Videocassette recorder
Encyclopedia
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
for recording analog audio and analog video
Analog video
Analog video is a video signal transferred by an analog signal. An analog color video signal contains luminance, brightness and chrominance of an analog television image...
from broadcast television so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time. This facility afforded by a VCR machine is commonly referred to as television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Timeshifting. Most domestic VCRs are equipped with a television broadcast receiver (tuner
Tuner
Tuner may refer to someone or something which adjusts or configures a mechanical, electronic, or musical device.- Electronic :* Antenna tuner, a device to adjust the resonance frequency of an antenna or transmission line...
) for TV reception, and a programmable clock (timer
Timer
A timer is a specialized type of clock. A timer can be used to control the sequence of an event or process. Whereas a stopwatch counts upwards from zero for measuring elapsed time, a timer counts down from a specified time interval, like an hourglass.Timers can be mechanical, electromechanical,...
) for unattended recording of a certain television channel
Television channel
A television channel is a physical or virtual channel over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the broadcast or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with carrier frequencies of 55.25 MHz for NTSC analog video and...
at a particular time. These features began as simple mechanical counter-based single event timers, but were later replaced by multiple event digital clock timers that afforded greater flexibility to the user. In later models the multiple timer events could be programmed through a menu interface that was displayed on the playback TV screen. This allowed multiple programs to be recorded easily, and this particular feature of the video recorder quickly became a major selling point and benefit to people working unsociable hours who usually missed many television broadcasts.
A VCR operates in a different way from a video tape recorder
Video tape recorder
A video tape recorder is a tape recorder that can record video material, usually on a magnetic tape. VTRs originated as individual tape reels, serving as a replacement for motion picture film stock and making recording for television applications cheaper and quicker. An improved form included the...
. VTRs originated as individual tape reels, serving as a replacement for motion picture film stock and making recording for television applications cheaper and quicker. VTRs are reel-to-reel devices that require hand-threading of the tape from a single supply reel, through the recording mechanism and onto a separate take-up reel. VCRs tend to be lower maintenance than reel-to-reel VTRs, since the tape path is usually fully enclosed to keep dust out of the mechanism, and the tape is almost never touched by the user except when malfunctions occur.
Early machines and formats
The history of the videocassette recorder follows the history of videotape recording in general. In 1952 the Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus high speed multi-track machine was built and trialed by the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. This machine used a thin steel tape on a 21 inch (53.5 cm) reel travelling at over 200 inches (510 cm) per second. Despite 6 years of research and improvements the machine became obsolete when Ampex
Ampex
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff. The name AMPEX is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence...
introduced the Ampex VRX-1000. This model became the world's first commercially successful videotape recorder in 1956. It used the 2" Quadruplex format, using two-inch (5.1 cm) tape. Due to its price, the Ampex VRX-1000 could be afforded only by the television networks and the largest individual stations.
In 1963, Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
introduced their EL3400 1" helical scan
Helical scan
Helical scan is a method of recording high bandwidth signals onto magnetic tape. It is used in reel-to-reel video tape recorders, video cassette recorders, digital audio tape recorders, and some computer tape drives....
recorder (aimed at the business and domestic user) and Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
marketed the 2" PV-100, their first reel-to-reel VTR intended for business, medical, airline, and educational use.
First home video recorders
The Telcan, produced by the Nottingham Electronic Valve Company in 1963, was the first home video recorder. It could be bought as a unit or in kit form for £60. However, there were several drawbacks: it was expensive, not easy to put together and could only record 20 minutes output at a time in black-and-white.The Sony model CV-2000
CV-2000
CV-2000 was one of the world's first home video tape recorders , introduced by Sony in August, 1965. The 'CV' in the model name stood for 'Consumer Video' and was also known as Portapak. This was Sony's domestic format throughout the 1960s....
, first marketed in 1965, was their first VTR intended for home use and was based on half inch tape. Ampex and RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
followed in 1965 with their own reel-to-reel monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
VTRs priced under US
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$1,000 for the home consumer market.
