Sony Kills Betamax

Hiawatha writes "Years after losing its grip on the consumer VCR market, Sony has announced that it will discontinue the Betamax format. "With digital machines and other new recording formats taking hold in the market, demand has continued to decline and it has become difficult to secure parts," Sony said in a statement." Finally. Although this is the prototypical example of good technology outdone by better marketing, it's an example of a company being stupidly obstinate about wanting to own a system, and shooting themselves in the foot. Update: 08/27 17:52 GMT by H : Yes, they were successful in broadcast, and to some degree overseas - but the commercial success was still severely limited to, say, VHS.

Comments

Re:Beta in TV

[Merlin42]

RTFA (Read the Friendly Article ;)

Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry.

Re:betaMAX

[Anonymous Coward]

The pro Beta formats Betacam, BetacamSP, BetacamSX
Digital Betacam and IMX are all 1/2" formats.
U-matic and U-maticSP and the orginal digital formats D-1 and D-2 were 3/4".