Calling All Cams: Buyer's Guide (page 2)
S-VHS
The folks at JVC, who invented VHS, realized that VHS image quality was not that great. People wanted something better, so they came up with a way of making a new format that was backward compatible, meaning new gear could play old tapes. What they rolled out was Super VHS, or S-VHS. Super VHS uses the same cassette size and the same 1/2-inch tape format, but the tape itself has a higher magnetic coercivity, which means it can hold more information than a regular VHS tape.
The change in the signal recorded to the tape is more remarkable. The bandwidth of the luminance signal is 60 percent broader than that of regular VHS, which means a much more detailed and sharp picture. These changes mean that instead of VHS's 240 lines of resolution, S-VHS can produce as much as 400 lines, well into the range of what is typically called "broadcast quality" (See the Resolving to Understand Resolution sidebar.) The only S-VHS camcorder in the grid is the professional-grade JVC GY-X3U, coming in at just under $5,…
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