High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Betamax (sometimes called Beta, and referred to as such in the logo) was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain .50 in (12.7 mm)-wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional .75 in (19 mm) wide, U-matic format. The format is considered obsolete, though it is still used in specialist applications by a small minority of people.