|
Many people email me and ask which machine they should purchase. They want help deciding which model is best for playing their collection of Beta tapes. It's a good question because over the years the format improved a good amount. But basically, there are only three main things you need to know. Speed, sound and, picture—the cassette never changed. You can put any consumer Beta cassette into any working Beta format machine, and it will play. The picture results will vary depending on the model used or the tape speed, but the cassette will go in. That also means that the exterior of those cassettes will not give you any clues about how it was recorded. Their labels usually have titles printed on them, but seldom do you see the tape speed or the recording method identified. The cassette might not have changed, but the way they could be recorded did. During Beta's 15-year run, it kept improving to stay ahead of the competition. The video got better, and so did the sound (as did the quality of the tape available). Beta recording excelled and got better, and this discussion is going to cover those improvements. Playing the right speed might be all you need to know, but there were some pretty amazing things that happened over those 15 years. To aid in deciding which Beta is the right choice for you, I have composed the commentary that follows. I'll cover the speed question first. Now on to a small refresher course in Betamax. The very first Beta recorders had only one tape speed. (Check out the chart shown above.) That speed would later be named Bx1, and the picture they recorded would become known as the "standard" Beta picture. Those terms would separate them from later speed changes and picture improvements. The audio was recorded in monaural. If your tapes were recorded using one of these early Bx1 machines, almost any Sony Betamax will play them. But this speed was soon abandoned in favor of a new, slower speed, called Bx2, which doubled the recording time. With the new speed came a new form of notation. The Greek letter for Beta was combined with Roman numerals to indicate the speeds. Bx2 became  and Bx1 was now  . (Note: all pre-recorded movies and programs were recorded in .) An even slower speed,  came along about a year later. The new speed was half that of . So was half the speed of and was half that of . But this was where the war for the most recording time using slower speeds ended. There would no Beta four. Why? Because the tape would be running so slow that picture stability would be almost unobtainable and the audio would be so unresponsive, it would be just plain dull. Also, the spinning video heads would be have to be so tiny that they would wear away at a frighteningly fast rate*. Tape length numbering also changed during all this. The first tapes were called speed. The slower speeds messed this time notation up, so the designations were changed to was the slow boundary,and the recording maximums for the various tape lengths became one and a half hours for the L-250, and the and monaural tapes can be played on any machine except the dedicated or machines (as shown in the graph above). This also applies to tapes recorded on standard Betahi-fi units, although you don't get the advantage of stereo. Which is a real loss because Betahi-fi stereo is awesome. Check out the other speeds and configurations in the chart above. Use it as a reference for each improvement in picture and sound so you can play back your tapes on a machine that will reproduce them in the best possible manner. It all depends on which system of improvements you recorded them in. Just step through the chart above, and based on your recordings, find your candidate. If you don't know how the tapes were recorded then it would be prudent to use a unit that covers all or most of the options and speeds. Before closing, I want to mention two other Beta variants. These are the Extended Definition Beta models and the Betamovie camcorder units. ED Beta was the final picture improvement. It boosted the luminance even further, up to the point where a new metal formula tape was required. ED Beta was able to duplicate the broadcast standard of the day with no picture loss or distortion. It was incredible, and no other consumer VCR ever compared to it. It was also completely backward compatible with all the other Beta systems, but its ED Beta recordings could only be played back on an ED Beta machines. To keep this advanced recording system separated, Sony moved the record protection hole in the bottom of the ED Beta cassette to the opposite side. The standard Beta record protection hole was left open. That way if you tried to record an ED Beta tape using a standard Beta machine, it will see it as a protected cassette and will either automatically eject it or do nothing (and wait patiently for you to figure out what you did wrong). You can cover the hole on an ED Beta cassette and fool the other machines into recording them if you want. The metal tapes record excellently, but you don't get the advantage of the better picture quality that ED Beta offers. Playing an Extended Definition recorded tape in a regular Beta machine results in what looks like a line drawing. This is because the video signal is boosted so high it is over powering the luminance circuit. (For more on Extended Definition Beta, click here.) Sony also developed the first camcorder. These were small portable hand-held Betamovie units. And they manufactured all of them, even the ones sold by other brand names. These recorded only in the speed in standard or SuperBeta, depending on the model. There was one exception, the Betamovie model speed but gave you a choice between standard and Super Hi-Band (6.0 mHz). For more on Betamovie, click here.Note: The chart covers playback of NTSC (USA and Canadian) models only. Some machines offered more than one speed or several picture enhancements but did not record them all. An example of this is the SL-3000, which plays both and , but only records .*This video head wear issue was greatly improved later with the introduction of new materials and head designs. If you would like a list of the individual Beta VCRs along with their year, picture system and record/playback specifications, click here. ©Misterßetamax go to homepage |