10 ms·

Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. Also I don't get the advantage that you don't need to measure the detergent level, I have alw

Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. Also I don't get the advantage that you don't need to measure the detergent level, I have always used standard "all-in-one" tabs (1 tab = 1 wash) for my dishwasher, they cost around 0.15 Euro per wash and they only thing I need to add ever few weeks is salt (due to hard water). You can buy the tabs in large packs like 100 in one plastic bag and they are not individually packed (the packaging dissolves during the wash). No need for shipping back the cassette to refill or complicated recycling. We are reinventing the wheel again.

barrkel 5y ago
As mentioned in the article, those tabs are for full-sized dishwashers. Also IME, cheap dishwasher tablets (e.g. the generic blue/white combo) don't work very well.
- capableweb 5y ago
  The tabs are ridiculously ineffective! I had issues for a year with my dishwasher until one of the handymen looking at it suggested to use the powder detergent for the compartments instead. Tried it once and it made a night-and-day difference. Never going back to those shitty tabs if I end up with a full-sized dishwasher in the future.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    We have a Bosch dishwasher and switched over to tablets (Finish brand) when I installed it after using the sample packs. It’s hands-down the most effective dishwasher I’ve ever used; I never imagined I’d have feelings about or brand allegiance to a dishwasher, but Bosch earned it (and Finish is part of it, I guess).
    - mypalmike 5y ago
      Beware of their bottom end models. My house came with a Bosch and it does a decent job cleaning but it's very cheaply made. There's a weld that failed that used to hold the upper spray hose in place, the bottom rack falls out of the track most of the time... My Whirlpool at my previous home was far better built.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Interesting - we have a Bosch Dishwasher, always used Finish (the brand) tablets and everything comes out perfectly clean, every time. I joke that the multiple modes on the machine are just for show because it literally makes no difference if I pick the 50C eco wash or 70C intensive wash - everything comes out super clean anyway.
    - barrkel 5y ago
      We have a Miele dishwasher, and there's a difference for some things. The most recent example is some burnt on porridge after a bain-marie double pot had gotten forgotten about on the hob. The 55° wash didn't get that clean but a separate 70° wash did.
    - Kaibeezy 5y ago
      New Bosch here too. We stopped using the 30-minute quick cycle which blasts the dishes with a lot of water but doesn’t seem to get them clean, plus leaves a bitter soapy residue, bleh, and all the plastic is wet. I couldn’t believe the eco cycle would take 3 hours, but it does a fantastic job. Also never thought I’d care about rinse aid, but now I’m obsessive about never running a cycle without it or having a spare bottle on hand. This was an excellent post, and zero surprise the secret sauce can be replaced for pence/pennies on the pound/dollar. Remember the ridiculous “fresh squeezed” juice bags? What’s next? DRM petrol/gasoline for hyper-performance (eco + power + range) auto fuel... but it’s regular gas with a couple drops of stuff added? Music player + headphone combo but you can only listen to Neil Young?
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Yeah ok, the 30 minute wash admittedly is very poor. But the quick wash + Vario speed so it's done in 1:05? Still perfect. And we have cheaper electricity between 00:30-4:30am so I just always schedule that 3h long eco wash for then.
      - Tomte 5y ago
        To all the European Bosch dishwasher users: does yours clean starch properly? All my stainless steel pots and pans have a starch layer after cooking potatoes or rice. I've tried all kinds of detergents and am using Alec's "use some detergent for pre-wash" method.
  - wlll 5y ago
    I've used tabs (brand name ones) for nearly 20 years and they're perfect.
  - zikzak 5y ago
    The cleanest wash I have even gotten in a dishwashing machine is using a small dab of liquid dish soap (like you would use to wash by hand) instead of "real" dishwasher soap. I don't use it regularly because others either think it is nuts or would use too much on the few nights I don't load the machine. I have up trying to justify it and just use tabs for political reasons but the fact is I got a great wash for way less product. Something to note: commercial dishwasher machines (food service) use liquid soap (automatically dispensed, of course).
    - barrkel 5y ago
      Dishwashing fluids contain bleach and other harsh chemicals that can e.g. remove caked on tea residue from cups, something soap will not do without a lot of direct mechanical action. As a tea drinker, unless you are very fastidious, handwashing generally doesn't remove everything and a layer can build up in cups which needs standing in bleach every so often to clear out.
  - lupire 5y ago
    > compartments Plural. We're you using two tabs per wash? If not, you aren't prewashing with detergent, so you are washing your dishes in the filth.
