First Betamax - Salesman Training Video 1977
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
- This is the training tape shown to the salesmen who sold the very first homevideo recorder called The Sony Betamax. It described an entirely new concept in television viewing. At that time it was one giant unit including the recorder and trinitron television. Betamax lost the format wars to VHS and has disappeared into time.
"Trinitron" is such a startrek "futuristic" sounding name 😂
Ironic that there's a sports event on TV: it was Beta's initial inability to record a three-hour game that was one reason why VHS quickly predominated.
60 minutes for football. Four 15 minute quarters. Just have the players play non-stop. No time outs, commercial breaks, or stopping the clock for anything. You won't miss a minute of the football game. :)
It depends on the circumstances. The beta after my father from 1983 of the SL Pal-Secam series on the L750 cassette (222m) recorded 3 hours and 10-15 minutes. It is still functional and I like to demonstrate this technology. I personally bought a VHS Panasonic NV J35HQ (still functional) in 1991, and when I compare Beta and VHS images, Beta with its bandwidth over 3MHz really has a more contrasting and detailed image than VHS. I had more VCRs, but I keep these two because of family records, which have long been in digital form, but it's good to have the original source.
@@DL-kc8fc do you have a clue as to why VHS won? It's cheapness, mass production and recording time was superior to Betamax. Back then even standard E-120 (or T-120) cost 25$, so they users were preferring longest available recording time over the image quality. Beta 1 disappeared in 1979, VHS SP went all the way to the end. L750 (LLoooong version) has 222m of tape, as you said, but STANDARD 120 cassette had 246 meters in it! Doesn't it sounds stupid? Beta is crap, take it.
@@danek_hren Don't make me fool !!! I know exactly why VHS won. Therefore, I talk about the quality of the record regardless of the length of the recording. In addition, the Beta system set up legislation on the acquisition of records, etc. It is not acceptable for a stupid Russian to instruct me. Be good and humble.
If America football only took 2 hours to play, Beta might have had a better chance.
Dropping the tape speed to long play to double the recording time dropped the quality of the picture.
PAL format VHS tapes were available in 3 hour duration, at normal speeds, something that Beta couldn't match...
my oldest brother had one of the first Beta Max recorders. He got it while stationed overseas in the USAF. When he shipped it home, we were all just staring at it like WTF is that!! He also shipped home a Laserdisc recorder!! We were blown away by all this "new" technology!
Laserdisc RECORDER? Really?
WHERE CAN I GET THE LASERDISC RECORDER
@@shinmalpure2397 Seeing a Laserdisk was like seeing Alien Tech.. those things were huge!!
You're gonna have to explain Laserdisc recorder, because as far as I know those never existed outside of actual Laserdisc pressing plants.
I'm a Samsung Expert, modern day tv sales man, and they have similar training videos on the televisions based on all of the specs and selling techniques. I find this so fascinating and interesting.
Did you not sign an NDA?
Minus that hairrrr
I wonder what vintage tv/electronics enthusiasts think of Sammy's crazy flip phones😂
@@peterpemrich6962what if he DID have that hair tho? 😄
what the heck is a samsung expert 😅
Trinitron still rules even now, as far as CRT's go. :)
They are better than 99% of Flatscreens too.
I'm ready to sell Betamax, where do I sign up.
All you need are hipsters collecting "ancient technology", and yer set.
Now you just need a time machine
me too!
Me too! I'm running to Best Buy to see if they have any left in stock.
Where to sign up? Right next to the place that sells the wooden phones with the crank on the side.
"I like it, I'll buy it!"
"Ok, just pull around back and we'll get this on the forklift for you."
hahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!
They'd deliver it to your home, just like if you bought a washing machine today. This was normal for big CRT TVs through the 90's when people didn't own SUVs, and would also help that the store wouldn't need to keep expensive inventory, as it was shipped from the distribution center. Even today, many people get their 60-inch flat screens shipped via UPS or a freight service.
maybe 😵 but it's still lots less complex than these things we got today with 3 cameras on the back & ends with funny numbers
I love the filp clock!
1977 .... probably the best year ever.
It was the 100th anniversary of the phonograph.
Shag carpet sold separately.
I'm 33 yrs old and this is the first time I ever seen a Betamax player that I kno of
WTF?! Are you kidding me? They were more popular than AIDS in the 80's.
@@Kit_Bear In fairness, a 33 year old wouldn't be old enough to remember the 80s. The decade ended just over 30 years ago.
I own a WORKING one.
It's a part of my Demo Recording Studio.
That freeze frame at the end is classic 👌
This audio is so crisp.
