The Entertainment Merchants Association

Fall 1975 – The Sony Betamax goes on sale in the U.S. The LV-1901 console, consisting of a SL-6200 video cassette recorder (VCR) and a 19″ Sony Trinitron television set, retails for $2,495. A table-top recorder/player deck (the SL-7200) is marketed the following spring for $1,400. (Sony stopped offering the Betamax VCR as a consumer product in the U.S. in 1993 and ceased production of the device altogether in 2002.)