Videocassette recorder

The video cassette recorder (or VCR) is a device that uses magnetic tape to record audio and video so it can be played back later. In the early years of the 1980s, when the VCR was becoming a mass market consumer product, there were three competing technical standards, with different, physically incompatible tape cassettes.

One, the V2000, from the Dutch electronics company 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. However, V2000 hit the market after the other two rivals, and managed only limited sales in Europe before vanishing.

The two major standards were Sony's Betamax, and VHS from ????. Betamax was generally reckoned to make and play better quality recordings, but VHS rapidly overtook it in sales. By a process of increasing returns (more VHS recorders being used, so more VHS films available), Betamax was squeezed out of the consumer market; though it still remains in use for high quality professional recording equipment. Some accounts 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 video cassette recorder was recently shoved aside in terms of movie playback by DVD. For recording, both Tivo (and similar personal video recorders) and DVD recorders are becoming popular, although neither has yet to supplant the VCR. In fact, Tivo cooperates well with VCRs.

Macrovision caused the functionality of the video cassette recorder to be greatly reduced by adding fading to the picture, 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.

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This needs something about S-VHS as well