It's hard for folks to realize today what a revolutionary thing VCRs were for consumer electronics when they first came out. Now you could record programs when you were away and unable to watch them live. You could record a program on one station while watching another. Most critically, you could record a program, and while watching it fast-forward past the commercials! Oh my---the networks and TV industry totally freaked about that! There were all sorts of industry efforts via lawsuits to stop the production of VCRs, put extra taxes on them, claim copyright infringement----it wasn't one of the broadcast industry's finest hours.
TV Industry: NOOO!! YOURE SUPPOSED TO WATCH IT LIVE!!! 😡😡
VCR Owners: cope, seethe, cry about it, get mad
@@shinmalpure2397 they still actively try and stop recording,.
and it only weighs 780 lbs.
I still have a CRT TV built into a wooden cabinet. I got it from a thrift store for $15 a few years back. I love it and I'm hoping it will be worth good money one day. I don't use it very often so it should last.
CRT tvs were better than most of what we have today unless it's 4K or something.
And when we went total flat screen, the tv sizes actually got smaller for a long while.
I love collecting any old format of used tapes, never know what ya find. I got 7 betamax recorders. lots of cool videos are still in attics waiting to be discovered. I'll transfer anyone's tapes free..my hobby.
"What say we close this deal at the Ramada Inn around the corner."
Afterwards, Jim and Steve went out for a lovely seafood dinner, then it was back to Steve's place for nightcaps. The next morning, Jim woke up and left... and Steve never saw him again.
LOL. I did detect some homoerotic tension between those two...
Such a bygone era. Now for most it's just picking whatever the cheapest crap Walmart has on the shelf, sadly.
i don't shop at wally-world, especially for electronics. it's cheap because they're missing components and options the better versions have.
Now you have the internet to gather information and customer opinions. Whoever doesn't bother to do so, really deserves to get crap. Plus consumer electronics used to be so expensive back then. It's true they were better built in many cases, but that does not compensate the huge price difference.
@@BilisNegra eh nothing good old white people can't get. Go white people!!
Betamax proved once and for all there is no sense in investing in technology since it's inherently temporary
@Nigel Cam This is a result of socialist policy. We have not had "free trade" in over 150 ish years.
Betamax's failure, 60 minute tapes, but actually better quality than VHS. Betamax also failed due to not licensing & strict enforcement of their patents.
+Phil Shaffer That's kind of an urban legend. Most people couldn't tell Betamax from VHS when they were side by side at a store, you're talking about a difference of 250 lines vs 240 lines of resolution in the beginning. And VHS continued to increase in quality as the years went on. BetaCAM was the truly superior format, but it was only used by professional broadcasters.
+Fear Box Not an urban legend at all - and there was more to it than just lines of resolution. I sold virtually every VCR brand and format on the market from late '77 until mid '85. And in all of the side-by-sides I did for customers, 80-90% were able to notice the superior picture quality of Beta over VHS (even if they decided to buy a VHS machine).
Betamax can record 2 hours with half speed recording (original L-500). The SL-8200 could record 2-4 hours.
>And in all of the side-by-sides I did for customers, 80-90% were able to notice the superior picture quality of Beta over VHS
With all the potential variables involved (e.g., different tape formulations, different recording speeds, different levels of quality and/or specifications among the various makes/models of Betamax and VHS machines), and the fact that the video signal specifications of Betamax and VHS were so close to each other, it would be very easy to set up a demonstration in which VHS was noticeably superior to Betamax, and vice versa.
For example, take the best VHS machine ever made (complete with the full implementation of the HQ circuitry), the best broadcast-quality tape formulation you can find, select the fastest recording speed, and record a full-spec NTSC video over a direct composite cable connection. Then, compare it to an over-the-air broadcast recording (RF connection) made on a low-end Betamax machine from the late 1970s, recorded on the slowest recording speed (B3), with a dirt-cheap Certron tape. Which do you think will look better? And you can just as easily devise a test which stacks the deck in favor of Betamax.
Actually Betamax failed because VHS tapes flooded the video hire stores, Sony was to slow to get similar amounts of titles onto the shelves of video hire stores, yes Betamax was better but consumers were more concerned with how many movie titles were available, here in Australia we had places like Blockbuster video, they would have 20 or shelves full of VHS titles and maybe 1 or 2 shelves of Betamax so it was a simple matter of supply & Demand.
60 minutes is just enough for an episode of The Rockford Files.
One point in time this was considered revolutionary technology
Awesome piece of history! Thanks for posting.
This looks painfully dated now, but just a few years after this was made I got my first Betamax recorder and it felt like a magical experience to be able to record and time-shift television programmes so I could watch them back at a more convenient time. I was still using Betamax recorders right up to the last years of the 1990's.