  - sgarland 5y ago
    The tabs suck. Gel packs (at least, Finish Quantum) work amazingly, though.
- mey 5y ago
  My experience as well, different tabs have massively different quality.
- Daniel_sk 5y ago
  Sure, but for 0.15-0.20 Euro per tab you can get quality tabs. I buy "Jar Platinum" tabs in bulk and I have never had any issues with the quality of the wash and I have been using them for like 10 years daily.
  - barrkel 5y ago
    I think Jar is a Czech (and maybe others) brand equivalent of Fairy in the UK.
    - nannal 5y ago
      It is, bother are Procter & Gamble
- hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
  If you're in the US, the Ultra Shine brand available at Dollar Tree works great for me and is the best price I could find. $.10 a pod. I don't have hard water and I run my dishwasher on the normal wash cycle. Normally don't load dishes with heavily caked on food particles.
amelius 5y ago
The "Nespresso" businessmodel of cartridges is too environmentally unfriendly, and one of these days governments/EU will step in and crush it.
- glogla 5y ago
  The "Nes" in the name is from Nestle, who owns it - so it being terrible can't a surprise to anyone.
- ohazi 5y ago
  > one of these days governments/EU will step in and crush it This seems unreasonably optimistic
throw0101a 5y ago
> "all-in-one" tabs (1 tab = 1 wash) for my dishwasher, Technology Connections explains why you actually want to use powder: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 TL; DR: It allows for the pre-wash/rinse cycle to work properly and gets things cleaner, faster.
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  I haven’t seen a machine that holds detergent for prewash cycles nor powdered detergent here in Denmark for over a decade
  - Daniel_sk 5y ago
    Same. I just opened my wash machine to check - no separate compartment for prewash.
    - amalter 5y ago
      I watched the same Technology Connections video and started adding a squirt (I use inexpensive liquid detergent) just directly on the inside of the door. It has remarkably increased the “crud busting” power of my Bosch. I used to be fastidious about pre-rinsing before going in the dishwasher. Not I’m more confident to just go from table to washer (with a super quick rinse) Even if you use tablets, buy a bit of liquid or powder and put about a teaspoon into the initial rinse. On a tangent, the dishwasher is such a wonderful improvement on hand washing. My parents generation still sees the dishwasher as some kind of cheat or lazy way out. They are so much more efficient and environmentally friendly than hand washing. If you have more than one or two pots, you’ll easily use more than the couple of liters of water your dishwasher uses (and the heat for that water has to come from somewhere).
      - iforgotpassword 5y ago
        Same! Using normal dish soap that's sitting next to the sink anyways; if you only add a squirt, it doesn't start making foam like crazy as it pretty much gets "used up" by all the grease, and the result is so much better.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tomxor 5y ago
> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. Although it is proprietary, to be fair on two points: there wasn't really any "DRM", it was literally just a one byte counter on an EEPROM so that a cartridge could digitally record the number of washes remaining, and the machine made no attempt to prevent this being changed. The manufacturer also did not prohibit the cartridges from being refilled by owners, this is in stark contrast to printer manufacturers. I agree they could have done way more to make it easy for users to refill, although it's not prohibited it's completely impractical without some EE knowledge, and as the author says sending cartridges around the world is not a very efficient way of getting detergent back into these things. To be honest a better design would be no cartridges and a couple of reservoirs with level sensors (As you essentially suggested regarding measuring detergent level), since the machine already seems to be capable of pumping an accurate amount of liquid out of the cartridges they wouldn't even need to measure, just fill... I suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design where users have to do the least possible work, as it is more of a luxury product than a utility. I'm not entirely convinced they are trying to make a serious margin on the cartridges, they work out about 3x the cost of the most expensive dishwasher tablet, but they have to send the thing back to france to be reprocessed and programmed... probably not at a scale to be very cost effective. I do love the article though, it's great to be able to hack on stuff like this when the manufacturer made poor decisions.
- jtbayly 5y ago
  Printer cartridges used to be easier to fill, too. Give them time.
  - tomxor 5y ago
    You might be right, time will tell. Or they might never develove into that position due to slightly better consumer protection laws since the HP thing.
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    On the other hand, one could argue that if the dishwasher manufacturer's intention was indeed to prevent user refills, they would have known to already implement their own strict "DRM-style" technological limitations, drawing from the history of printer cartridges. The fact that they haven't may well be a sign of good faith.