The EIAJ
EIAJ-1
EIAJ-1, developed by the Electronic Industries Association of Japan in 1969, was the first standardized format for industrial/non-broadcast videotape recorders...
format was a standard half-inch format used by various manufacturers. EIAJ-1 was an open reel format. EIAJ-2 used a cartridge that contained a supply reel, but not the take-up reel. As the take-up reel was part of the recorder, the tape had to be fully rewound before removing the cartridge, a slow procedure.
The development of the videocassette followed the replacement by cassette of other open reel systems in consumer items: the Stereo-Pak 4-track audio cartridge in 1962, the compact audio cassette and Instamatic
Instamatic
The Instamatic was a series of inexpensive, easy-to-load 126 and 110 cameras made by Kodak beginning in 1963. The Instamatic was immensely successful, introducing a generation to low-cost photography and spawning numerous imitators....
film cartridge in 1963, the 8-track cartridge in 1965, and the Super 8
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
home movie cartridge in 1966.
Sony U-matic
Sony demonstrated a videocassette prototypePrototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
in October 1969, then set it aside to work out an industry standard by March 1970 with seven fellow manufacturers. The result, the Sony U-matic
U-matic
U-matic is an analog recording videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various Reel-to-Reel or open-reel formats of the...
system, introduced in Tokyo in September 1971, was the world's first commercial videocassette format. Its cartridges, resembling larger versions of the later VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
cassettes, used 3/4-inch (1.9 cm) tape and had a maximum playing time of 60 minutes, later extended to 90 minutes. Sony also introduced two machines (the VP-1100 videocassette player and the VO-1700 videocassette recorder) to use the new tapes. U-matic, with its ease of use, quickly made other consumer videotape systems obsolete in Japan and North America, where U-matic VCRs were widely used by television newsrooms, schools and businesses. But the cost— for a combination TV/VCR, or $7,069 in 2007 dollars—kept it out of most homes.
Philips "VCR" format
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
developed a home videocassette format. Confusingly, Philips named this format "VCR
Video Cassette Recording
Video Cassette Recording was an early domestic analog recording format designed by Philips. It was the first successful consumer-level home videocassette recorder system. Later variants included the VCR-LP and Super Video formats.The VCR format was introduced in 1972, just after the Sony...
" (although it is also referred to as "N1500", after the first recorder's model number). The format was also supported by Grundig
Grundig
Grundig AG is a German manufacturer of consumer electronics for home entertainment which transferred to Turkish control in 2004-2007. Established in 1945 in Nuremberg by Max Grundig, the company changed hands several times before becoming part of the Turkish Koç Holding group...
and Loewe
Loewe AG
Loewe AG is the parent company of the German Loewe group. The Loewe group develops, manufactures and sells a wide variety of electronic, electrical and mechanical products and systems, and specialises in the field of consumer and communication technology. The company was founded in Berlin in 1923...
. It used square cassettes and half-inch (1.3 cm) tape, mounted on co-axial reels, giving a recording time of one hour. The first model, available in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1972, was equipped with a crude timer that used rotary dials. At nearly £600 ($2087), it was expensive and the format was relatively unsuccessful in the home market. This was followed by digital timer version in 1975, the N1502. In 1977 a new (and incompatible) long-play version ("VCR-LP") or N1700, which could use the same tapes, sold quite well to schools and colleges.
Avco Cartrivision
The AvcoAvco
Avco Corporation is a subsidiary of Textron which operates Textron Systems Corporation and Lycoming.-Brief history:The Embry-Riddle Company created the Aviation Corporation in 1928 as a holding company tasked with acquiring small airlines...
