Comments by "eDoc2020" (@eDoc2020) on "The Rise and Reign of Japanese VCRs" video.

I'm sure they would have used a single fixed head if they could have. They didn't have modern magnetic coatings so they needed greater speed. And they didn't have digital processing so it would be impractical to split one high-bandwidth signal onto multiple lower-bandwidth tracks. You also couldn't just change tracks at the end of a tape because that requires changing the direction of travel. This transition takes time during which you would lose signal. Again with digital technology it's not a problem, for a realtime analog system it's unacceptable. While a spinning head drum has its difficulties, it's not as bad as you suggest. The synchronization needed is just a simple PLL. You only need two heads on a helical scan system (or only one if it doesn't need to be compatible with standard TV) and they can be coupled with rotary transformers for increased reliability and signal integrity compared to old-school brushes.
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In my opinion (having never played a Laserdisc) the inability to watch an entire movie without changing (and/or flipping) discs would be a huge downside. If LD came out earlier it might have done better but the fact that movies were already shipping on prerecorded VHS cemented its legacy. And then there was also RCA's CED which combined VHS's poor quality with LD's limited runtime.
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The professional Betacam formats are not the same as the consumer Betamax formats. Betamax is actually much closer to VHS than to Betacam.
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Beta might've hung on later in the UK but VHS was the clear winner in the US by 1982. And regarding a Beta model being bestselling, I'm guessing the MacBook is currently the bestselling laptop model, yet regular PCs are clearly more common.
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One more thing, Beta and VHS are technically very similar formats. Betacam is technically very different from both. Other than the format of the mechanical cassette there's little else linking Betacam and Betamax except for both being made by Sony.
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I think the main problem hindering W-VHS adoption was its timing and the complete lack of HDTV outside of Hi-Vision in Japan. By the time we got real HDTV in the West it was all digital and D-VHS was the way to go. But that was still near-zero adoption. HDTVs only reached 10% adoption in the US in mid 2007 and by that time both optical formats had been out for a year.
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@mndlessdrwer From what I read recently Japan's Hi-Vision system required 4x the bandwidth of regular TV and was only ever carried over satellite TV. Digital HDTV, on the other hand, requires less bandwidth than regular TV, with multiple stations often being carried on one carrier. I'm sure the US could have managed an analog satellite HDTV system but it would surely be more expensive to distribute a signal throughout a geographically huge country than a tiny one. The claim that HD was squashed in the US by the distribution companies wanting to sell pre-recorded media doesn't match reality in my opinion. We had the ability to record HD onto D-VHS before D-Theater precorded tapes came out, and we had hard drive DVRs before HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
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