up plan. He added that the tech had mentioned to him on several occasions that he was wanting to return to college and get his degree as an electrical engineer. I told him that I loved my current occupation and really didn't want to change jobs. But maybe I could do some side work to help out if they needed. I also added that I would want to limit myself to just Betamax. I wasn't interested in televisions, turntables, stereos, etc. He liked that idea and added that television service people had been around for some time and were much easier to find, Betamax was new and finding someone interested in doing new things was more difficult. He went on to say that one thing I would need to do was to study Sony training and technical information. When we returned to the center we went back to the service area and he pulled several books from the shelf on theory of operation, service methods and training for Betamax and handed them to me. I was thrilled, and on my way to becoming a die hard Beta groupie. But this was nothing compared to what was about to happen next.

CHAPTER NINE

     For the next few months I watched all the training videos, read all the service literature and studied the updates. I even managed to rack up a few hours of actual service work during vacations and free time. Sony introduced Betahi-fi with the SL-5200. It was a revolutionary leap in sound quality, one that Sony bragged VHS couldn't duplicate. This was true because the smaller drum of VHS (and shorter scan length) didn't allow for the audio to be inserted into the video signal like Betahi-fi. It looked like you could score a victory for Beta. The SL-5200 (based upon the case design as the SL-5000 front loader) was a big seller even though stereo television broadcasting hadn't began yet. To overcome this obstacle introduced models with a multiplex plug in the back for an add on unit that would make them ready for stereo broadcasting when it did happen. Slim line units called "Betahi-fi ready" were also released that had a multi-plug in the back for a decoder that could be added later, this was to let people ease their way into the stereo experience for a lesser dollar investment. I didn't buy any of these units because I wanted the real thing which I knew would be coming soon, a single unit that received full stereo off the air. But something happened that stopped everything in it's tracks. The owner of the dealership, one of five that he owned in the three state area, was found dead in the doorway of his large warehouse one morning. (The circumstances surrounding his demise were never explained and the mystery was never solved.) His widow knew very little about the electronics business, and this plus the grief of her loss caused her to abandon all operations. Sony at this time was already in the process of phasing out the local distribution network and setting up sales directly to the retailers, so the impact on them was minimal. My manager friend was now out of a job, as was everyone else at the distributorship, but it wasn't too long before I heard from him.

To be continued...

To find out more about the first attempts at a consumer video format click here.
To see the 711 chassis in operation click here (requires a mpeg movie player).