In mid 1975 Sony introduced a follow up to their U-matic home video recorder, the Betamax. Aimed primarily at costumers with a love of photography and an interest in video recording rather than film addicts Sony's machine was nevertheless ready to take over.

Not everyone was happy with Sony yet again delving into the home video recorder market, many electronics companies feeling the Japanese giants would monopolise the market. And so JVC released VHS a year later.

From this point the battle began raging soon turning into one of the most bitter format conflicts. VHS of course won and to this day the clash is studied in marketing schools world wide as a text book example of technological rivalry.