The consumer VCR turns 50 this week. On May 10, 1975, Sony introduced the Betamax. Although Betamax lost the famous format war, it kicked the door open, being the first VCR format that mere mortals could aspire to own and use.
Earlier VCRs that predated Sony Betamax
Technically, VCR-like technology first appeared in the 1950s. Ampex Corporation introduced a reel-to-reel video tape recorder called the VRX-1000 in 1956, but since it cost $50,000 and was the size of a dining room table, it wasn’t practical for household use. Several competing reel-to-reel videotape formats appeared in the 1960s, but these also were neither affordable nor easy to use.
In 1971, Sony introduced the U-matic, a cassette-based video recorder. Five other competing cassette-based formats appeared soon after, including Avco’s Cartrivision, Matsushita’s EIAJ-2, Sanyo’s V-Cord, Philips’ Video Cassette Recording, and Sony’s U-matic S.
All of these proved too expensive to catch on. A Cartrivision set turned up on Ebay in 2021, and the only surviving recording of the 1973 NBA Game 5 finals happened to be on Cartrivision. It was recovered in 2013.
But when Sony introduced Betamax in 1975 and JVC introduced VHS in 1976, it didn’t take long for other electronics manufacturers to align with one or the other of those formats. And yes, although the popular narrative says VHS was an open format that everyone but Sony adopted, that’s an oversimplification. Sanyo chose Betamax initially, and Toshiba, Pioneer, Murphy, Aiwa, and NEC all produced Betamax VCRs..
When “affordable” didn’t mean affordable
Note I said it was the first VCR format that mere mortals could aspire to own. It wasn’t affordable from the get-go. But the first model released in the United States cost $2,295 and you couldn’t connect it to your TV. It was a 19-inch TV that included the VCR built in. Sony had a Betamax deck with RF output to connect to existing sets, but only sold it in Japan at first.
At $2,295, it was still expensive. The median family income in 1975 was $13,720, so it cost nearly 17 percent of the median worker’s salary. Or to put it in 2025 dollars, that early VCR/TV combo cost $13,551.
But with the price being four digits, it meant there was hope the price would come down and that eventually, VCRs would be something affordable for people who don’t collect vintage Rolls-Royces as a hobby. Within a year, Sony was selling the standalone units separately. And prices did come down over time. By the mid 1980s, many households had a VCR. Although by then it was probably a VHS, not a Betamax.
The initial price was low enough to spook movie studios, who quickly sued. The case was resolved in Sony’s favor but not until the 1980s, when Sony had basically lost the format war. But the legal questions applied to VHS as well.
Although obsolete today, and there are adults alive today who likely have never seen a video cassette, the VCR was a cultural icon of the 1980s. But if you’re like me and old enough to remember kicking off the weekend with a trip to a video store to rent a movie on cassette to watch, all of that got its start 50 years ago today.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.