VHS

VHS (short term for Video Home System) is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes invented in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan and was the competitor to the ill-fated Sony Betamax system. Magnetic tape video recording was adopted by the television industry in the 1950s in the form of the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs), but the devices were expensive and used only in professional environments. In the 1970s, videotape technology became affordable for home use and widespread adoption of videocassette recorders (VCRs) began, largely as a means for television viewers to watch programming at more convenient times or more than once. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, the home video industry experienced a "format war" between incompatible tape standards backed by competing technology companies. Two of the standards, VHS and Betamax, received the most media exposure. VHS eventually won the war, gaining 60% of the North American market by 1980 and emerging as the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period. Optical disc formats later began to offer better quality than analog consumer video tape such as VHS and S-VHS. The earliest of these formats, LaserDisc, was not widely adopted across Europe, but was hugely popular in Japan and a minor success in the United States. After the introduction of the DVD format in 1996, however, the market share for VHS began to decline. In 2003, DVD rentals surpassed those of VHS in the United States, and by 2008, DVD had replaced VHS as the preferred low-end method of distribution. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment ceased production of VHS in late 2010 in South Korea. The last known company in the world to manufacture VHS equipment (VCR/DVD combos), Funai of Japan, ceased production in July 2016, citing shrinking demand and difficulties procuring parts. However, VHS collecting would make a comeback in the 2020s. It has been standardized in IEC 60774-1.