Home video is finally a commercial reality after ten years of false starts. The major Japanese and American consumer electronics manufacturers have settled on one or the other of two home TV recording systems and sales drives are under way to sell you one. In addition, dozens of companies are pitching pre-recorded video cassettes.

Video Recorders: The home video recorder is a larger version of the home audio cassette recorder. Connected to. the antenna terminals of your TV set, it will record programs for later viewing or playback pre-recorded cassettes.

The two systems now in competition are the Sony Betamax, manufactured by Sony and Zenith, and the Matsushita VHS, manufactured by Magnavox, GTE Sylvania, RCA, and Panasonic. The Betamax and VHS systems are not compatible, although they each use similar size and format video cassettes. This means you can’t play a Betamax cassette on a VHS machine or vice versa.

It seemed at first that the VHS format had the advantage over Betamax. VHS is designed to record up to two hours on a single cassette—a necessity, if you want to tape a movie or other special event. This two hour capability 'depends on an old video trick kno wn as ‘skip field’: only a selected portion of the total signal is recorded (approximately half of the picture information) and during playback the information that is recorded is played back twice to fill in the signal. The quality of the two hour recording is acceptable, but not up to the quality of a one hour recording.

The first Betamaxs released were capable of only one hour of record, but Sony, bowing both to the competition and basic consumer desires, has introduced the Betamax X2 home video cassette machine which will also record and play back for two hours on one cassette. (This does not obsolete the original one hour Betamax, by the way. Sony will also introduce a changer for the Betamax which will change the cassette for another, thus turning the one hour Betamax into a two hour machine and the two hour machine into a four hour machine.)

The cost difference between VHS and Betamax is slight. The original one hour Betamax machine is reported to be in for a price reduction to under $900 and the new two hour Betamax will sell for about $1,300 list. The VHS systems will be in the $900 to $1,000 range.

It’s too early to tell which. is the superior system. Personally, I’ll side with Sony over Panasonic from past experience with their video equipment. Where Panasonic makes a good, sometimes highly sophisticated video product, Sony seems to have a knack for making practical, dependable equipment that has the edge over Panasonic when it gets down to using the gear day in and day out. I temper this by noting that the motor blew up on my Betamax three days after I bought it. However, (knock wood) I haven’t had any further trouble in the last year.'

Video Programs: The C major use most video machines get is recording programs while you’re not home for later replay or recording favorite shows or movies to watch again. But since there isn’t that much to watch on TV (and certainly very little of it is worth watching twice), the concept of pre-recorded cassettes is excellent. The reality, however, is different—often the cassettes for sale are repeats of things already shown for free on TV or they’re priced astronomically high for something you only want to watch a couple of times. Video cassette prices will never be as cheap as records because of high stock and duplicating costs—it will cost $10 to make a TV record of an old movie! Recently, however, a number of program producers have lowered their prices and made their programs available on Betamax cassettes.

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Time-Life Multimedia (P.O. Box 644, Paramus, NJ 07652, Attn: Video Dept.) has put together a “Great Programs Collection” at $49.95 per Betamax hour cassette. This includes “Civilization,” “The Ascent of Man,” “Ten Who Dared,” “Rose Kennedy Remembers,” and “Life Goes To The Movies.” Although these have ttll been previously shown on TV, when the Time-Life guy called me to pitch me, (they obviously have a list from Sony of Betamax owners) they said that none of these shows will be shown again on TV.

Other program offerings include: Entertainment Video Releasing, Inc., which had a soft-core collection of goodies like “Naughty Coeds,” “1001 Danish Delights;” and Home Cinema Service, who’s recently put together “The Best Of Midnight Blue.”

There are dozens of educational, industrial, and entertainment opera; tions who* have been supplying video programs for rent or purchase on the Sony U-Matic cassette format which was popular in schools, for rich people at home, etc., who are now preparing to release their programs on home cassette formats. If you’ve got a machine and want to track down programs, check out the June 1977 issue of Videography Magazine (United Business Publications, 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017), which costs $1 and lists all current program producers.

What To Buy When: The Betamax has had over a year of in-field use, an important point when buying video equipment, as the manufacturer often uses the first ten thousand or so machines sold as test units to get the bugs out. You’d probably have the edge with Betamax, although the best thing to do would be to wait a year or so and see if VHS beats out Betamax or if Betamax works and VHS doesn’t.HHr