astura 5y ago
I use tablets too, but this is a ultra compact dishwasher so tablets aren't going to work on it, they are meant for full sized machines.
Rafert 5y ago
> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. I was in the market for a new washing machine and noticed the Miele W1 machines now have something similar called "TwinDos". You can still add detergent the old-fashioned way but it had me wondering if this is a lead-up to the same business practices we see with Nespresso and inkjet cartridges.
- iforgotpassword 5y ago
  I haven't done any actual research, but I got a feeling that Miele might have been bought up or some external entity got a say in how to optimize their business? A 70yo family friend loves Miele. Never bought anything else for a dish washer, washing machine or drier. When his dish washer broke down two years ago - he proudly mentioned that it lasted him 22 years - he obviously bought Miele again. Just half a year later it broke, he called a Miele technician, who said that this wouldn't be covered by warranty: You see, the manual explicitly states that you must run the machine with a higher-temperature program every so-and-so-ishth time, since the ECO program, which is selected by default every time you turn that goddamn thing on, doesn't heat the up the water enough, and all the gunk will add up in the machine's pipes over time, damaging it. Now that's all fine and logical and I would have shrugged it off if this was an Ikea or no name brand from the local store, but a goddamn Miele that costs premium and is supposed to be a quality product? It's designed by German engineers which probably qualify as rocket scientists in every other country on this planet. And they cannot figure out how to add a counter to that thing so it would warn you if you used ECO mode too many times, or even better yet, make it just raise the temperature automatically even though you selected ECO? Traditional German companies complain about not being able to compete with competition from eastern Europe and China, but then go ahead and pretty much offer the same quality by going to alibaba.com and ordering from there, with a Miele logo slapped on, while keeping the price the same as before. I can only see this being a short term solution, thanks to those old folks who have your brand image burned into their heads from thirty years ago, and will keep buying your stuff. The family friend from above? He got a discount of 50€ for buying a new Miele, which he happily accepted. qed.
  - cheschire 5y ago
raverbashing 5y ago
> I don't get the advantage that you don't need to measure the detergent level, I have always used standard "all-in-one" tabs Yeah this kind of "convenience" makes my BS meter beep. It's a non-problem, and I'm always suspicious of things like this because it's usually a sign they're trying to sneak something past you. (Or marketing to "the new generation" of domestic chores deficient people) I mean, sure, I get that a dishwasher that needs no plumbing is a good idea, but at the same time, it's too few dishes (in my case) to be a big chore.
canadianfella 5y ago
You act like these “all in one tabs” or tide pods have been around forever.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. Sony had proprietary cassettes for all kinds of products over the years, even when there were standards available (Betamax is the most famous but only one example) I have 4 handheld voice recorders from the 1970s from my father. Philips, Norelco, Sony, and one other brand. All use the same size microcassette except the Sony. Fuck you, Sony.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Betamax wasn’t any more proprietary than VHS which was developed by JVC. It has a fairly large number of manufacturers that produced VCRs including NEC, Toshiba, Aiwa and Pioneer the issue was mainly cost and the fact that Betamax cam recorders could not be miniaturized as efficiently and as cheaply as VHS so you ended up with a two stage solution still for home movies and amateur movie production (porn played a big role here).
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    >porn played a big role here Beta had porn. Furthermore, that's not how home video worked. VHS and Beta were sold on their TV recording capabilities, not their home video libraries. Home video was supposed to be handled by disc formats (Laserdisc, CED, VHD, etc); selling movies on $100-ish tapes was prohibitively expensive compared to ~$15 discs. Eventually this was worked around with video rental shops and falling prices of VHS tape, but a consequence of this is that neither Sony nor JVC were licensing content for distribution on their tapes. Remember, you could record whatever you wanted on the tape; that was the point.
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      By home movies I mean replacing the super 8 format. The design behind VHS made camcorders cheaper to make as well as enabled them to be used to play video. Betamax at the time had a more complicated solution where a separate player was needed and also initially a two stage solution where different tapes had to be used.
- 5y ago

