My parents bought a Beta VCR at Sears back in the 80s -- it was on sale for some reason. It was a freaking huge top-loading model (which was probably a good thing, as I had recently destroyed my dad's front-loading 8 track player with a peanut butter sandwich).<p>I remember watching the 'Beta' section at Blockbuster shrink until they finally sold off all of their Beta tapes for $5/pop (which was a steal back then). After a while, the thing was really only good for recording TV shows, as movies were simply unavailable for it.<p>When we finally "upgraded" to VHS some years later, the drop in picture quality <i>was</i> noticeable.
"Although many felt Betamax was the superior format, most cite the longer recording length of VHS tapes - three hours versus one...."<p>That right there should have been a red flag. A tape doesn't fit a film.....
There's probably money to be made in buying up old tapes, refurbishing them, blanking them and selling them on.<p>Much like these guys do with floppy disks: <a href="http://floppydisk.com/" rel="nofollow">http://floppydisk.com/</a>