I was gonna say, i remember seeing news stories about it's final demise 20 years ago. I guess it was the "Mark Twain" of video tape formats. ;)

Betamax manufacturing died a long time ago. It's the manufacturing of videotape that it is finally ceasing.
The company announced Tuesday that it will stop making Betamax video tapes in March, 2016.
No surprise that it was still being made as that's the same or similar tape that Sony used in their professional BetaCam machines and those are still being used in broadcast stations around the world.

Mike

Wonder if that includes the Pro Betacam SP too? My 5000 dollar player sitting on the shelf dying to know.
JJK

I'm not really sorry to see it go, its time has long since passed and I haven't recorded anything in the format since the late 80s. I do still have an extensive archive in Betamax format. In the battle between Betamax and VHS, I was firmly on the Betamax side, the video quality of the Beta 1s recording speed was far, far superior to the VHS SP mode.

many, many years ago i had a client who shot weddings on a 505 betcam sp rig (or maybe a bvw 25) using betamax tapes with necessary holes covered or drilled, don't remember which. got pretty stunning pictures (relatively to what the other event people were shooting).

I concur w/ John. Betamax was a superior format to VHS, but VHS won out. OTOH, Betacam (and Betacam SP) were a descendant of the Batamax format (the shorter Betacam portable version shell was the same shell size, Betacam SP was the SOP 'pro-ENG' format from the mid 1970's to 90s. Ah, I remember it well. I also remember the $80k camcorder price-tag. Quality was 'night and day' from 3/4" though.