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 th

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). 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. When we finally "upgraded" to VHS some years later, the drop in picture quality was noticeable.