Sony Discontinues Betamax

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mediatechnology
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Sony Discontinues Betamax

Post by mediatechnology »

Sony discontinues Betamax tape production in 2016, 13 years after they made their last machine and 40 years after its introduction.
Sony first launched its Betamax products in 1975 as a magnetic video format for consumers to record analog television shows. At the peak in fiscal 1984, some 50 million Betamax videocassettes were shipped, while only 400 are expected to be shipped in fiscal 2015. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/1 ... kUalr96TRJ
Sony Corporate History, Chapter 1, The Video Cassette Tape: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateI ... /2-01.html
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Re: Sony Discontinues Betamax

Post by emrr »

That is super crazy, and the sort of thing only a company with a '1000 year business plan' would do (keep making it).
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JR.
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Re: Sony Discontinues Betamax

Post by JR. »

Maybe they decided to keep making them until they earned back their tooling cost. :lol: :lol:

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mediatechnology
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Re: Sony Discontinues Betamax

Post by mediatechnology »

I don't have a working cassette machine, I don't own a 1/4" tape machine, I can't play a mini-disc, laser disc or DAT.
My VHS and DVD machines are in a high closet.
I don't have cable TV.
None of my monitors accept a composite video input.
I have one CD player connected to a system I never use and a nice Revox CD player moth-balled.
The CDs are in storage boxes, the old VHS and 1/4" in cold/hot-storage.

For us its OTA DTV, an IPTV tuner on the LAN, Netflix, Blu-Ray, public radio http://kxt.org, stored music and yes, LPs.

Recently I unboxed all the LPs and re-alphabetized them.
I display them with the books.
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