Post #1128235

2026-04-05 18:42 UTC

I could argue that VHS was a superior format to both Beta and Laserdisc because it offered a better blend of features. Laserdisc offered cinemaphile farkles like perfect pause and frame by frame, additional audio tracks etc. but a movie required at least three sides of a disc, and thus two discs with at least two changes. Laserdisc was read-only and thus useless for timeshifting and camcorders. The tape-based formats were slightly worse in quality but could hold an entire movie in one go. VHS was superior for timeshift and camcorder use than Beta because of the longer run time. There was a mini cassette for miniature VHS camcorders which could be played back on a standard deck with an adapter, Beta never got there AFAIK and insetad Sony went to Hi 8, which never really took off as a home video format the way it frankly should have. VHS was better than Beta at movie distribution because a longer film could fit on an SP VHS cassette, often with room to spare for some commercials at the beginning which helped subsidize the cost. VHS was at least capable of everything. DVD didn’t fully kill VHS; It unceremoniously killed LaserDisc and shouldered VHS aside a little. Through most of the 2000s VHS was still going strong, DVD-RAM is surprisingly old but wasn’t adopted that widely. Hard drive based DVRs and smart phone based video recording finally did VHS in.

Replies (1)

@orclev@lemmy.world 2026-04-05 21:22

The biggest problem with DVD in the early days was just price. Early DVD players were ridiculously expensive compared to VHS, and the DVDs themselves were also significantly more expensive than VHS tapes. That of course changed over time, as DVD adoption drove the unit prices down across the board. By the time Bluray came around and began to drive out DVD the players had gotten so cheap you could sometimes find them for as little as $25, and DVD movies would regularly show up in discount bins for $5 to $10.

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