Cartrivision
Cartrivision
Cartrivision was an analog video videocassette format introduced in 1972, and the first format to offer feature films for consumer rental. It was produced by Frank Stanton's Cartridge Television, Inc. , a subsidiary of Avco, who also owned Embassy Pictures at the time. Cartrivision was available in...
system, a combination television set and VCR from Cartridge Television Inc. that sold for US $1,350, was the first videocassette recorder to have pre-recorded tapes of popular movies available for rent. Like Philips' VCR format, the square Cartrivision cassette had the two reels of half-inch tape mounted on top of each other, but it could record up to 114 minutes. It did so using a crude form of video compression that recorded only every third video field
Field (video)
In video, a field is one of the many still images which are displayed sequentially to create the impression of motion on the screen. Two fields comprise one video frame...
and played it back three times. Cassettes of major movies such as The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William...
and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton...
were ordered via catalog at a retailer, delivered by parcel mail, and then returned to the retailer after viewing. Other cassettes on sports, travel, art, and how-to
How-to
A how-to or a how to is an informal, often short, description of how to accomplish some specific task. A how-to is usually meant to help non-experts, may leave out details that are only important to experts, and may also be greatly simplified from an overall discussion of the topic...
topics were available for purchase. An optional monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
camera could be bought to make home videos. Cartrivision was first sold in June 1972, mainly through Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...
, Macy's
Macy's
Macy's is a U.S. chain of mid-to-high range department stores. In addition to its flagship Herald Square location in New York City, the company operates over 800 stores in the United States...
, and Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...
department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
s in the United States. It was abandoned thirteen months later after poor sales.
The late 1970s: mass-market success
It was not until the late 1970s, when European and Japanese companies developed more technically advanced machines with more accurate electronic timers and greater tape duration, that the VCR started to become a mass market consumer product. By 1979 there were three competing technical standards, with different, physically incompatible tape cassettes.VHS vs. Betamax
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's Betamax
Betamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
(also known as Betacord or just Beta), and JVC
JVC
, usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927...
's VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
[Video Home System], which competed for sales in what became known as the format war
Videotape format war
The videotape format war was a period of intense competition or "format war" of incompatible models of consumer-level analog video videocassette and video cassette recorders in the late 1970s and the 1980s.- Overview :...
.
Betamax was first to market in November 1975, and was argued by many to be technically more sophisticated in recording quality, although many users did not perceive a visual difference. The first machines required an external timer, and could only record one hour. The timer was later incorporated within the machine as a standard feature.
The rival VHS format, introduced in Japan by JVC in September 1976 (and introduced in the United States in July 1977 by RCA) boasted a longer two-hour recording time with a T-120 tape, with four hours using a "long play" mode (RCA SelectaVision models, introduced in September 1977).
In 1978 the majority of consumers in the U.K. chose to rent rather than purchase this new expensive home entertainment technology. JVC introduced the HR3300 model with E-30, E-60, E-120, E-180 minute cassette tapes with up to three hours recording time, a thinner 4 hour length E240 tape soon followed.
The rental market was a contributing factor for acceptance of the VHS home system. 2 hours and 4 hours recording times were considered ideal for recording movies and sports-games. Although Sony later introduced L-500 (2 hour) and L-750 (3 hour) tapes in addition to the L-250 (1 hour) tape the consumer market had swiftly moved toward the VHS system as a preferred choice. During the 80s dual speed (long play) models of both BETA and VHS recorders were introduced allowing for much longer recording times.
Philips Video 2000
A third format, Video 2000Video 2000
Video 2000 was a consumer videocassette recorder system and analog recording videocassette standard developed by Philips and Grundig to compete with JVC's VHS and Sony's Betamax video technologies...
, or V2000 (also marketed as "Video Compact Cassette") was developed and introduced by Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
in 1978, and was sold only in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Grundig developed and marketed their own models based on the V2000 format. Most V2000 models featured piezoelectric
Piezoelectricity
Piezoelectricity is the charge which accumulates in certain solid materials in response to applied mechanical stress. The word piezoelectricity means electricity resulting from pressure...
head positioning to dynamically adjust the tape tracking. V2000 cassettes had two sides, and like the audio cassette had to be flipped over halfway through their recording time. User switchable record protect levers were used instead of the breakable lugs found on VHS/Beta cassettes. The half-inch tape used contained two parallel quarter-inch tracks, one for each side. It had a recording time of 4 hours per side, later extended to 8 hours per side on a few models. V2000 hit the market after its two rivals in early 1979. The last models produced by Philips in 1985 were felt by many to be superior machines to anything else on the market at the time but the poor reputation gained through the limited features and poor reliability of early models, and the by now dominant market share of VHS/Betamax, ensured only limited sales before the system was scrapped shortly after.
