Back in the 70s they had a type of video reel to reel, I owned one myself but didnt aquire it til the early 80s, i got my first vcr in 1980 it was a sony betamax and it was huge it had a top load and 2 channel selectors on the front a vhf and uhf, it had an analog tape counter like the miliage odometer in the car the one you push the button to reset, anyway the reel to reel video recorder used very expensive tapes and they were difficult to aquire, but people with money could own 1 and buy tapes for them and record shows in the early 70s. thus recording original broadcasts before VCRs exsisted, But remember your earliest basic beta vcr machine was around in the mid to late 70s and they were called VTRs Video Tape recorders and beta had 2 speeds 2 hour and 4 hour, but in building the betamax machine the manufactures realized they built a pit bull of a video recorder these things wouldnt die, so they came up with the VHS VCRs and fazed out betamax, the biggest difference in the two other than the size of the tape, is the video heads, in the beta machine the head didnt move it was always stable and anything that doesnt move doesnt wear out, but the video head on the vhs does move it spins and if anything moves or spins it will wear out, plus the vhs machines were built with cheaper parts that wore out faster.

What? No. ... No no no.
That's all conspiracy and not even remotely true.
Nobody "phased out" anybody else. They were competing formats.

Betamax was 1-hour tapes at first, and for quite a while. That's why it died, it wasn't long enough. By the time they came out with extended tapes/units, VHS had trampled them into the ground. That alone killed it. People didn't want to change tapes to watch a purchased movie (did not really have rentals back then), and they wanted a blank tape long enough to record a whole movie. Beyond that, VHS and Beta had few differences, and were about equal in quality (Beta is only "better" in a lab test, but that's not real-world). Also, most machines, at first, only had the raw "SP" recording speeds. Extended LP and SLP (later EP) came out much later.

Video tape also existed in the 1960s. Just not VHS or Beta. It was well matured by the 1970s and is why they started to look into home systems for comparatively lesser costs.

Suggested reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-matic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampex

Your refering to the ntsc Beta 1 format which is 60 min: the tapes I had were L 750 4 1/2 hour tapes or 270 min: the beta machines i will say again had a stable head it didnt move, the tape taken by the servo control ran across the head because in the beta machines there were no motors for the video head as there are in the vhs machines, and I totally disagree with you about the durability of the 2 machines the beta would outlast the vhs in a durability test, i have owned beta machines and vhs machines and know this for a fact, and the beta L series tapes started from L 125 as in 125 feet which was 30 min: in PAL SECAM format then B1 or beta I was 15 min: up to 45 min: for beta III in L 750 tapes you had 90 min: up to 270 min: The beta machines were built better atleast they always outlasted the many VHS machines I had.

Yes, but L-750 tapes were later in the Beta life cycle, and long after the T-120 VHS tapes (which could do 2 hours native SP or 4 hours LP). If you started when those tapes were new, you got the machine toward the end of the "war".

Both machines have their share of mechanical drawbacks.

Yes, but L-750 tapes were later in the Beta life cycle, and long after the T-120 VHS tapes (which could do 2 hours native SP or 4 hours LP). If you started when those tapes were new, you got the machine toward the end of the "war".

Both machines have their share of mechanical drawbacks.

The first vcr I ever owned was a sony betamax it was huge it had 2 channel selectors vhf and uhf on the front and it had a monolog tape counter it had no clock infact nothing digital at all it had top load it had the only remote available at the time came with the machine was one that plugged into the machine which was a wired remote, this beta mahine had piano keys that you had to push down to lock in place to play record or whatever tape function and it had a flat switch on the front for beta 1 or beta 2 and it was very heavy as I recall.

Grandad had a recorder back in the early 70s, they werent commercially available on the mass market yet, but he worked with electronics, it looked sort of like the old giant kind they had in schools in the 70s, huge and clunky but he taped all sorts of stuff

:crazy: