But the Betamax King — and other citizen archivists — want you to give these tapes another look. "Think twice before you throw it away," implored Stirling. "You might have [something] that ...

Nonetheless, Betamax holdouts can use orginal Betacam tapes in Betamax decks, although ideally not the successor formats (Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, etc). These will work in extremis, but reportedly ...

A standard VHS was about 7 inches wide, 4 inches deep, and 1 inch thick. Two small spools -- a supply reel and a take-up reel-- rested inside the plastic outer shell.

Jaws tore up the box office in 1975, the same year that Betamax tapes were introduced to the market. They quickly found their place for people to shoot home movies and amateur films.

That’s possibly because Philips had ensured that it was possible to pull flip a Video 2000 tape over to record the other side. Yes, that meant the format effectively used a chunk of tape a quarter ...

Sony launched Betamax on May 10, 1975 and, in America, it was originally only sold as part of a home entertainment combo set, housed inside a wooden console next to a 19" Trinitron color television.

It was Sony who solved the reel-to-reel problem with—ta daaa!—a video cassette. It was called U-Matic, and at 3/4″ thick, it was smaller than the earlier formats, but still a bit of a chunkster.

Sony stopped making Betamax recorders in 2002, but has continued quietly churning out the cassettes; as of this writing, blank ones are still available on Amazon.com for $6.59 apiece.

Pressing "playback" on a vintage camcorder, all to see what exactly might be on the VHS or Betamax tape inside, means you'll likely see come across some fun and possibly zany footage, perhaps of a ...

Image | VHS/BETA Players - Betamax king. Caption: Much of the equipment used to digitize old VHS and Betamax tapes is no longer in production. Stirling collects players to help with his archival work.