Inventors: Japanese Victor Corporation / Radio Corporation of America (in US)

VHS stands for Video Home System. VHS was developed in Japan by the Japan Victor Corporation (JVC). This sparked a revolution in video technology. Companies raced to refine other formats to compete with the VHS video format. The VHS videotape format was first marketed in America by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1976. It defeated the Sony’s Beta videotape format. Sony eventually began producing VHS products in 1988. VHS became the industry standard mainly because of availability, low price, easiness to use, and higher video quality.
The boom of video tapes in the mid-1970s was because of the introduction of the home use VCR in 1971. Once this technology was made available to the general public, electronics companies jumped at the chance to develop efficient recording, viewing, and tape formats.
One advantage of the VHS is that after recording, the tape could be immediately watched in a VHS VCR. Also, VHS is easily convertible to the now popular DVD format. Until the about the mid-1990s, most movies were recorded solely on VHS. With the advent of the DVD, the popularity of VHS tapes is on the decline.

*Bottom picture from http://www.cassely.com/vie/numerisation.htm

Sources:
CY Technical and Professional Services. Video History. 18 June 2003. <http://www.cytechandprofservices.com/vhistory.htm>

JVC Worldwide. JVC Global-Home. <http://www.jvc.com/>

Memoir Vive. <http://www.cassely.com/vie/numerisation.htm>

Our Future. <http://future.newsday.com/6/ffail.htm>

“Sony Corporation”. Microsoft Electronic Encarta Encyclopedia Standard Edition 2002.

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