this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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I could argue that VHS was a superior format to both Beta and Laserdisc because it offered a better blend of features.
Laserdisc offered cinemaphile farkles like perfect pause and frame by frame, additional audio tracks etc. but a movie required at least three sides of a disc, and thus two discs with at least two changes. Laserdisc was read-only and thus useless for timeshifting and camcorders. The tape-based formats were slightly worse in quality but could hold an entire movie in one go.
VHS was superior for timeshift and camcorder use than Beta because of the longer run time. There was a mini cassette for miniature VHS camcorders which could be played back on a standard deck with an adapter, Beta never got there AFAIK and insetad Sony went to Hi 8, which never really took off as a home video format the way it frankly should have. VHS was better than Beta at movie distribution because a longer film could fit on an SP VHS cassette, often with room to spare for some commercials at the beginning which helped subsidize the cost.
VHS was at least capable of everything.
DVD didn't fully kill VHS; It unceremoniously killed LaserDisc and shouldered VHS aside a little. Through most of the 2000s VHS was still going strong, DVD-RAM is surprisingly old but wasn't adopted that widely. Hard drive based DVRs and smart phone based video recording finally did VHS in.
The biggest problem with DVD in the early days was just price. Early DVD players were ridiculously expensive compared to VHS, and the DVDs themselves were also significantly more expensive than VHS tapes. That of course changed over time, as DVD adoption drove the unit prices down across the board. By the time Bluray came around and began to drive out DVD the players had gotten so cheap you could sometimes find them for as little as $25, and DVD movies would regularly show up in discount bins for $5 to $10.
The player price is why you got a playstation 2, dvd player and games console combined
I ripped my DVD collection a couple years ago, and I watched that change over time happen.
The earlier DVDs in my collection came in bespoke packaging designed specifically for the film, they had properly interactive menus complete with easter eggs, commentary tracks, alternate angles, remember when DVD player remotes had an "Angle" button? DVD was a prestige format, it was actually as cool as LaserDisc was supposed to be.
There was the early mass market phase when older movies, or lower budget current releases were put out on double sided discs that had widescreen on one side and "fullscreen" 4:3 on the other, in those half plastic half cardboard cases, remember those? Higher end stuff would be released in what I think of as the standard plastic DVD case. How much plastic was wasted selling them in packaging other than CD jewel cases?
Later on, you got the cases that had the recycling logo cut out of them, the discs got cheaper, features started disappearing, because it was now the budget option. "It's just on DVD." DVDs were cheap to make, everybody had a player for them, Blu-Ray now had the prestige releases. The Direct To Bargain Bin releases weren't exactly the high point of the format but there's still fun to be had there.
DVD still staggers on, they're not dead the way VHS is, but it didn't make it as long. DVDs could do things VHS couldn't, like TV shows. The advent of binge watching happened on DVD; complete TV series on VHS wasn't feasible but it works great on DVD. On the other hand, because VHS was the only widely adopted vdieo format for most of its run, you can find weird stuff on VHS that never got pressed onto DVD.