From WTOP news: http://wtop.com/money/2016/01/happy-birthday-video-betamax-is-still-a-thing/
After 40 years, Sony will end production of BetaMax tapes in March.
"Sony introduced the consumer-friendly Betamax recorder, a suitcase-sized machine that recorded up to two hours of video on a cassette tape off of broadcast or cable signals, in 1975. And that ushered in era of the VCR. (That stands for video cassette recorder, millennials.)"
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After 40 Years, Sony Will Stop Producing BetaMax Tapes in March
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(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:00AM
Seriously though, I thought BetaMax was only a thing in certain production environments and was more involved in the commercial aspects of things.
For a product that failed in the market 40 years ago, it's impressive that it still found use at all.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:12AM
Yeah, I didn't realize tapes were even being produced. Makes me wonder what the use case for something like that in the last 20 years or so has been.
Also, fuck you submitter. I'm considered a millennial apparently and I was the only person in the fucking house that could figure out how to USE the damn VCR, asshole. Yeah, I remember laserdisc too. I had the discs for MACH 3 and Dragon's Lair hanging on my wall like records. For all you "Boomers", those were what we called "arcade games". They were like moving pictures, but there were controls to give you some input into what you saw on the screen! I know, whatever WILL we think of next, right?
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:44AM
Also, fuck you submitter. I'm considered a millennial apparently and I was the only person in the fucking house that could figure out how to USE the damn VCR, asshole.
In fairness to the submitter, the "millennials" snark was part of TFA, so it was the smug douchebag-looking author that was the source of the smug douchebag quote. Unless the submitter was also the author, of course; then your remark still applies.
At first, I was surprised at the poor quality of writing, until I noticed the site is for a DC-area radio station. (Smug douchebags in DC? Who'd have guessed?) They probably can't afford better, and for radio, even bad attention is better than no attention.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:14AM
That's fair. I shouldn't take my anger out on the submitter, I suppose. I apologize for that, other than that he also jumped on the snark that was already present.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @07:51AM
Jumped on a snark with a frickin' laser beam attached to its head?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:53AM
I'm considered a millennial apparently
Really, when were you born? I find it facinating what "generation" people put themselves in.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:04AM
I was born in '84. It wasn't what generation I put myself in. It was what generation whoever decides this shit put me in, and then writes disparaging shit about it.
There used to be a Gen Y that got rolled into this new thing. I don't have a big problem with that except for the fact that said disparaging things are said about us. That's all well an fine until people who are considerably influential (Gold mansacks) to others get involved in it, then I got pissy.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday January 19 2016, @10:05AM
Interesting. I'm sure that growing up there was no such thing as "Millennial".
I base generations on how you got your first porn, so the last 4 generations birthdates would be
* Broadband (1990-2000)
* Dialup (1980-1990)
* VHS (1970-1980)
* Playboy (pre-1970)
(Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @10:11AM
Mine was probably a friend's Playboay's he swiped from his dad. Second was my dad's copy of Behind The Green Door (indicidentally on VHS) I swiped from the bedroom.
I mean, I knew how to actually use the features of the VHS, but I guess they knew how to shove shit into the slot enough to get shit done. All things considered, logically, I wouldn't exist otherwise.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @10:12AM
Wow. I swear I can spell when it's not 4 am and I'm drunk.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 19 2016, @02:35PM
*Sheep (pre-Playboy)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:26PM
Or when it's raiing - if you're welsh
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday January 19 2016, @08:59PM
We're about the same age. I never understood, or really paid attention to the Generation {WTF} labels people were pushing about. Baby boomers I understand as a reference to post WWII prosperity...... but then they needed to create one for every generation and it just got stupid and inane.
There are three generations. Children, adults, and the old people who think the adults are nothing like them, their music sucks, blah blah blah :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:08AM
I'm considered a millennial apparently
Really, when were you born? I find it facinating what "generation" people put themselves in.
It's not about what generation you put yourself in, it's the one you get stuck in because other people like sticking a label and stereotype on everybody born between two dates. Most definitions of it seem to start at 1982, with a few outliers picking nearby dates like '80, '81, or '83. That puts people in their late 20s and early 30s firmly in the millennial camp, and even some mid-30s people potentially labeled as such. Meanwhile, you've got people like the author that seem to think "millennial" means "kid just out of high school" and makes dumb remarks like the one in TFA.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 19 2016, @12:34PM
Kids that age almost certainly grew up with Kidsongs and Disney video tapes in the late 80s, and by 1990s they were watching their older siblings watch (rented?) big trouble in little china and goonies and ferris buellers day off and star trek and star wars movies and maximum overdrive (with its ACDC soundtrack) and stuff like that in video tape format.