Beta max was superior to VCR in multiple ways.
I guess VCR just had better marketing or possibly it was too inclusive only to Sony; they got in trouble with that several times.
@@davidm4566 VCR is
Video
Cassette
Recorder
And Beta is ALSO a VCR. WHY ARE U SO DUMB???
shut up and take my money
LMBO LOL. SAME
I owned one of those. It was a fantastic unit.
You should have kept it
@@alanrogs3990 - Wish I could have. Had a lot of problems with the Betamax part of the unit. They would send out 3 guys and a van to take it to the shop. Usually gone for a week. The wood cabinet was beautiful.
When middle-aged men in suits sold you a TV.
noisepuppet You mean, thank god it's finally the 21st centutry? Lol.
Sorta, but now what do we do with all these middle-aged men?
Well, I guessI guess first, the beta max has probably a great value on the market today due to its rarity.
+noisepuppet They are on the internet trolling people.
Cheshire Cat Yeah well that's what you get for giving our jobs to teenagers and Amazon warehouse robots! Er, I mean.... yes, dang those middle aged trolls.
The VHS VCR's were about half price at the time (around $1,000 1977 dollars!)....one more reason why VHS sold more than Beta, even though Beta was better as far as picture quality.
God, $1000 2016 bucks buy you a curved 55" 4K TV, so it's a comparatively large amount for consumer electronics still. $1,000 1977 bucks is equivalent to over 4,000 today! In other words, buying one of those meant to ask for a loan in many cases. Can you picture that?
Hence his question at 5:38 ("Do you have an account with us?") lol
Don't forget compact as betamax tapes are smaller and takes less space.
@Koal Kottentail didn't stop a lot of white,folk from,buying it all,besides you,could be a 9 year old so your opinion is invalid
@@okamijubei oh, they are SO MUCH SMALLER that their movie case is THE SAME DIMENSIONS as a VHS movie
My wife has requested a new television. Can someone tell me where to purchase one of these units? Thank you in advance.
eBay or Amazon
Go back to 1979 maybe they can help you out
We have come a long way
$2500 MSRP in 1975, or $11k in 2015 dollars. I doubt they sold very many of these.
Top 1 percent bought them
Think about what people buy today. A family of 4 gets 4x$1000 smartphones and 4x $2000 laptops plus a few $600 tablets, plus a $600 TV, $500 game console, and the smartphones get replaced after 2 years and laptops after 5. Then $200 x 12 in cable bills, then streaming subscriptions, etc. In 1975, this would be the whole family's entertainment and would certainly last 5-10 years minimum. So it's rather comparable.
Remember before you leave our store make sure you stock up on some spare drive belts,you'll need them in a few years.
nice 1977 .....i love it...wanna go back now!!!
Good old days to bad the Betamax only lasted a few short months before the VHS systems made them obsolete.
Betamax is CRAP
I bought my first Betamax machine in 1987, ten years after this video was made. I'd had a VHS machine for years, but the Super Beta Hi-Fi unit I bought had better picture and sound than any comparable VHS machine. 90% of what I did was home recording, so it was still the best machine for that in the late 80s.
i bought my second betamax in estate sale for $5 and it works great.
I want that TV even though it's from the 70's a filthy drugged up time where the Atari 2600
Filthy and the most fun by far.
Duane Thamm maby
The 80s were a lot worse.
this person is a pure salesman
The Old Spice and coffee breath came right through my screen.
i love the look the salesman gives the camera at 2:26, like he's thinking, 'there's one born every minute....'
jhahahahahahahah...LOL!!!
The way they get to the roleplay is weirdly sexual.
My stepfather insisted on getting a Betamax. It meant I could never share films with friends at school, and the Betamax shelf at Blockbuster was practically empty compared to the rows and rows of VHS titles.
Sounds just like an HD DVD owner after 2008.
I wish I lived in the 70’s
insanely expensive to only have a 19 inch screen.
Love that background furniture!
It didn't really disappear. With some tweaks it became the de-facto broadcast acquisition format for broadcast television for the next 25+ years.
It was far more than just "some tweaks". Betacam is a completely different format than Betamax; it records a fundamentally different (and vastly superior) video signal (YRyBy component instead of composite).
And to elaborate on MaximRecoil's reply, Betacam also runs at a much faster linear tape speed than Betamax as well. Pretty much the only similarities Betacam and Betamax have is the physical cassette and oxide-formulated tape stock loaded in them (the tapes are interchangeable between Betamax and Betacam, while the recordings aren't).
