Production Glossary
Betacam
Invented by Sony in 1982, Betacam is a line of professional videotape equipment. The range of products includes a tape, video recorder, and camcorder, which are all referred to as “Betacam”, including the format. As an analog component format, Betacam stores the chrominance and luminance on alternating sections of the tape to boost picture and resolution to a higher quality (120 lines chrominance to 300 lines luminance).Betacam cassettes are sold in two sizes, small and large (S and L). Sony streamlined their product line by making sure that the two formats are compatible with one another. A Betacam camera can accommodate S tapes and the Betacam video tape recorder can load both S and L forms. The tapes themselves are color-coded to represent type and contain a mechanical key that enables the video tape recorder to specify which size has been inserted. Betacam and Betamax tapes are interchangeable, but Sony discourages doing so in order to preserve quality and function.
The Betacam camcorder utilizes four heads to capture images in the component format. This feature records at a higher linear tape speed which manifests greater sound and video quality. This improved quality, and the advent of the camcorder, led to news organizations quickly adopting Betacam as the standard recording format. This adoption was solidified in 1986 when Sony introduced Betacam SP. By expanding horizontal resolution to 340 lines and presenting a cassette with an increased recording time (90 minutes), Betacam formats and products were a guaranteed long term success.
