This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,

and we tell stories about everything here on this show,

from the arts to sports

and from business to history, and everything in between, including your stories. Send them to

OurAmericanStories.com. That's our American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites.

Over the years, there have been many format and console wars, including Nintendo versus Sega,

PlayStation versus Xbox, Apple versus Android.

But there was one full-fledged format war that ruled them all.

Years before we had to decide between streaming the latest video or taking it home on DVD or Blu-ray.

A format war between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS began.

The battle lasted for more than a decade, with neither Betamax nor VHS giving up.

Bill Hammack is a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University

of Illinois. He is known as the Engineer Guy, as the creator and host of his popular YouTube

channel explaining the engineering of everyday objects.

In 1976, Sony introduced the Betamax video cassette recorder.

It catalyzed the on-demand of today by allowing users to record TV shows and the

machine ignited the first new media intellectual property battle.

In only a decade, this revolutionary machine disappeared beaten by JVC's VHS cassette recorder.

Here's Bill Engineer Guy Hammock telling the story of how Betamax was defeated by the VHS tape.

This mighty machine sparked a revolution in our use of media.

It's a Sony Beta Max video cassette recorder from 1979.

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