Anime Fans Prefer Beta

Another installment from The Yappie Handbook (1984).

YAPPIE AUDIO-VISUAL REQUIREMENTS

Television

In the coming new media age, a television that can accommodate a variety of electronic equipment connections is best. However, televisions with A/V inputs are quite expensive, so a standard, color tone stabilized color television can be used as well. In the latter case, a large cathode ray tube set will offer a better viewing experience than a compact type.

Video

A full-featured video tape recorder with more features than a standard model, such as a remote control, is a necessity. It can be purchased by saving money from a part-time job. The reason for needing such a high-end model is so as to satisfy the needs of someone who will be using it every day. It's a little luxurious, but purchasing both VHS and Betamax types will give you more freedom for dubbing. For those who can't afford both, most anime fans prefer Beta.

Stereo

Yappies tend to be visually oriented, but it's still a good idea to purchase a mini component stereo system tailored to the size of your room.  The most important consideration isn't audio quality but rather to pick a system that has a timer feature and can play multiple cassette tapes in succession. Remember: this will be the background music machine for your anime life.

Other

You may find a "dubbing controller," which will allow you to dub videos, and a portable home computer useful as well.

Comments

[Sean]

Considering that most older titles seemed to cost the same in either VHS or Beta formats, why WOULDN'T you prefer Beta?

At least until Laserdisk and VHD came around.

[Steve Harrison]

Interesting that they downplay music. I wonder why that was?

Also interesting is the suggesting of getting a multi cassette player. I don't think I saw one of those in the U.S. until the early '90s.

Also, portable home computer. hm. pure Sci Fi. :)

[Tim Eldred]

Audio quality isn't important, just the ability to play back-to-back cassette tapes. HUMBUG!

Sorry for my harsh language.

Interesting that the "part-time job" element is just sort'a tossed in there, like the barnacle rather than the ship. There needs to be a page where some cute manga girl sits you down and lays it out. Listen, you HAVE to get a job. Your parents aren't going to pay for all this. And it's going to suck for a while...

[hillsy]

It's funny....my parents bought a Betamax, while everyone else had VHS. I thought we were so behind...until I saw all the great anime tapes that could be found cheap for the Betamax (Spectreman, everything by Ziv, some Force Five stuff, other odds and ends brought over and dubbed).

[Casey]

My brows are lifted to the references to fan dubbing. I never considered the possibility that anime fans of Japan had enough interest in foreign animation to sustain fan-dubbing. Does anyone know anything about that?

[Steve Harrison]

sorry, wrong kind of dubbing.

We used the term 'Duping' or 'cloning', the act of making a copy.

Japanese broadcast TV, esp. back then, was something utterly different from how things were done in the U.S. I recall it could be quite confusing at times. I'm sure Yappies in one region would get a show that wasn't aired in another region and there would be sharing.

[MattAlt]

I feel old even having to explain this, but Steve's right. This "dubbing" doesn't refer to voice-overs. It refers to copying of tapes.

In the illustration above, the "dubbing controller" is the little box sitting next to the TV. It's basically a switching device that let one VCR act as a master that sends copies to other connected VCRs. It was coveted by anime "circles" (clubs) that needed to make numerous copies of tapes.

I wish they'd gone into more detail about what Yappies used the "portable computer" for, because it's my understanding that personal computing wasn't anywhere nearly as advanced in Japan at the time as it was in the US, due to the difficulty of displaying the Japanese character set on screen with the hardware of the day.

[Casey]

Many thanks to Steve and Matt for setting the record straight. All very enlightening. And I'm sorry your blog has attracted the patronage of a young buck who didn't know what "dubbing" used to mean.

[Steve Harrison]

You know Matt, I bet the 'portable computer' was used for spreadsheet lists of shows recorded, titles, airdates, etc.

Organize what's on each tape, maybe list 'condition' (was there static? did the broadcast hiccup? Was there a baseball game that pre-empted an episode?).

It was likely usually something like the Timex/Sinclair portable,ya?

(and funny how that's come full circle with the new gen cell phone company 'palmtop' machines)

Casey, don't sweat it. It's history, that's all. think of it as physical media real-time file sharing. :)

[MattAlt]

No need to apologize! Young bucks (and does?) always welcome. It's just fascinating to me how fundamentally things have changed in the space of only two decades.

>> think of it as physical media real-time file sharing. :)

TapeTorrent!

[Steve Harrison]

nono, TapeTorrent is when more than 2 machines are ganged together in a mass copy chain.

Not that I have ANY first hand knowledge of that, no. ;)

[Carl]

It's true that "dubbing" was commonly used in the 1980s to mean "copying a tape," but, come to think of it, I wonder how it acquired that meaning, especially because it already also meant "changing the voices from the original." I've heard that it originally came out of audio recording, where you would "double" a track, and this became "dub."