"Better" in the case of Beta is debateable, I still remember
when movies came on one VHS or two Beta tapes, that right
there is enough to push me to VHS.

There were never any two-tape Beta movies. BII was introduced before
recorded movies became common (as far as I remember).


The ironic thing is that in this recent case "Beta" won, BD is the
more expensive proprietary Sony standard, with higher storage
capacity, but in terms of picture quality and other features I can't
tell the difference and doubt most consumers will either.

Blue-ray won among the studios for two reasons -- it had greater capacity,
and it could NOT be manufactured on DVD equipment. The latter meant that it
would take longer -- perhaps much longer -- before pirated BD disks
appeared.