While a worse format surely could have won something like the video wars, it doesn't seem that VHS was in fact the worse format overall: https://www.youtube.com

While a worse format surely could have won something like the video wars, it doesn't seem that VHS was in fact the worse format overall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKRubB5N60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyKRubB5N60 (Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v019trxfcmg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v019trxfcmg . Quality comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oJs8-I9WtA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oJs8-I9WtA ) Beta was basically optimised for one thing, reasonable cassette size, and the tradeoffs turned out probably not to be worth it.