barrkel 5y ago

As mentioned in the article, those tabs are for full-sized dishwashers. Also IME, cheap dishwasher tablets (e.g. the generic blue/white combo) don't work very well.

capableweb 5y ago
The tabs are ridiculously ineffective! I had issues for a year with my dishwasher until one of the handymen looking at it suggested to use the powder detergent for the compartments instead. Tried it once and it made a night-and-day difference. Never going back to those shitty tabs if I end up with a full-sized dishwasher in the future.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  We have a Bosch dishwasher and switched over to tablets (Finish brand) when I installed it after using the sample packs. It’s hands-down the most effective dishwasher I’ve ever used; I never imagined I’d have feelings about or brand allegiance to a dishwasher, but Bosch earned it (and Finish is part of it, I guess).
  - mypalmike 5y ago
    Beware of their bottom end models. My house came with a Bosch and it does a decent job cleaning but it's very cheaply made. There's a weld that failed that used to hold the upper spray hose in place, the bottom rack falls out of the track most of the time... My Whirlpool at my previous home was far better built.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Interesting - we have a Bosch Dishwasher, always used Finish (the brand) tablets and everything comes out perfectly clean, every time. I joke that the multiple modes on the machine are just for show because it literally makes no difference if I pick the 50C eco wash or 70C intensive wash - everything comes out super clean anyway.
  - barrkel 5y ago
    We have a Miele dishwasher, and there's a difference for some things. The most recent example is some burnt on porridge after a bain-marie double pot had gotten forgotten about on the hob. The 55° wash didn't get that clean but a separate 70° wash did.
  - Kaibeezy 5y ago
    New Bosch here too. We stopped using the 30-minute quick cycle which blasts the dishes with a lot of water but doesn’t seem to get them clean, plus leaves a bitter soapy residue, bleh, and all the plastic is wet. I couldn’t believe the eco cycle would take 3 hours, but it does a fantastic job. Also never thought I’d care about rinse aid, but now I’m obsessive about never running a cycle without it or having a spare bottle on hand. This was an excellent post, and zero surprise the secret sauce can be replaced for pence/pennies on the pound/dollar. Remember the ridiculous “fresh squeezed” juice bags? What’s next? DRM petrol/gasoline for hyper-performance (eco + power + range) auto fuel... but it’s regular gas with a couple drops of stuff added? Music player + headphone combo but you can only listen to Neil Young?
    - gambiting 5y ago
      Yeah ok, the 30 minute wash admittedly is very poor. But the quick wash + Vario speed so it's done in 1:05? Still perfect. And we have cheaper electricity between 00:30-4:30am so I just always schedule that 3h long eco wash for then.
    - Tomte 5y ago
      To all the European Bosch dishwasher users: does yours clean starch properly? All my stainless steel pots and pans have a starch layer after cooking potatoes or rice. I've tried all kinds of detergents and am using Alec's "use some detergent for pre-wash" method.
- wlll 5y ago
  I've used tabs (brand name ones) for nearly 20 years and they're perfect.
- zikzak 5y ago
  The cleanest wash I have even gotten in a dishwashing machine is using a small dab of liquid dish soap (like you would use to wash by hand) instead of "real" dishwasher soap. I don't use it regularly because others either think it is nuts or would use too much on the few nights I don't load the machine. I have up trying to justify it and just use tabs for political reasons but the fact is I got a great wash for way less product. Something to note: commercial dishwasher machines (food service) use liquid soap (automatically dispensed, of course).
  - barrkel 5y ago
    Dishwashing fluids contain bleach and other harsh chemicals that can e.g. remove caked on tea residue from cups, something soap will not do without a lot of direct mechanical action. As a tea drinker, unless you are very fastidious, handwashing generally doesn't remove everything and a layer can build up in cups which needs standing in bleach every so often to clear out.
- lupire 5y ago
  > compartments Plural. We're you using two tabs per wash? If not, you aren't prewashing with detergent, so you are washing your dishes in the filth.
- sgarland 5y ago
  The tabs suck. Gel packs (at least, Finish Quantum) work amazingly, though.
mey 5y ago
My experience as well, different tabs have massively different quality.
Daniel_sk 5y ago
Sure, but for 0.15-0.20 Euro per tab you can get quality tabs. I buy "Jar Platinum" tabs in bulk and I have never had any issues with the quality of the wash and I have been using them for like 10 years daily.
- barrkel 5y ago
  I think Jar is a Czech (and maybe others) brand equivalent of Fairy in the UK.
  - nannal 5y ago
    It is, bother are Procter & Gamble
hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
If you're in the US, the Ultra Shine brand available at Dollar Tree works great for me and is the best price I could find. $.10 a pod. I don't have hard water and I run my dishwasher on the normal wash cycle. Normally don't load dishes with heavily caked on food particles.

