I ask that you observe a moment of silence, of silent contemplation, for an event that you might well have missed. It occurred at the end of last month. But then it was the second passing, if you will, following another related and similarly unfortunate event that occurred at the end of March, which you might also have missed. These events involved the demise of something that, if you are older than 21, you would have relied or used extensively and over which you may have had quite a few fights. No, it is not a liquid refreshment that “guarantees ten fights to the bottle”.

At the end of July, Japanese company Funai Electric Company made its last VCR player, which played VHS cassettes. At the end of March, another Japanese company, Sony Corporation, had made its last VCR player, which played Betamax cassettes – this after nearly 41 years of continuous production. (Betamax cassettes were the first to enter the market, having been released on May 10, 1975, with VHS cassettes following on September 9, 1976. You probably know that the acronym VCR stands for ‘video cassette recorder’, but what about VHS? It stands for ‘video home system’. What about Betamax? It is an amalgamation of the Japanese ‘beta’, which means ‘all over’, and ‘max’, an abbreviation of the English ‘maximum’.

If you are slightly older than 21, you might vividly recall the arguments as to which of the two – VHS or Betamax – was better. Video Stores, usually part of a café, stocked both formats, but, in South Africa, the VHS quickly prevailed, although the Betamax purists persisted, despite fighting a losing battle. What you may not know is that, since the technology originated in Japan, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) expressed a desire, in 1974, to require the industry to standardise on one format, in an effort to avoid consumer confusion.

With its prototype the first available, Sony persuaded the MITI to adopt Betamax as the standard and allow it to license the technology to companies. However, Victor Company of Japan, better known to us as JVC (present-day JVC Kenwood Holdings), believed that an open standard, shared among competitors without licensing the technology, would be better for consumers. JVC subsequently persuaded Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (present- day Panasonic Corporation and JVC’s majority stockholder at the time) and Sharp Corporation to back the VHS format. In typical ‘the enemy of your enemy is my friend’ fashion, these companies did not believe that the Betamax format was not necessarily the best technology, but their concern was that Sony might become the leader in the field if its proprietary Betamax format was the only one allowed to be manufactured.

Eventually, the VHS format became the preferred international cassette format. This was not because of the technology, but, rather, because of the efforts of JVC. At the time, JVC was still recovering from its U-Matic deal with Sony, which saw Sony license this analogue recording videocassette format (the forerunner to the Betamax) to companies, which it introduced onto the market in September 1971. Sony subsequently dominated this market. (Sony has not deviated from its licensing strategy and is currently one of the licensing partners of DVD and Blu-ray technology, the successor of Betamax.)

The most important fight that Sony fought with respect to the cassette formats was not its fight with the other producers; it was the fight with content providers – reluctant content providers, you might say. You will recall that the VCR allowed us to record things – “to tape”, as we used to say. But was this practice legal? Well, though this was never tested in South African courts, it was in the US. In a 1984 case, Sony Corporation of America versus Universal City Studios, also known as the ‘Betamax case’, the Supreme Court ruled that “the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use”. The court further ruled that “manufacturers of VCRs cannot be liable for infringement”. So, if you have been having a guilty conscience all these years, having recorded your fair share of television programmes or movies, thinking that you were engaging in an illegal activity, well, you were in the clear all along; no confession necessary.

When I read of the demise of the Betamax and VHS, I had mixed emotions. Yes, we first had a Betamax and then a VHS. I remember many a fight as to whose turn it was to record (tape), and then the most brutal of all fights to identify the culprit – in the days long before CSI – who would have taped over your favourite recording. You will recall that the cassettes had a plastic piece at the back which you could break off and remove. This prevented any recording. Yet somehow it happened. This was, of course, only possible by affixing a piece of sticky tape at the back of the cassette, and then to record and remove the cassette and the sticky tape. It was the perfect ‘crime’.

But even if you could have prevented the cassette from being taped on, not all VHS or Betamax memories were forever. The tape could break (snap) or stretch, owing to excessive use – pausing and playing it at slow motion. Then the VCR cassettes from your favourite Video Store or those that you borrowed elsewhere could make the heads ‘dirty’ – yes, two heads. As a consequence, you had to invest in a video cassette cleaner. Here, too, there were two versions: wet and dry options. The aforementioned had a tendency to damage the heads of the VCR.

If you were too young for the VHS/Betamax experience or want to reminisce, then you might want to use Google’s YouTube ‘VHS simulator’, which says: “On select videos, you’ll find a VHS button in the bottom right of the player. Just click to turn back the clock and enjoy the static and fuzzy motion of the VHS era.”

Though I will truly miss the VHS and Betamax cassettes, I must confess that we have not had contact in many a year, reminiscent of old Varsity friends, when you hear – heaven forbid – of misfortune befalling them, you immediately remember the good times that you had.
The thing with age is that you get to say “Goodbye” more regularly than you do “Hello”. But then with age you realise that saying “Hello” might well be as overrated as that 2015 Adele song, Hello, with its opening lyrics: “Hello, it’s me; I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet.” Well, the song lost me at “hello”. I prefer the opening lyrics of Terry Jacks’s 1973 classic, Seasons in the Sun: “Goodbye to you, my trusted friend; We’ve known each other since we were . . .”