Other early formats
Some less successful consumer videocassette formats include:- V-CordV-CordV-Cord was a analog recording videocassette format developed and released by Sanyo in 1974. V-Cord was released in two versions: V-Cord I , which could record a maximum of 60 minutes on one V-Cord cassette, and the later V-Cord II, released in 1976, which could record a maximum of 120 minutes on a...
, launched by SanyoSanyois a major electronics company and member of the Fortune 500 whose headquarters is located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo targets the middle of the market and has over 230 Subsidiaries and Affiliates....
in 1974 - VXVX (videocassette format)VX was a short-lived and unsuccessful consumer analog recording videocassette format developed by Panasonic and launched in 1975 in Japan. In the US it was sold using the Quasar brand and marketed under the name "The Great Time Machine" to exhibit its time-shifting capabilities, since VX machines...
, launched by PanasonicPanasonicPanasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
in 1975 - Compact Video CassetteCompact Video CassetteCompact Video Cassette was one of the first analog recording videocassette formats to use a tape smaller than its earlier predecessors of VHS and Betamax, and was developed by Funai Electronics of Japan. The first model of VCR for the format was the Model 212, introduced in 1980 by both Funai and...
(CVC), developed by FunaiFunaiFunai Electric is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. The company was founded in 1961. It owns the subsidiary Funai Corporation, Inc., established in the United States since 1991, to market and maintain Funai-licensed brands such as Sylvania, Emerson Radio,...
and TechnicolorTechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
and introduced in 1980.
Legal challenges
In the early 1980s, the film companies in the US fought to suppress the device in the consumer market, citing concerns about copyright violations. In Congressional hearings, Motion Picture Association of AmericaMotion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
head Jack Valenti
Jack Valenti
Jack Joseph Valenti was a long-time president of the Motion Picture Association of America. During his 38-year tenure in the MPAA, he created the MPAA film rating system, and he was generally regarded as one of the most influential pro-copyright lobbyists in the world...
decried the "savagery and the ravages of this machine" and likened its effect on the film industry and the American public to the Boston strangler
Boston Strangler
The Boston Strangler is a name attributed to the murderer of several women in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, in the early 1960s. Though the crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo, investigators of the case have since suggested the murders were not committed by one person.-First Stage...
:
In the case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 , also known as the "Betamax case", is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright...
, the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruled that the device was allowable for private use, thereby guaranteeing market acceptance. In the years following, the film companies found that selling professionally-produced video recordings of their products had become a major income source.
Product flaws
The video cassette recorder is known to have glitches and common bugs. The most common problem was temperature and humidity changes, if the machine (or tape) was moved from a cold to a hotter environment condensation would occur on the internal parts, such as the rotating video head drum. Most models were later equipped with a Dew warningDew warning
A dew warning, also known as a dew alarm or dew signal, is an error indication on VCRs and camcorders if the VCR/camcorder develops dew inside the unit from being exposed to extreme temperature and/or humidity changes....
indicator which was intended to prohibit operation. This device however could not detect moisture on the surface of any cold tape inserted. Users often experienced the magnetic tape to be 'chewed' or 'eaten' when ejected from the machine due to this moisture. Other causes of malfunction occurred when the rubber drive belts or rubber rollers hardened with age. Faults such as these rendered the tape unusable, and if valuable footage (such as a wedding) was involved this loss could be traumatic for users. VHS tapes recorded in LP or EP/SLP mode tend to not play back very well on other machines due to record / replay head alignment tolerances, and tapes recorded on a machine made before 1995 tend to not play well on newer machines due to slight changes in helical scanning head technology design. More recent models of domestic VCRs tend to have a shorter mechanical lifespan than older more robustly built units. Some new designs are built with cheaper and more fragile mechanical parts. Most machines no longer have control switches linked to mechanical parts, but rely on solenoid
Solenoid
A solenoid is a coil wound into a tightly packed helix. In physics, the term solenoid refers to a long, thin loop of wire, often wrapped around a metallic core, which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through it. Solenoids are important because they can create...
s and motor driven mechanisms to perform changes of function. This change in design strategy has resulted in new machines relying on a remote control unit to perform function changes such as tape speed, display, timer, counter, tracking adjustment, audio monitor, etc.