amelius 5y ago

The "Nespresso" businessmodel of cartridges is too environmentally unfriendly, and one of these days governments/EU will step in and crush it.

glogla 5y ago
The "Nes" in the name is from Nestle, who owns it - so it being terrible can't a surprise to anyone.
ohazi 5y ago
> one of these days governments/EU will step in and crush it This seems unreasonably optimistic

throw0101a 5y ago

> "all-in-one" tabs (1 tab = 1 wash) for my dishwasher, Technology Connections explains why you actually want to use powder: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 TL; DR: It allows for the pre-wash/rinse cycle to work properly and gets things cleaner, faster.

wodenokoto 5y ago
I haven’t seen a machine that holds detergent for prewash cycles nor powdered detergent here in Denmark for over a decade
- Daniel_sk 5y ago
  Same. I just opened my wash machine to check - no separate compartment for prewash.
  - amalter 5y ago
    I watched the same Technology Connections video and started adding a squirt (I use inexpensive liquid detergent) just directly on the inside of the door. It has remarkably increased the “crud busting” power of my Bosch. I used to be fastidious about pre-rinsing before going in the dishwasher. Not I’m more confident to just go from table to washer (with a super quick rinse) Even if you use tablets, buy a bit of liquid or powder and put about a teaspoon into the initial rinse. On a tangent, the dishwasher is such a wonderful improvement on hand washing. My parents generation still sees the dishwasher as some kind of cheat or lazy way out. They are so much more efficient and environmentally friendly than hand washing. If you have more than one or two pots, you’ll easily use more than the couple of liters of water your dishwasher uses (and the heat for that water has to come from somewhere).
    - iforgotpassword 5y ago
      Same! Using normal dish soap that's sitting next to the sink anyways; if you only add a squirt, it doesn't start making foam like crazy as it pretty much gets "used up" by all the grease, and the result is so much better.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tomxor 5y ago

> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. Although it is proprietary, to be fair on two points: there wasn't really any "DRM", it was literally just a one byte counter on an EEPROM so that a cartridge could digitally record the number of washes remaining, and the machine made no attempt to prevent this being changed. The manufacturer also did not prohibit the cartridges from being refilled by owners, this is in stark contrast to printer manufacturers. I agree they could have done way more to make it easy for users to refill, although it's not prohibited it's completely impractical without some EE knowledge, and as the author says sending cartridges around the world is not a very efficient way of getting detergent back into these things. To be honest a better design would be no cartridges and a couple of reservoirs with level sensors (As you essentially suggested regarding measuring detergent level), since the machine already seems to be capable of pumping an accurate amount of liquid out of the cartridges they wouldn't even need to measure, just fill... I suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design where users have to do the least possible work, as it is more of a luxury product than a utility. I'm not entirely convinced they are trying to make a serious margin on the cartridges, they work out about 3x the cost of the most expensive dishwasher tablet, but they have to send the thing back to france to be reprocessed and programmed... probably not at a scale to be very cost effective. I do love the article though, it's great to be able to hack on stuff like this when the manufacturer made poor decisions.

jtbayly 5y ago
Printer cartridges used to be easier to fill, too. Give them time.
- tomxor 5y ago
  You might be right, time will tell. Or they might never develove into that position due to slightly better consumer protection laws since the HP thing.
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  On the other hand, one could argue that if the dishwasher manufacturer's intention was indeed to prevent user refills, they would have known to already implement their own strict "DRM-style" technological limitations, drawing from the history of printer cartridges. The fact that they haven't may well be a sign of good faith.

astura 5y ago

I use tablets too, but this is a ultra compact dishwasher so tablets aren't going to work on it, they are meant for full sized machines.

