On June 4, 1977–exactly this day–the VHS format arrived in America to wow American consumers.
Developed by JVC in 1976, the VHS or Video Home System offered longer playtime and faster rewinding and fast-forwarding than that of its “arch-enemy,” the Betamax.
VHS and Betamax, though, had some stark differences. JVC’s product could record for two hours — enough to record a full-length movie — while Betamax had a recording capability of only an hour.
The VHS cassette used a 0.5-inch magnetic tape wound between two spools. The tape would slowly pass over the playback and recording heads of the VCR.
JVC licensed the VHS format to other electronics makers such as Sharp, so in its first year, many brands of VHS machines flooded the market. VHS-based players were cheaper than their Betamax counterparts.
Ultimately, VHS won the battle, and tech lore has it that the porn industry played a big role in that victory. Sony reportedly wouldn’t let pornographic content be put on Betamax tapes, while JVC and the VHS consortium had no such qualms.
The VHS VCR’s decline started as tape-based systems were replaced by hard-drive–based digital video recorders such as TiVo. The DVD format changed the game for prerecorded movies in March 1997 and ended up entirely replacing VHS.
From Wired.
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