peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (11/20/83)
I heard the following from an audio/video salesperson this afternoon: Expect a flurry of Beta HiFi machines in the coming year. Pioneer and Marantz are going to be selling them, and Nakamichi will replace their top-of-the-line cassette decks with Beta HiFi units. So far, I've heard of units from Sony (the 5200, 2700, and now 2710), Toshiba, NEC, and Sanyo. Also from the salesperson: 85% of the VCR's produced in Japan next year will be Beta, due to the advantages of Beta HiFi (I don't quite believe this part of the story). All this should mean some healthy competition in the Beta HiFi market within 6 months.
alex@aecom.UUCP (Alex Fuss) (11/23/83)
I have it from an audio engineer and producer of quality cassettes that Beta HiFi can't be beat. It stores music along the width of the video tape rather than along the edge, and audiophiles are buying them to use as inexpensive HiHiFi tape decks. This feature of Beta was developed to offset there disadvantage as far as available pre-recorded tapes (i.e., movies).