Rafert 5y ago

> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. I was in the market for a new washing machine and noticed the Miele W1 machines now have something similar called "TwinDos". You can still add detergent the old-fashioned way but it had me wondering if this is a lead-up to the same business practices we see with Nespresso and inkjet cartridges.

iforgotpassword 5y ago
I haven't done any actual research, but I got a feeling that Miele might have been bought up or some external entity got a say in how to optimize their business? A 70yo family friend loves Miele. Never bought anything else for a dish washer, washing machine or drier. When his dish washer broke down two years ago - he proudly mentioned that it lasted him 22 years - he obviously bought Miele again. Just half a year later it broke, he called a Miele technician, who said that this wouldn't be covered by warranty: You see, the manual explicitly states that you must run the machine with a higher-temperature program every so-and-so-ishth time, since the ECO program, which is selected by default every time you turn that goddamn thing on, doesn't heat the up the water enough, and all the gunk will add up in the machine's pipes over time, damaging it. Now that's all fine and logical and I would have shrugged it off if this was an Ikea or no name brand from the local store, but a goddamn Miele that costs premium and is supposed to be a quality product? It's designed by German engineers which probably qualify as rocket scientists in every other country on this planet. And they cannot figure out how to add a counter to that thing so it would warn you if you used ECO mode too many times, or even better yet, make it just raise the temperature automatically even though you selected ECO? Traditional German companies complain about not being able to compete with competition from eastern Europe and China, but then go ahead and pretty much offer the same quality by going to alibaba.com and ordering from there, with a Miele logo slapped on, while keeping the price the same as before. I can only see this being a short term solution, thanks to those old folks who have your brand image burned into their heads from thirty years ago, and will keep buying your stuff. The family friend from above? He got a discount of 50€ for buying a new Miele, which he happily accepted. qed.
- cheschire 5y ago

raverbashing 5y ago

> I don't get the advantage that you don't need to measure the detergent level, I have always used standard "all-in-one" tabs Yeah this kind of "convenience" makes my BS meter beep. It's a non-problem, and I'm always suspicious of things like this because it's usually a sign they're trying to sneak something past you. (Or marketing to "the new generation" of domestic chores deficient people) I mean, sure, I get that a dishwasher that needs no plumbing is a good idea, but at the same time, it's too few dishes (in my case) to be a big chore.

canadianfella 5y ago

You act like these “all in one tabs” or tide pods have been around forever.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level. Sony had proprietary cassettes for all kinds of products over the years, even when there were standards available (Betamax is the most famous but only one example) I have 4 handheld voice recorders from the 1970s from my father. Philips, Norelco, Sony, and one other brand. All use the same size microcassette except the Sony. Fuck you, Sony.

dogma1138 5y ago
Betamax wasn’t any more proprietary than VHS which was developed by JVC. It has a fairly large number of manufacturers that produced VCRs including NEC, Toshiba, Aiwa and Pioneer the issue was mainly cost and the fact that Betamax cam recorders could not be miniaturized as efficiently and as cheaply as VHS so you ended up with a two stage solution still for home movies and amateur movie production (porn played a big role here).
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  >porn played a big role here Beta had porn. Furthermore, that's not how home video worked. VHS and Beta were sold on their TV recording capabilities, not their home video libraries. Home video was supposed to be handled by disc formats (Laserdisc, CED, VHD, etc); selling movies on $100-ish tapes was prohibitively expensive compared to ~$15 discs. Eventually this was worked around with video rental shops and falling prices of VHS tape, but a consequence of this is that neither Sony nor JVC were licensing content for distribution on their tapes. Remember, you could record whatever you wanted on the tape; that was the point.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    By home movies I mean replacing the super 8 format. The design behind VHS made camcorders cheaper to make as well as enabled them to be used to play video. Betamax at the time had a more complicated solution where a separate player was needed and also initially a two stage solution where different tapes had to be used.
5y ago