On 10/23/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Brian Wood</b> <<a href="mailto:beww@beww.org">beww@beww.org</a>> wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Steve Hodge wrote:<br>> On 10/23/07, *Yan Seiner* <<a href="mailto:yan@seiner.com">yan@seiner.com</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:yan@seiner.com">yan@seiner.com</a>>> wrote:<br>><br>> I've heard the theory that Beta failed because Sony wouldn't license it
<br>> to the porn industry, so all the porn came out on VHS. Bingo, VHS got<br>> the market.<br>><br>> That's the popular story but it's not true - porn was available on<br>> Betamax ( e.g. Playboy released their stuff on both formats). Betamax's
<br>> downfall was due to a combination of factors including cost and<br>> capacity. Betamax tapes could initially only hold one hour - not enough<br>> for a movie. This was probably the biggest single factor.<br>
<br>I think an even bigger factor was that VHS was the first to get 4 hours<br>on a tape, and thus was able to record an entire NFL game.<br></blockquote></div><br>Yes. I believe some of the VHS consortium wanted 4 hour capability from the start. I don't think it was included at launch but LP came along pretty soon afterwards.
<br><br>Steve<br>