The only exception to this is the improved Betacam SP format, which uses metal-formulated tape that will prematurely wear down the video heads on a Betamax deck, although they will work without issues for ED-Beta (Extended Definition Beta) VCRs (an improved version of Betamax that came out in the late 80's--sort of like SVHS to VHS), which used metal-formulated tape as well.
YOU ARE DUMB. THIS WAS BETACAM, NOT BETAMAX
@@danek_hren No shit. Betacam was developed out of Betamax. I used Betacam for 20 years until it became obsolete.
I'm diggin the early mall-era muzak
They were so good I sold one to myself.
HOLY SHIT --- Just LOOK at the "Compact Size" of that new fangled piece of equipment
It's the ENTIRE UNIT, TV and ALL, integrated together into ONE CONVENIENT old school
TV CABINET.
ALL of it is BUILT INTO the cabinet.
I'll venture to guess that the entire BetaMax unit weighed in at OVER 150 LBS.
I'd sell a kidney, part of my liver, and one of my testes to have this in my living room right now. I collect old electronics and this thing is badass. I'd hook my Atari 2600 up to it too.
Sounds dope
@@theruddyone6443 And it's so COMPACT IN SIZE too.
@@rayjingloryproductions3770 it unironically is compact
Do you have a way I can contact you?
@@rayjingloryproductions3770 and only needs a personal nuclear reactor to run !
Patrick Bateman needs it to rewind tapes..
I like this Best Buy from the 1970s. Tech support was called the Groovy Squad back then.
I need this to record my Pitfall speedruns so I can submit them to SDArchives
wow what a sale. makes me want one. thanks beta
Beta is crap
betamax is virtually indestructible with normal used
Don't forget to be kind and rewind this video for the next viewer.. I remember buying my first video recorder a Betamax during the mid 1980's, and I really didn't notice that much difference between the recorded playback and the live broadcast. Of course recordings made on analogue video recorders will look best when played back on analogue CRT televisions than modern LED's.
Stop, this groundbreaking technology is warping my brain!!
This guy’s deep voice was a staple in movie trailers. I swear he narrated the Predator trailer.
LOL!!!
So chic... So suave... So Ricardo Montalban...
Why did I watch this? I think I want to be young again.
"Can the acrylic cover support two people?"
lol
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!! you're killing me!!!!
it probably could have. In those days everything was built like tank.
So was the training video itself in Betamax? The video looks remarkably clean.
I think this is likely direct from the 1" master.
Actually, it was on VHS =-)
Was probably on U-matic or open reel videotape.
Betamax X-1 (the original 1-hour speed, later renamed "B I") has more sharpness & resolution than the later X-2 ("B II") recordings.
Just needs a laugh track on that final freeze frame.
Now I can watch Welcome Back Kotter while watching M*A*S*H at the same time! What a wonder!
It is. I don't want to miss a minute of Eight Is Enough. I also hear tell of some new show that is coming out in April 1978....It's called Dallas.
I've gotta change my hairstyle to the one the guy in the grey suit has.
Прикільно. Ми навіть і не мріяли про подібну електроніку в ті часи.
At 2:25 they instruct the salesperson to “play the consumer program.” I’m pretty sure that refers to a nearly 8-minute video which can be found by searching “flying clouds Betamax.” It’s from the same production company that made this training video (National Training Systems in LA). It LOOKS great but it never really does a good job explaining how time shifting works. It just gives endless little scenarios of situations where one could use a VCR. They keep saying weird phrases like “when will you place time at your control?” That would be fine if people actually knew what a VCR was in 1975. Even today, the video would confuse people. (The audio quality is also all over the map during the vignettes). And really, what window shopper is going to suddenly sit still for 8 minutes to watch the whole thing? How many salesmen had to hurriedly switch off the video when they could see a potential sale start eyeing the door? I bet it happened a lot.
As I'm watching this on my tablet
grimlee I know! How far tech has come! :-) but I love old tech too lol
wow it records picture and audio at the same time thats great
Being an actor for a training video hits top ten among the most disappointing professional experiences imaginable.
Well, people start from somewhere. John Goodman started as "guy that bites burger" in mcdonalds commercial
GRACIAS X TUS VIDEOS HACERCA DE SONY BETAMAX
I'm now a fully qualified Betamax salesman
Well all this technology and you had to lose your 25" TV cuz now this Beta console only had a 19" TV in it. They failed to mention the screen size. I was happy when the stand alone came along.
I used to be a salesman at Futureshop back in the early 90's. I remember watching a lot of these kind of training videos back then. There was one that every new salesman had to watch that was from the late 70's's that was about general sales techniques and it was very similar to this. I remember they released un updated version shortly before I left and I took the old tape. I can't remember what happened to it. Would have been cool to cap it and upload it to youtube for posterity lol.
