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More info DigiBeta, Betacam Tapes
Betacam video tapes were developed by Sony in 1982 and became the favourite for TV broadcast, TV Documentary and short movies. These video tapes were the successor to the U-Matic video tapes which started to be manufactured in 1971. There are several variants in this family of professional video tapes. There is the original Betacam, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam better known as DigiBeta and Betacam SX. For ease of use and storage all of the different formats are the same shape and size. All of the formats are available in large and small. Betacam video cameras will only accept the small video tapes but the VTRs, Video Tape Recorders will accept both sizes.
For video archival purposes it is normally the large video cassettes that are used due to the larger storage capacity. The video cassette case and the Betacam tape itself are different colours depending on what format it is. For example Betacam SX, also known as Beta SX are yellow in colour. Because of new advances in the electronics digital field the Betacam video family are becoming obsolete, even in the field of archiving.
In 1986 Betacam gave way to the new format of Betacam Superior Performance, or Betacam SP. The horizontal line of TV resolution were increased from 300 to 340, whilst this was only a minor change for the video format, the quality difference in the recorders and payers was enormous. The 30 min was popular for short news clips but the new Beta SP 90 minute large video cassette quickly became the TV industry standard until the end of the electronics revolution of the 90s. The other difference was the Betacam SP tape quality. Beta SP now used a metal formulated tape where as Betacam used an oxide tape. The major development that Sony introduced was that the Beta cam SP would play, but not record on Beta players.
With all of the Sony products becoming TV industry standard, it was not long before other manufacturers, such as Panasonic and Fuji to start releasing their own video cameras, camcorders, video players and cassettes.
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