Video cassette recorder
The video cassette recorder (or VCR) is a type of video tape recorder that uses removable cassettes containing magnetic tape to record audio and video from a television broadcast so it can be played back later. Many VCRs have their own tuner and can be programmed to record the signal on a particular channel during a particular time interval.
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Before the advent of the VCR proper, portable video recorders using 13 mm (half-inch) wide tape on 18 cm (7 inch aprox.) reels were marketed by both Sony and Philips. These did not have timers, and were mainly used by schools and colleges to record educational programmes, and by businesses as a means of distributing training films. Even earlier, in the 1950s, British enthusiasts could buy home kinescope kits which allowed the filming of TV shows on 16mm film.
In 1958, Ampex took its color video tape recorder to Russia and demonstrated it before Vice President Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the USSR. A color video recording was brought back to the US and seen on American television. RCA also had taken color television equipment and cameras to the USSR.
In the early 1970s the Dutch electronics company Philips developed a VCR system that used square cassettes with a recording time of one hour (the Video Compact Cassette system). The machines were equipped with crude timers that used rotary dials. The machines were expensive and the system never caught on.
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 1980 there were three competing technical standards, with different, physically incompatible tape cassettes.
One, the Video 2000 or V2000 system, also from Philips dropped out of the running quite quickly. It worked well, and gave a good quality recording and playback, as it used piezoelectric head positioning to dynamically adjust the tape tracking. It was also notable in that its cassettes had two sides, like a record or audio cassette. However, V2000 hit the market after the other two rivals, and managed only limited sales in Europe before vanishing.
History
As more VHS recorders came into use, and more VHS films became available, network effects eventually squeezed Betamax out of the consumer market; though a related system called Betacam still remains in use for high quality professional recording equipment.
Various reasons are given for the failure of the Beta consumer format:
- Some accounts claim that VHS won because initially allowed for twice the recording time
- Others attribute the success of VHS to the greater availability of pornography on that medium, reflecting the long standing tradition of pornography being the driving force for the takeup of new media (the Internet being another obvious example).
- JVC and Sony used different marketing models for their technology: JVC licensed their VHS technology to consumer electronics companies like Zenith and RCA, which then produced low-cost VCRs, enriching JVC through royalties paid under its license. Sony did not license the Beta format to other manufacturers; Sony was the only company to produce Beta machines, and Sony was unable to compete on price with the somewhat inferior-quality VHS standard.
For home video recording, both Personal Video Recorders (such as Tivo and ReplayTV) and DVD recorders are becoming popular, although neither has yet supplanted the VCR. In fact, Tivo cooperates well with VCRs which can be used to archive PVR recordings. However, the introduction of recordable DVDs with sufficient recording capacity on to the regular market with their advantage of random access could spell the doom of the VCR once the price comes down significantly.
Macrovision caused the functionality of the video cassette recorder to be greatly reduced by adding fading to recorded video, preventing the copy of DVDs. All unmodified DVD players include this protection, though there now appears to be a minor industry in some countries modifying them to disable Macrovision encoding, and "video clarifier" boxes sold at electronics stores will often get rid of the Macrovision signal.
The S-VHS format has been introduced in an attempt to breathe new life into the aging VCR technology, but it has not gained sufficient momentum in the consumer market due to the new digital video formats.
Piracy protection
New media
External Links