Videocassette recorder

A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. Use of a VCR to record a television program to play back at a more convenient time is commonly referred to as timeshifting. VCRs can also play back prerecorded tapes. In the 1980s and 1990s, prerecorded videotapes were widely available for purchase and rental, and blank tapes were sold to make recordings.

VCRs declined in popularity during the early 2000s and in July 2016, Funai Electric, the last manufacturer of them ceased production.

History

Early machines and formats

The history of the videocassette recorder follows the history of videotape recording in general. In 1953, Dr. Norikazu Sawazaki developed a prototype helical scan video tape recorder.

Ampex introduced the quadruplex videotape professional broadcast standard format with its Ampex VRX-1000 in 1956. It became the world's first commercially successful videotape recorder using two-inch (5.1 cm) wide tape. Due to its high price of US$50,000, the Ampex VRX-1000 could be afforded only by the television networks and the largest individual stations.

In 1959, Toshiba introduced a "new" method of recording known as helical scan, releasing the first commercial helical scan video tape recorder that year. It was first implemented in reel-to-reel videotape recorders (VTRs), and later used with cassette tapes.

In 1963, Philips introduced its EL3400 1-inch helical scan recorder, aimed at the business and domestic user, and Sony marketed the 2" PV-100, its first reel-to-reel VTR, intended for business, medical, airline, and educational use.

First home video recorders

The Telcan (Television in a Can), produced by the UK Nottingham Electronic Valve Company in 1963, was the first home video recorder. It was developed by Michael Turner and Norman Rutherford. It could be purchased as a unit or in kit form for £1,337. However, there were several drawbacks as it was expensive, not easy to assemble, and could record only 20 minutes at a time. It recorded in black-and-white, the only format available in the UK at the time. An original Telcan Domestic Video Recorder can be seen at the Nottingham Industrial Museum.

The half-inch tape Sony model CV-2000, first marketed in 1965, was its first VTR intended for home use. It was the first fully transistorized VCR.

The development of the videocassette followed the replacement by cassette of other open reel systems in consumer items: the Stereo-Pak four-track audio cartridge in 1962, the compact audio cassette and Instamatic film cartridge in 1963, the 8-track cartridge in 1965, and the Super 8 home movie cartridge in 1966.

In 1972, videocassettes of movies became available for home use.

Sony U-matic

Main article: U-matic

Sony demonstrated a videocassette prototype 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 system, introduced in Tokyo in September 1971, was the world's first commercial videocassette format. Its cartridges, resembling larger versions of the later VHS cassettes, used 3/4-inch (1.9 cm)-wide tape and had a maximum playing time of 60 minutes, later extended to 80 minutes. Sony also introduced two machines (the VP-1100 videocassette player and the VO-1700, also called the VO-1600 video-cassette 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 (Sony BVU-150 and Trinitron DXC 1810 video camera) schools and businesses. But the high cost – US$1,395 for a combination TV/VCR – kept it out of most homes.

Philips "VCR" format

Main article: Video Cassette Recording

File:N1500 v2.jpg

An N1500 video recorder, with wooden cabinet

In 1970, Philips developed a home video cassette format specially made for a TV station in 1970 and available on the consumer market in 1972. Philips named this format "Video Cassette Recording" (although it is also referred to as "N1500", after the first recorder's model number).

Mass-market success

File:Panasonic NV-SD2 HQ VHS.jpg

A black Panasonic NV-SD2 HQ VHS

The industry boomed in the 1980s as more and more customers bought VCRs. By 1982, 10% of households in the United Kingdom owned a VCR. The figure reached 30% in 1985 and by the end of the decade well over half of British homes owned a VCR.

VHS vs. Betamax

Main article: Videotape format war

File:Kaseta wideo w systemie Beta ubt.jpeg

A Betamax cassette

The two major standards were Sony's Betamax (also known as Betacord or just Beta), and JVC's VHS (Video Home System), which competed for sales in what became known as the format war.

Betamax was first to market in November 1975, and was argued by many to be technically more sophisticated in recording quality.

Legal challenges

File:1982 Consumer Electronics Show Chicago (4507240627).jpg

A 1982 booth at CES promoting the right to make home recordings.

In the early 1980s US film companies fought to suppress the VCR in the consumer market, citing concerns about copyright violations. In Congressional hearings, Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti 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:

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

— Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice of the Committee of the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session on H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794 H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705, Serial No 97, Part I, Home Recording of Copyrighted Works, April 12, 1982. US Government Printing Office.

In the case Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the device was allowable for private use. Subsequently the film companies found that making and selling video recordings of their productions had become a major income source.

See also

• Telerecording
• TV/VCR combo
• VCR/DVD combo
• Kinescope
• Write protection
• Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.
• Dew warning
• Blu-ray Disc

External links

• Total Rewind: the Virtual Museum of Vintage VCRs