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Sony Beta hi-fi Catalogue (February 1985)

Japanese Sony catalogue showing many of the Beta hi-fi VCRs available in 1985. Also available in a ZIP. Click photos for full size

The front cover shows the top-of-the-line SL-HF900 with Sony TV, stand, and speaker. The Betamax 10th anniversary is also mentioned in the lower left corner

This page has some marketing fluff about how beautiful things sound look beautiful and good sound should be enjoyed with good images, introducing the new Hi-Band or SuperBeta VCRs with increased picture quality.

The left page talks a little bit about how Beta Hi-Band increases the available frequencies for encoding video information by about 800MHz, where the Beta hi-fi FM carrier fits in, and how the tracks are laid out on the tape. The right page suggests some things you might like about Hi-Band and hi-fi like improved clarity on large screens, trick-play features, compatibility with existing machines, and the range of hi-fi tapes and stereo TV programming including Sony's rebroadcasting of the American cable channel MTV available. They also suggest using a hi-fi deck as an alternative to a traditional audio recorder or with a PCM encoder or making your own video productions using some of Sony's video accessories.

The top-of-the-line at the time SL-HF900 Beta Pro with four heads, Hi-Band (Super Beta) and hi-fi and advanced trick play and video control - the jog/shuttle control on the front of the machine flips down to reveal - a thicker jog/shuttle dial! Also has a cable TV tuner, double-speed playback with sound, big three-week, eight program timer, and advanced automatic and single-frame editing capabilities with audio insert. This was the first of what you could arguably call the "prosumer" editing Betas, although the later massive Beta Is and ED Beta editing decks with huge remote commanders are better remembered for it and could do it better (and easier) as well

The SL-HF300 first released in September 1984 with big audio indicators and included remote. Does not have the Hi-Band or editing (and related advanced trick-play/record) features of the SL-HF900 but otherwise has all the regular BetaSkipScan features, electronic counter, and recording indexing functionality on other nice machines. Sony really liked the idea that you could stack up their products in a nice pile - obviously many manufacturers did this, to the point that it became a trend to make fake one in the 1990s, but I must admit that the look of old ones made up of components actually worth using...

Otherwise fairly similar to the SL-HF 300, the SL-HF355's standout feature is its graphical on-screen display that (theoretically) makes programming easier as well as being capable of showing some other information like the channel, date and time, and operational state of the deck on-screen. Released November 1984.

The original SL-HF77 Beta hi-fi and its two lower-end counterparts the SL-HF66 and SL-HF55. It seems like these were on their way out - the HF55 and HF66 don't have prices listed, and the SL-HF77 still cost more than the brand new Hi-Band SL-HF900 with advanced editing capabilities and better picture quality! The SL-HF77 was certainly built like a tank... The chart on the right is a comparison between the six machines shown in the catalogue

Sony LDP-150 Lasermax Laserdisc player and an audio-video reciever AVU-150 which could be connected to speakers, a display, and multiple video sources. On the right is the RM-E100 editing controller, the AVH-555ES video selector, and some other Sony audio devices including tuners, a PCM decoder, amplifiers, and speakers

Advertising Beta hi-fi software (software was also used to describe video content on tape as it is, in several ways, similar to software - the thing that you buy or make to insert into your hardware to get a different thing out of it) and Pro-X blank tapes