[Question_Assumptions]

I don't completely buy the "Betamax was superior" line for two reasons. The first and most obvious one to VCR users was that Betamax didn't hold as much as VHS, thus making VHS superior in a fairly important way, especially when tapes cost $20 and the best VHS recording speed was 2 hours. But even if you just look at quality, the Betamax machine moves the tape, in a serpentine way, past the heads (in a sort of "B" shape without the back bar, thus the name). The problem with that is tape wear. If you've ever seen old Betamax tapes, they'd get sparkly drop-outs where the magnetic material flaked off of the tape because of how it was being wound through the heads. So perhaps with a pristine tape and a short program, Betamax was superior but people wanted longer recording times and there were certainly some quality issues, at least with the tapes of that day, in the long haul.

[SlowBoat407]

You are correct about the tape handling aspect. Matsushita got the transport right. However, the image processing electronics for Beta were superior, producing an image resolution of about 300 lines vs VHS 240 IIRC.

Interestingly enough, every format Panasonic has produced in the last 10 years has been half-inch, since they already have a solid mechanism for it. Why mess with success?

[stockpirate]

The reason the Beta was considered better wass due to the tape speed being faster moving across the recording head. But your point about the tape flaking is right on target.

I think both have a recording wigth of 32 microns and the record angle is the same, it is just the spped of the tape passing over the head that was different and that limited the Beta to 5 hours max.