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.

"Although many felt Betamax was the superior format, most cite the longer recording length of VHS tapes - three hours versus one...."

That right there should have been a red flag. A tape doesn't fit a film.....

crazy to think this format still kicking around - Wonder what other formats many think are dead are actually still in production .... 8-track?

There's probably money to be made in buying up old tapes, refurbishing them, blanking them and selling them on.

Much like these guys do with floppy disks: http://floppydisk.com/