The VCR

The need for VCRs was birthed around the same time televisions were made. The need for a VCR came about because these large studios had no way of recording audio, so instead, they would have to do live broadcasts multiple times a day. However, this changed when Ampex released the first ever VCR, the Ampex VRX-1000, in April 1956. This completely changed the studios did their broadcasts. However, this invention was only available to big corporations since the item cost $50,000 (equivalent to $500,000 today). The impact of this invention was felt quickly because, in November of that same year, CBS used the VCR to record Douglas Edwards and the News in New York, and then they sent that same recording to re-use in their Hollywood Studios. 

 

The successes of the VCRS led to a boom in its production in the 1960s. Companies like Sony, Ampex, RCA, JVC, and Phillips were all looking for a way to make the VCR more affordable. The first attempts at this did lead to a significant drop in the price, but it only made it accessible for wealthy families and schools. This research led to the three most essential VCRs being released: the Phillips V2000, JVC's VHS, and Sony's Betamax (pictured top to bottom). These were important because they opened up VCRs to the consumer market and made them affordable.

While good for the studios and the consumer market, this success signaled a dangerous sign for the movie industry. The VCR allowed families to record television shows for later viewing; the movie industry saw this as a violation of copyright infringement. This fear led Universal Studios and the Walt Disney Company to sue Sony in 1976. They wanted to impound the Betamax as a tool of piracy. In 1979 the first decision came, and it ruled against the studios ruling that the recording was legal. The studios appealed this case, and the subsequent decision came out in 1981, and it reversed the previous decision. This led to Sony appealing the case to the Supreme Court. The following decision was a landmark case for video recording, and it ruled in favor of Sony. The Court said that the television recording was under fair use, making it legal. They also said that time shifting, recording a program to watch for another time, did not harm the product enough for the copyright holder to lose a substantial amount of money.

After the case, there came a period known as the format war between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS. When Sony released its Betamax in 1975, they expected all companies to accept it as the alpha and for other companies to essentially back off. As mentioned before, however, Phillips and JVC did not do that; while at first, the format war did involve all three, there were far too many technical problems with the JVC for them to be seen as competition after a couple of months. This left Sony and JVC to duke it out over marketplace superiority. The problem at first for consumers was recording times. The VHS had a far longer superior time than the Betamax at first, so as a result, Sony improved on that but then once they made their times longer, Phillips upped them again; this went back and forth till it got to the point where recording times were no longer an issue for the consumers. After this happened, VHS and Betamax were on par with each other for several years, with neither being able to take the lead; then, a third party helped end the debate. Starting off the 1980s, a wave of video rental shops was popping up across America, and with these shops, they knew they have to make VCRs available for consumer use. When deciding which VCR to pick, Betamax or VHS, the stores almost always chose VHS to stock up with because the VHS was cheaper, easier to repair, and compatible with all TV sets when the Betamax was not. Video rental stores helped VHS soar over Betamax, and by 1987, 95% of all VCRs used the VHS format.

Inventions like the VCRs helped change the world; while not used by the general population anymore, VCRs paved the way for the future of television with the landmark Sony v. Universal decision. They also led to the discovery of DVD players by laying the groundwork and, in turn, led to the invention of streaming. While most of us do not use VCRs, we owe them a lot of thanks for helping shape television and media into what it is today.