Decline
In the early 2000s, DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
gradually overtook VHS as the most popular consumer format for playback of prerecorded video. DVD recorder
DVD recorder
A DVD recorder , is an optical disc recorder that uses Optical disc recording technologies to digitally record analog signal or digital signals onto blank writable DVD media...
s and other digital video recorder
Digital video recorder
A digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
s such as TiVo
TiVo
TiVo is a digital video recorder developed and marketed by TiVo, Inc. and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "Season Pass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList"...
have recently begun to drop in price in developed countries, which some consider to be the end for VCRs in those markets. DVD rentals in the United States first exceeded those of VHS in June 2003, and in 2005 the president of the Video Software Dealers Association predicted that 2006 would be the last year for major releases on VHS. Most consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
retailers in North America (such as Best Buy
Best Buy
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Mexico, Canada & China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, CinemaNow, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates...
) carry only a few VCRs (often VCR/DVD-recorder hybrids
VCR/DVD combo
A VCR/DVD combo is a multiplex or converged device, convenient for consumers who wish to use both VHS tapes and DVDs.Hybrid VCR/DVD players were first introduced around the year 1999, and were sometimes criticized as being of poorer quality than stand-alone units. The first VCR/DVD combo player...
). Due to economies of scale
Economies of scale
Economies of scale, in microeconomics, refers to the cost advantages that an enterprise obtains due to expansion. There are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as the scale of output is increased. "Economies of scale" is a long run concept and refers to reductions in unit...
and simpler construction, DVD player
DVD player
A DVD player is a device that plays discs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. These devices were invented in 1997 and continue to thrive...
s became cheaper than VCRs.
Because of lack of sales, most manufacturers slowly reduced their VCR lineups to only basic consumer models (phasing out professional models and S-VHS models) or stopped production completely. The models that were produced often lacked features considered standard in an earlier era, such as front panel controls or a built-in digital clock.
The declining market combined with a Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
mandate effective March 1, 2007, that all new TV tuners be ATSC tuner
ATSC tuner
An ATSC tuner, often called an ATSC receiver or HDTV tuner is a type of television tuner that allows reception of digital television television channels transmitted by television stations in North America, parts of Central America and South Korea that use ATSC standards...
s have encouraged major electronics makers, including Funai, JVC, and Panasonic, to end production of standalone units for the US market. To avoid this costly mandate, most new standalone VCRs in the US today can only record from external baseband
Baseband
In telecommunications and signal processing, baseband is an adjective that describes signals and systems whose range of frequencies is measured from close to 0 hertz to a cut-off frequency, a maximum bandwidth or highest signal frequency; it is sometimes used as a noun for a band of frequencies...
sources (usually composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
), including CECBs
Coupon-eligible converter box
A coupon-eligible converter box was a digital television adapter that met eligibility specifications for subsidy "coupons" from the United States government...
which (by NTIA
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the President's principal adviser on telecommunications policies pertaining to the United States' economic and technological advancement and to regulation of the...
mandate) all have composite outputs, as well as those ATSC tuners (including TVs) & cable boxes that come with composite outputs.
The new high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
optical disc format Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
may gradually replace the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
format. Some analysts expect this change to take place like the VHS to DVD transition. However, with many homes still having a large supply of VHS tapes and with all Blu-ray players designed to play regular DVDs and CDs
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
by default, some manufacturers are now making VCR/Blu-ray combo
VCR/Blu-ray combo
A VCR/Blu-ray combo is a relatively new multiplex or converged device, convenient for consumers who wish to use both VHS tapes and the newer, high-definition Blu-ray Disc technology....
players. Also, Blu-ray may be a short-lived format, as streaming video over the internet to a set top box like the Roku
Roku
Roku , is an American, privately held, consumer electronics company that sells home digital media products. The Company is based in Saratoga, California.- Company profile and products :...
or a game console like the Nintendo Wii may replace physical media entirely.
