Editing VHS (section)

== Comparison to Betamax ==
{{Main|Videotape format war}}
[[File:VHS vs Betamax size.jpg|thumb|Size comparison between Betamax (top) and VHS (bottom) videocassettes]]
VHS was the winner of a protracted and somewhat bitter format war during the late 1970s and early 1980s against Sony's Betamax format as well as other formats of the time.<ref name="jchyung" />

Betamax was widely perceived at the time as the better format, as the cassette was smaller in size, and Betamax offered slightly better video quality than VHS – it had lower video noise, less luma-chroma [[crosstalk]], and was marketed as providing pictures superior to those of VHS. However, the sticking point for both consumers and potential licensing partners of Betamax was the total recording time.<ref name="howells" /> To overcome the recording limitation, Beta II speed (two-hour mode, NTSC regions only) was released in order to compete with VHS's two-hour SP mode, thereby reducing Betamax's horizontal resolution to 240 lines (vs 250 lines).<ref>{{cite web |author=Video Interchange |title=Video History |url=http://www.videointerchange.com/video-history.htm#BetaMax |access-date=August 20, 2007 }}</ref> In turn, the extension of VHS to VHS HQ produced 250 lines (vs 240 lines), so that overall a typical Betamax/VHS user could expect virtually identical resolution. (Very high-end Betamax machines still supported recording in the Beta I mode and some in an even higher resolution Beta Is (Beta I Super HiBand) mode, but at a maximum single-cassette run time of 1:40 [with an L-830 cassette].)

Because Betamax was released more than a year before VHS, it held an early lead in the format war. However, by 1981, United States' Betamax sales had dipped to only 25-percent of all sales.<ref>{{cite web |first=Helge |last=Moulding |title=The Decline and Fall of Betamax |url=http://tafkac.org/products/beta_vs_vhs.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020702093944/http://www.tafkac.org/products/beta_vs_vhs.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 2, 2002 |access-date=August 20, 2007 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> There was debate between experts over the cause of Betamax's loss. Some, including Sony's founder Akio Morita, say that it was due to Sony's licensing strategy with other manufacturers, which consistently kept the overall cost for a unit higher than a VHS unit, and that JVC allowed other manufacturers to produce VHS units license-free, thereby keeping costs lower.<ref name="mediacollege">{{cite web|url=http://www.mediacollege.com/video/format/compare/betamax-vhs.html |title=The Betamax vs VHS Format War |publisher=Mediacollege.com |date=January 8, 2008 |access-date=July 11, 2011}}</ref> Others say that VHS had better marketing, since the much larger electronics companies at the time (Matsushita, for example) supported VHS.<ref name="howells" /> Sony would make its first VHS players/recorders in 1988, although it continued to produce Betamax machines concurrently until 2002.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Murphy |first1=Mike |title=Sony is finally putting Betamax out of its misery |url=https://qz.com/545914/betamax-still-exists-but-its-finally-being-put-out-of-its-misery/ |website=Quartz |access-date=10 April 2020 |date=November 10, 2015}}</ref>