Video Cassette Recording (VCR) was a video format by Philips, the first home video cassette recorder system. Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Dutch Philips Electronics Ltd. ... The video cassette recorder (or VCR, less popularly video tape recorder) 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. ...

The VCR format appeared at around the same time as the Sony U-matic. Although at first glance the two may have appeared to be competing formats, they were aimed at very different markets. U-matic was introduced as a professional format, while the VCC was targeted at domestic users. Sony Corporation (Japanese katakana: ソニー) (TYO: 6758), (NYSE: SNE) is a global consumer electronics corporation based in Tokyo, Japan. ... U-matic is the name of a videocassette format developed by Sony in 1969. ...

Home video systems had existed prior to this, but they were based on open reel systems and were extremely expensive to both buy and operate. The VCR system was still expensive by today's standards: the N1500 recorder cost nearly £600 in the United Kingdom when it was introduced in 1973 - that's the equivalent of more than £4500 today. 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ...

The VCR format used large cassettes with 2 co-axial reels, one on top of the other, containing half inch wide chrome dioxide tape. Three playing times were available: 30, 45 and 60 minutes. The 60-minute cassettes proved very unreliable, suffering numerous snags and breakages due to the very thin tape. The mechanically complicated recorders themselves also proved somewhat unreliable. General Name, Symbol, Number chromium, Cr, 24 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 6, 4, d Appearance silvery metallic Atomic mass 51. ... Rewind redirects here. ...

The system predated the development of the slant azimuth technique to prevent crosstalk between adjacent video tracks, so had to use an unrecorded guard band between tracks. This gave the system a comparatively high tape speed of around 11.5 inches per second. Helical Scan, or striping is a method of recording higher bandwidth signals onto magnetic tape than would otherwise be possible at the same tape speed with fixed heads. ... A guard band is a small part of the radio spectrum in between radio bands, for the purpose of preventing interference. ...

The VCR system brought together many advances in video recording technology to produce the first truly practical home video cassette system. It evolved into a longer-playing VCR-LP format (the N1700 player could not play N1500 tapes; they had to be recorded again), and an even longer SVR Super Video variant (by Grundig exclusively), before being replaced by Video 2000, which was based on very different principles. SVR an acronym, can mean: 1. ... Manufacturer of home entertainment equipment, established after WW2 in Nuremberg/ Germany. ... Video 2000 (or V2000) was a consumer VCR system and videotape standard developed by Philips to compete with JVCs VHS and Sonys Betamax video technologies. ...

External links

• Total Rewind - The Virtual Museum of Vintage VCRs
• Mikey's Vintage VTR Page - Video 2000