The thing I remember most about growing up in the 70s/80s was at least back then parents thought nothing of little kids like kindergartners watching crazy R rated movies together with them. Then they come to school and brag to all the other kindergartners that they watched a rambo sequel or a nightmare on elm street sequel or whatever. I think most of the kids did not, but they certainly bragged. It must be interesting culturally to have youtube on an ipad as the babysitter in 2016. Or the chans and reddit once they can read, I guess.
You can really tell you grew up in the physical media era if you planned your living room with the constraint of where you'd stash your bookcase or two or three of legacy tape or optical media, or vinyl records I guess (8 tracks?).
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday January 19 2016, @07:25AM
Speaking for myself, I assumed that "Millennials", must refer to people younger than me, i.e. people born in the late 90s onwards. Now, having been prompted by this discussion to do some reading about the term, it seems that those born in the mid-80s are also put in this category.
I've never picked out a specific generation "label" for myself, but I do draw a distinction between those that witnessed the introduction of CDs, home internet, cellphones, all things digital, etc., and those who grew up with them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:22AM
It still takes me two tries to insert one of my few remaining tapes into the VCR deck.
Oops, not that way, the other way.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:57AM
Still better insertion rate than USB.
http://imgur.com/gallery/5A6cx3D [imgur.com]
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Wednesday January 20 2016, @01:37AM
+1 to the second point (with the clarification that it's from TFA).
'97 here, and every single one of my peers knows what a VCR is. Not only that, but a significant number of my friends and I continue to use our VCRs (movies on VHS are dirt cheap right now; I also enjoy recording with a DRM-free format).
I am, however, the only one who not only knows what Laserdisc is but actually has a player, but I digress.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:15AM
*blink* 12:00 *blink* forever
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:17AM
My kingdom for blink tag support in modern browsers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @01:43PM
.blink {
animation: blink_animation 1s linear infinite;
}
@keyframes blink_animation {
50% { opacity: 0; }
}
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:20AM
How about 2-inch quad [wikipedia.org]? A video of an Ampex VR-1200B VTR being loaded and played [youtube.com].
Or if you don't count 2-inch quad because you can't scrub forward and backward, there's 1-inch Type C videotape, also in reel-to-reel format [wikipedia.org]. Here's an Ampex VPR-3 VTR in action [youtube.com].
Also, you can still buy Betacam tapes from some places [google.com]. While Betamax faltered in the consumer market, Betacam was a staple in the ENG (Electronic News Gathering) market.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Nerdfest on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:25AM
Wow, "Sony" and "consumer friendly" in the same sentence. That's something I haven't heard in a very long time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:54AM
Wow, "Sony" and "consumer friendly" in the same sentence. That's something I haven't heard in a very long time.
In this context, it looks like the author tried to use "consumer-friendly" as a way to say that the product was marketed to consumers for purchase, rather than sold to businesses. There's nothing in the article implying Sony did anything consumer-friendly in the normal sense of the term. I could be mistaken about the intent, but there's nothing in the article clarifying the remark, and lacking any context of what made the product friendly to consumers (versus the usual user-hostile Sony practices), it's my best guess that the author just failed at correctly wordifying his thinkage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @06:11AM
> a very long time.
Thirty years sounds about right.
(Score: 5, Funny) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:28AM
This may seem off-topic, but bear with me, it isn't.
Many years ago, my girlfriend wanted me to help her get pregnant.
She had fertility issues and was taking drugs to help. We worked hard at getting her pregnant the "old-fashioned" way, but despite the (quite pleasant) extended effort, she did not conceive.
As such, we to the fertility clinic where she had intrauterine insemination [wikipedia.org] procedures.
In order to procure the sperm for the procedures, I was required to produce it. I was led into a room so I could make that happen. There were porno magazines and videos (this was before Sir Berners-Lee made his name) to assist me.
The odd thing was that all the videos (and the VCR) were BetaMax.
I asked about it and was told that they used to have VHS, but people kept stealing the videos. Once they replaced them with BetaMax, no one stole them any more.
And so now you know why BetaMax was useful.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @03:58AM
A friend who worked at a fertility clinic in Omaha claimed they used BetaMax for a similar reason. Another thing I remember her saying was that if you saw a magazine with some fetish other than big boobs, then it was brought in by someone who left without it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @06:03AM
I went to three separate facilities for similar purposes. One was luxuriant with a jack off chair, covered in a disposable paper sheet. It had videos (I didn't use them and don't recall the format), magazines of both the dirty and soft porn type, and a wide variety of clean-up material. The second consisted of a room with a door that closed and a stack of sticky Penthouses; and the third refused to take the sample in house, but requested I drive it to them within thirty minutes of production. My wife helped created this third sample, which then was used as roughly half the DNA for my daughter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19 2016, @04:12AM
Only if Sony played nice with the porn industry... :)
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday January 19 2016, @06:03PM
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday January 19 2016, @10:14AM
Errr. not ('4 am' and 'drunk'). I'm... I'm going to stop now.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!