Sony went for picture quality which was a little better then VHS and didn’t license it out and also Betamax were much more expensive
good for education. thanks
I bet these guys spent after work hours playing the new hip sport of racquetball, cruising in their Trans Ams, and picking up single ladies at discos. I can smell the Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne coming through the screen.
One hour recording time?! What happens if you want to tape a film? Also, LOVE the funky musak at the end there :)
It's beautiful
If you want to tape something that's longer than an hour, you just put it on 2 tapes. No different than the pre-recorded tapes of: "Gone With the Wind"; "Titanic"; "Gettysburg"; etc.
Gd old days wen u move you tv. You put you back out
1:58 "Make sure the Betamx is set up for demonstration."
Man looks up, like "where the fuck is that voice coming from??"
The guy in the gray suit, I'm almost sure he's the guy from the nintendo customer service video.
Yeh, I'm sure he's the same guy(actor). Could be the Nintendo video was produced by the same company as this Sony video.
What a stable picture!
softer picture than a 4k TV
At 6:15 that salesman clearly has his hand on a gun. You can see the form of a Saturday night special in his pocket. 95% of middle-aged men in 1977 we're all in shape like this. In 2020 43% of men this age are at least 40 pounds overweight and 20% are 70 lbs. Overweight.
FWIW, the Betamax *wasn't* the very first home video recorder, not by a long way. It wasn't even the first cassette-based home video format.
You know it's a 70's sales video when one of the salesmen has a pornstache.
Brilliant thank you
5:40 ..."you mean I can put this on my card?" At $2400 new (in 1977 dollars), is this how we got into debt?
You mean I can record Alice whilst watching Sanford and Son?
That automatic timer.
Am I right.
5:59 gives me “we got em” vibes
And if you bought it at Crazy Eddie (NY), you'd be 'recommended' to purchase the '8 year picture tube guarantee'. Word has it Eddie Antar used those guarantees in a quite different way.
Right out of the film Auto Focus.
Shit! That thing is huge!!!
I used to have a Beta tape player, but it wasn't a top loader, it loaded the same as a VHS player (through the front). We had that thing for years, even after VHS came out and became more mainstream. We used it up until the damn thing broken down, some time in the late 80's or early 90's (I can't quite remember).
I used to treat my Beta player as a starbase for my toys lol (I was only a kid at the time). It was so freakin' huge and bulky. Ah, the good ol days...long before the internet ruined everything. Sort of...
I love how everything looks like a space ship from this time
Sony i always wondered by its nature i love the brand 😋🥰🥰🥰😘
Damn, nicotine kept America freakin’ skinny yo
I like to know back in the 70s when betamax was out, was it just only for recording TV and filming yourself and friends?
Was Hollywood movies distributed on betamax back then to which you could buy Rocky 1 and 2 when it originally came out them years?
I was born in 82 my parents bought a beta max from a pawn shop. The last three years of the 70s 77-80 movies were distributed on beta max. That included movies released during those years.
What put them out of business was VHS, simply put you got up to 6 hours on one VHS Vs the 1 hour beta max had on its cassettes.
VHS was more user friendly & cheaper. If beta max had 6 hours of tape like VHS they'd probably last a few more years.
The customer looks like Caitlyn Jenner.
You mean Bruce. Just because he's a cock in a frock doesn't make him a woman.
No amount of playing dressup will change a persons sex no matter how much they want (or as is today) demand it.
.
.
.
I just LOVE wearing my pretty little Flowered Sundress for all of
the Public to see.
It has the most lovely little Spring time Flowers printed all over it
and I like the way the soft material feels against my skin.
It really ACCENTUATES my Well - Toned curves and SEXY BODY.
.
What I don't particularly like is when I walk past the
Construction workers that are working nearby.
.
I can REALLY DO WITHOUT all the SEXIST Cat-Calls they make
and yell out to me.
.
Things like :
.
. == Hey ==
.
.
. Your
. legs
.
.
. SURE ARE HAIRY.
.
And:
.
. == HEY ==
.
.
. == Your DICK'S HANGIN' OUT ==
.
.
I mean --- REALLY.
.
They're so CRUDE and INTOLERANT.
.
.
. == Don't you just HATE that - ? ==
.
.
.
does it come complete with dinosaur skin lining? how strong does one need to be to push those buttons? 80p low definition. cutting edge!
Real talk BetaMax produces a analog composite video signal at a luma resolution of 250x480 TV Lines and a Chroma resolution of 30x480 TV lines.