VHS tapes were a true revolution for their time. In this article, we’ll delve into their origins, understand their main characteristics, and learn more about their development.
What does VHS mean?
Before going into more detail about their history, let’s clarify a few things. The word VHS stands for Video Home System. It is an analogue video cassette format developed by JVC in 1976. VHS tapes were the most popular home video format in the 1980s and 1990s. Their tape width was around ½ inch (12.7 mm), and the tape was housed in a plastic cassette shell. Tape lengths varied, but they usually ranged between 2 and 4 hours. VHS players used a helical scan mechanism, where spinning heads magnetized and read data from the tape. During the playback, the player converted the stored signals into audio and video output for display on a TV.
History of the VHS tape: what you need to know
The history and the development of the VHS tape are closely linked to the invention of the first video cassette recorder (VCR). The first commercially successful recorder was invented in 1956 by the Ampex Corporation with the VRX-1000, but its high price made it accessible only to professional broadcasters. After that, there were a few attempts in the UK to create a recorder that was more accessible to the wider public, but they all failed.
In the 1960s, Japanese electronics companies saw the potential for creating an affordable home video recording system, which led to the rise of the U-matic format in 1971. However, this format had some limitations and was not ideal for mass adoption. That’s why JVC engineers worked on developing a new format that was more affordable and consumer-friendly. They identified three main characteristics their new format had to have:
- Its recording time had to be at least two hours
- The tapes had to be interchangeable
- It had to be affordable
After many attempts, the Japanese engineers developed the first prototype in 1973. After the release of the first VHS recorder in 1976, VHS tapes soon dominated the market, surpassing other formats like Video 2000 and Betamax. They were the most popular format for over two decades.
The decline of the VHS format
Because of rapid technological advancements, VHS tapes became outdated. This happened especially after the rise of DVDs in the late 1990s. DVDs were superior to VHS tapes because they had better picture and sound quality, and they offered additional features like menu navigation, chapter selection, and bonus content. Furthermore, DVDs had longer-lasting digital storage and took up far less space. Nowadays, VHS tapes only survive in private collections, but there are still a lot of memories trapped in them. That’s why it’s important to preserve your VHS tapes and convert them to digital formats before they degrade. Beyond video tapes, you can also digitise slides, negatives or audio cassettes, ensuring you can save your precious memories and relive them anytime.
