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Basic Training: Format Terminology

It used to be that home entertainment formats changed very slowly. Phonograph records spun merrily at 78rpm for half a century before being replaced by the 33-1/3 "long play," which itself reigned nearly unchallenged by all but cassette tapes before the compact disc came into its day at the end of the 20th century. Video technology has not shared this paucity of formats - their numbers may be positively bewildering. Since the first home video players arrived on the market, the number of different options has been staggering - and confusing.

We're going to take a look at some of the most popular formats from the beginning of the home video era up to the most cutting-edge standards. (Those of you who just stumbled across this in a trunk in your attic in 2041 may begin laughing now.)

VHS: 240 Scan Lines, Mono or Stereo.

Despite the fact that VHS didn't really hit homes until the 1980s, JVC launched the format in 1976. It battled with Betamax to become the home video standard and eventually won. While it's still widely popular, nearly all movie studios have stopped releasing products on VHS. The format allowed for three speeds: SP (standard play, 2 hours), LP (long play, 4 hours) and SLP (super-long play-also known as EP, or extended play), which recorded six hours of video on a standard T-120 tape. Physically the tape was 1/2-inch wide, but the use of a helical (slanted) recording head allowed the data stripes to be longer. VHS is undoubtedly the most popular legacy format and, with the number of weddings and vacations recorded on VHS in the last twenty-five years, decks will probably remain in people's homes for some time.

Notable variants were VHS-C, which used a smaller cassette, and Super VHS, which had improved audio and video (420 lines of resolution). There was also S-VHS-C, which combined both of the above permutations. None of them caught on widely.

If you find an odd videotape at a yard sale and can't figure out what it is, chances are it's Betamax. Released in 1975 by Sony, the slightly smaller, slightly shorter tape entered into a brutal battle with VHS for the home video market in the 1980s. Key among the factors that caused the eventual demise of Betamax was the initial 1 hour recording time. Home users were willing to forgo Beta's negligibly better video and audio in exchange for being able to watch an entire movie without having to switch tapes in the middle. Sony fought back after the release of VHS by coming up with a longer tape and slower recording/playback speeds, but VHS' lead was too large by then.

Eventually this format was turned to pro use only, and TV stations across the country used fast recording high quality Beta tape and only Beta for more than 2 decades.