Talk:Formats

Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) invented the VHS format in mid-1976. Originally the VHS format was released in some overseas markets. The first VHS VCR was the JVC HR-3300. In August 1977, VHS VCRs were introduced in North America, with the release of the RCA VBT200, designed by Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic Corporation) (which ironically owned JVC at the time, until 2008). Originally, there were only two speeds. The SP mode, usually 2 hours on a cheap tape, was probably developed by the inventor of the format, though IDK. On the other hand, LP (4 hours) was co-developed by RCA and Matsushita Electric. However, JVC hated the LP mode, referring to it as a "bastard mode." So, later on, JVC decided to develop their own longer-speed mode, called EP/SLP.

Originally, VHS had linear audio only. The linear audio on VHS was originally in mono. Later in 1982, the linear stereo audio format was introduced to VHS. Linear stereo basically used half the width of the mono track and split it into two audio tracks and was considered an audio format for "bargain basements." Sometime in either late '82 or early '83, Dolby Noise Reduction was introduced to VHS. It was basically an audio-encoding format for reducing the hiss and noises of the linear audio track. In 1984, a new stereo audio format was introduced to VHS; it was called Hi-Fi (high fidelity). In 1985, a version of the VHS format called VHS HQ was introduced; this format basically added 10 extra lines of resolution. (the original VHS resolution was 240 lines; VHS HQ is 250). In 1989-1990, linear stereo was discontinued from the consumer VCR market, but remained in use on the professional VCR market, until the end of VHS production in 2007-2008.