Equipment Analysis: The Videotape Recorder - Text 4
JVC designed a marketing campaign which succeeded in winning acceptance for the VHS cassette, with its two hours of recording time and light weight,[6] as the new standard.[7] The VHS system offered numerous advantages: compatibility with other manufacturers’ products; two hours recording time; affordability; ease of use and low-cost operation; and simple manufacture and compatibility with the parts of a VTR. In addition, its social utility was vaunted: it would serve to convey information and culture. In just two years, four other Japanese companies, including Sharp, had begun to produce VHS systems.
As VHS and Betamax were incompatible, the competition was great: Sony claimed that Betamax was of higher quality, but its cassettes of one hour only posed a problem for recording films or football games. Prices were still high: in 1977, the JVC system sold for $1,280 (with a value of $5,700 in 2021); the Betamax for $2,295 ($10,277 in 2021).[8] A “price war” was launched in the early 1980s to conquer the North American market: Sony even gave a $50 discount for the purchase of its system in the form of a “home improvement grant,” but the company would not succeed in obtaining more than the 25% of the market share it already had in 1981. The VHS cassette, for its part, had succeeded in taking up position in the nascent video rental market, bringing about wider dissemination to the benefit of the large film studios.[9] In 1987, the magazine Rolling Stone announced that “the war is over” and declared JVC the winner. Although Sony would also turn to VHS production, it continued to produce and market Betamax until the early 2000s, with production ending officially only in 2002.