Multi standard
One of the problems faced with the use of video recorders was especially the exchange of recordings between PAL and NTSC countries. Multi StandardMulti-standard television
Multi-standard television sets were made for use in the television industry, so that one TV set or monitor could show video content from other television systems....
video recorders and TV sets gradually overcame these incompatibility problems.
Stereo Sound and HiFi
The U-maticU-matic
U-matic is an analog recording videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various Reel-to-Reel or open-reel formats of the...
machines were always made with Stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
, and Beta and VHS started out splitting the audio track on the tape, but the slow tape speed of Beta and VHS limited the sound quality. This led to the introduction of HiFi, whose left and right sound tracks were modulated as FM on the video portion of the tape. The 8 mm format
8 mm video format
The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats for the NTSC and PAL/SECAM television systems. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8 , as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8.Their user base...
always used the video portion of the tape for sound, with an FM carrier between the band space of the chrominance
Chrominance
Chrominance is the signal used in video systems to convey the color information of the picture, separately from the accompanying luma signal . Chrominance is usually represented as two color-difference components: U = B' − Y' and V = R' − Y'...
and luminance
Luminance
Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through or is emitted from a particular area, and falls within a given solid angle. The SI unit for luminance is candela per square...
on the tape. 8 mm could be upgraded to Stereo, by adding an extra FM signal for Stereo difference.
Copy protection
Introduced in 1983, MacrovisionMacrovision
Rovi Corporation is a globally operating, US-based company that provides guidance technology, entertainment data, copy protection, industry standard networking and media management technology for digital entertainment devices and services...
is a system that reduces the quality of recordings made from commercial video tapes, DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s and pay-per-view
Pay-per-view
Pay-per-view provides a service by which a television audience can purchase events to view via private telecast. The broadcaster shows the event at the same time to everyone ordering it...
broadcasts by adding random peaks of luminance to the video signal during vertical blanking. These confuse the automatic level adjustment of the recording VCR which causes the brightness of the picture to constantly change, rendering the recording unwatchable.
When creating a copy-protected videocassette, the Macrovision-distorted signal is stored on the tape itself by special recording equipment. By contrast, on DVDs there is just a marker asking the player to produce such a distortion during playback. All standard DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
players include this protection and obey the marker, though unofficially many models can be modified or adjusted to disable it.
Also, the Macrovision protection system may fail to work on older VCR's made before 1986 and some high end decks built afterwords, usually due to the lack of an AGC
Automatic gain control
Automatic gain control is an adaptive system found in many electronic devices. The average output signal level is fed back to adjust the gain to an appropriate level for a range of input signal levels...
system. Newer VHS and S-VHS machines (and DVD recorders) are susceptible to this signal; generally, machines of other tape formats are unaffected, such as all 3 Betamax variants. VCRs designated for "professional" usage typically have an adjustable AGC system, a specific "Macrovision removing" circuit, or Time Base Corrector (TBC) and can thus copy protected tapes with or without preserving the protection. Such VCRs are usually overpriced and sold exclusively to certified professionals (linear editing using the 9-Pin Protocol
9-Pin Protocol
The 9-Pin Protocol is a two-way communications protocol for the RS-422 D-sub electrical connector interface, in which a bi-direction signal is transmitted over a single, four wire, serial cable to allow the remote control of a wide variety of devices including, reel-to-reel type C videotape video...
, TV stations etc.) via controlled distribution channels in order to prevent their being used by the general public (however, said professional VCRs can be purchased reasonably by consumers on the second-hand/used market, depending on the VCR's condition). Nowadays, most DVDs still have copyright protection, but certain DVDs do not have it, usually pornography and bootlegs. However, some DVDs, such as certain DVD sets, do not have the protection against VHS copying, possibly due to the VHS format no longer used as a major retail medium for home video.
