Betacam

Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, "Betacam" singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself.

All Betacam variants from (plain) analog recording Betacam to Betacam SP and digital recording Digital Betacam (and additionally, HDCAM & HDCAM SR), use the same shape videocassettes, meaning vaults and other storage facilities do not have to be changed, when upgrading to a new format. The cassettes are available in two sizes: S (for Short) and L (for Long). The Betacam camcorder can only load S magnetic tapes, while television studio sized video tape recorders (VTR) designed for video editing can play both S and L tapes. The cassette shell and case for each Betacam cassette is colored differently depending on the format, allowing for easy visual identification. There is also a mechanical key, that allows a video tape recorder to identify which format has been inserted. The smaller S cassettes use the same form factor as Betamax.