VHS was better, by a long shot. It won because the Betamax cassette was too small, severely limiting payback length. Feature films on Betamax used slower tape

VHS was better, by a long shot. It won because the Betamax cassette was too small, severely limiting payback length. Feature films on Betamax used slower tape speeds compared to VHS; which meant that VHS typically had better picture quality. The mythical "better" Betamax was limited to about an hour of playback per tape. Technically Betamax could have a better picture, but in practice it didn't. (Again, because the smaller cassette meant that it used slower tape speeds compared to VHS.)