Flying erase heads
The flying erase head is a feature that may be found in some high end home VCRs as well as some broadcast grade VCRs to cleanly edit the videoVideo
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
.
Normally, the tape is passed longitudinally through two fixed erase heads, one located just before the tape moves to the video head drum and the other right next to the audio/control head stack. Upon recording, the erase heads erases any old recording contained on the tape to prevent anything already recorded on it from interfering with what is being recorded.
However, when trying to edit footage deck to deck, portions of the old recording's video may be between the erase head and video recording heads. This results in a faint rainbow-like noise at and briefly after the point of the cut as the old video recording missed by the fixed erase head is never completely erased as the new recording is printed.
The flying erase head is so-called because an erase head is mounted on the video head drum and rotates around in the same manner as the video heads. In the record mode, the erase head is active and erases the video precisely down to the recorded video fields. The flying erase head runs over the tape and the video heads record the signal virtually instantly after the flying erase head has passed.
Since the erase head erases the old signal right before the video heads write onto the tape, there is no remnants of the old signal to cause visible distortion at and after the moment a cut is made, resulting in a clean edit. In addition, the ability of flying erase heads to erase old video off the tape right before recording new video on it allows the ability to perform insert editing, where new footage can be placed within an existing recording with clean cuts at the beginning and end of the edit.
Variants
In addition to the standard home VCR, a number of variants have been produced over the years. These include combined "all-in-one" devices such as the televideoTV/VCR combo
A Combo television unit, or a TV/VCR combo, sometimes known as a televideo, is a television and either a VCR or a DVD built into a single unit. These converged devices have the advantages of saving space and increasing portability. Such units entered the market during the mid-to-late 1980s when...
(a TV and VCR in one unit) and DVD/VCR units
VCR/DVD combo
A VCR/DVD combo is a multiplex or converged device, convenient for consumers who wish to use both VHS tapes and DVDs.Hybrid VCR/DVD players were first introduced around the year 1999, and were sometimes criticized as being of poorer quality than stand-alone units. The first VCR/DVD combo player...
and even TV/VCR/DVD all-in-one units.
Dual-deck VCRs (marketed as "double-decker") have also been sold, albeit with less success.
Camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s also feature an integrated VCR. Most of these use smaller format videocassettes, such as 8 mm
8 mm video format
The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats for the NTSC and PAL/SECAM television systems. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8 , as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8.Their user base...
, VHS-C
VHS-C
VHS-C is the compact VHS videocassette format introduced in 1982 and used primarily for consumer-grade compact analog recording camcorders. The format is based on the same video tape as is used in VHS, and can be played back in a standard VHS VCR with an adapter...
, or MiniDV
DV
DV is a format for the digital recording and playing back of digital video. The DV codec was launched in 1995 with joint efforts of leading producers of video camcorders....
, although some early models supported full-size VHS and Betamax. Generally, they include neither a timer nor a TV tuner.
See also
- Telerecording
- TV/VCR comboTV/VCR comboA Combo television unit, or a TV/VCR combo, sometimes known as a televideo, is a television and either a VCR or a DVD built into a single unit. These converged devices have the advantages of saving space and increasing portability. Such units entered the market during the mid-to-late 1980s when...
- VCR/DVD comboVCR/DVD comboA VCR/DVD combo is a multiplex or converged device, convenient for consumers who wish to use both VHS tapes and DVDs.Hybrid VCR/DVD players were first introduced around the year 1999, and were sometimes criticized as being of poorer quality than stand-alone units. The first VCR/DVD combo player...
- KinescopeKinescopeKinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
- Write protectionWrite protectionWrite protection is any physical mechanism that prevents modification or erasure of valuable data on a device. Most commercial software, audio and video is sold pre-protected.-Examples:...
- Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 , also known as the "Betamax case", is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright...
- Dew warningDew warningA dew warning, also known as a dew alarm or dew signal, is an error indication on VCRs and camcorders if the VCR/camcorder develops dew inside the unit from being exposed to extreme temperature and/or humidity changes....
- Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...