VHS v. Betamax

Image courtesy of Gizmodo. Between the late 1970s and the late 1980s, Sony’s Betamax; and JVC’s VHS (Video Home System) video formats battled for dominance of the home videocassette market. VHS ultimately won the format war.

Advantages of Betamax

• Backed by Sony, Toshiba, Sanyo, NEC, Aiwa, and Pioneer.
• Superior picture quality.
• Smaller cassette.

Advantages of VHS

• Backed by JVC, Matsushita (Panasonic), Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Akai.
• Longer recording time - originally, Betamax tapes held 1 hour of programming and VHS tapes held 2 hours.
• Beta camcorders only allowed for recording, not playback.
• Faster rewinding and fast-forwarding.
• After a time, there was a larger selection of VHS titles for rental.

Wikipedia on the videotape format war

Media College on VHS v. Betamax