VHS is Fifty

Part One: 'Yes, we've got a video!'

Charlie Endell was well ahead of the curve. ‘Film cassettes!’ he proudly announced in a 1972 episode of the LWT series Budgie, ‘what in future years you will bung on television sets. The coming thing… the cinema of the future’. Endell, ever the entrepreneur, had done a deal with his American counterpart to supply pornographic material on ‘film cassettes’ for rental through his Soho sex boutique. Presumably he was talking about video cassettes. But how could he have known about them back in 1972? And what, exactly, were the ‘film cassettes’ he’d been promised?

That Budgie episode marks the very first reference to home video in any British TV series. Writers Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall would likely have been aware of the launch, in 1971, of the U-Matic video cassette system, marketed by Sony, Panasonic and JVC and originally aimed at the domestic market. Of course, they may have been thinking of something else entirely – there was already a system known as EVR which recorded video signals onto an 8.75mm physical film format, and was announced to the world by CBS back in 1967. There were even plans to release vintage movies from Twentieth Century Fox and other libraries, including, intriguingly, the BBC. As we know, nothing came of these endeavours, and by the early 70s the big Japanese manufacturers were pushing ahead with magnetic tape-based systems. As a semi-professional format, U-Matic wasn't really suited for home use, but competing systems using smaller cassettes were already in development by the early 70s.

Sony were first off the starting grid with their Betamax format, which launched in Japan on May 10 1975, and arrived in the USA later the same year. Aware of what was happening, Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry made early efforts to force the industry to agree on a standardised format for the coming wave of domestic video recorders. Sony attempted to steal a march on its rivals by persuading MITI to accept Betamax as the preferred format, but JVC, who were developing their own ‘Video Home System’ convinced other manufacturers to adopt their format, thereby denying Sony the chance to monopolise the market. Matsushita (known in most territories as Panasonic) came on board, and others followed.

VHS finally arrived on the Japanese market in September 1976, and would make its debut here in Britain two years later. The so-called ‘format war’ had been declared, but from the outset VHS had major advantages against Sony’s competing system. Betamax tapes originally allowed for only an hour’s worth of recording. Advocates of the system claimed it gave improved picture quality compared to VHS, on account of its faster recording speed of 1.5 inches per second, as against 1.31 ips for VHS. But the marginally slower speed of VHS, coupled with a larger format cassette capable of holding more tape, allowed for up to two hours of recording time. This was soon expanded to three and four hours, and by 1980 VHS had won 60% of the American market. Sony's L750 tape soon offered three-hour recording capability for the Betamax format, but there was no stopping VHS and the rival system slowly disappeared from the domestic market – although the format would endure as the professional Betacam system until 2016.

Now you can watch all your favourite TV shows... but not necessarily in the right order...

For anyone with an interest in film and television, old or new, the arrival of domestic video recording was a watershed moment. Home video recorders had, in fact, been around since the mid 60s, when an early open reel machine was offered as a prize in the TV Times. But the capabilities of those early machines were limited as to duration and quality. Surviving examples from the archive of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson (who taped episodes of Steptoe & Son which were later wiped by the BBC) reveal their shortcomings.

By the mid 70s, the technology was much improved, and the new, cassette-based systems took over from the old reel-to-reel technology. The first VCR I ever saw in operation was one of Sony’s U-Matic machines, which our grammar school owned (and, for the most part, kept a closely guarded secret). The player was big and quite cumbersome, the cassettes enormous, and capable of only an hour's recording time. But by the time I got to see it, in 1979, the first VHS and Betamax machines had already gone on sale here in Britain.

Now that domestic video recording technology had arrived, how was it to be known? The television industry had always abbreviated videotape to 'VT'. Now, the new breed of cassette-based recording systems were known generically as 'VCRs' – short for 'Video Cassette Recorder' which was a bit of a mouthful. In practise, most people simply used the word 'video' to refer to both the hardware and the recording media. Anyone asking 'shall we rent a video tonight' was referring to the tape rather than the machine. 'Oh, have we got a video?' asked Rik in an episode of The Young Ones, referring to their newly acquired VCR. 'Yes!' bawled Vivian, 'we've got a video!' Hadn't we all?

The first person I knew who owned a video recorder was (of course), Tim Beddows, who, at the age of just 16, was already a committed collector of vintage film and television: not that there was much material available to collect back then. He was too young to rent the machine himself, but somehow convinced his dad or an older brother that their household would be the better for owning one.

Tim had considered the two emerging formats and decided – correctly, as it turned out – that VHS was the way to go. A year or so later, Philips brought out their V2000 format, which offered increased runtime and the ability to record on both sides of the tape, like a conventional cassette, but despite these advantages, VHS was already too well established in the consumer market, and V2000 vanished from the scene. With Betamax sales in decline, VHS was soon the last man standing.

The first VHS recording I ever saw was a commercial. Quite famous in its day, it was an ad for Dunlop products, voiced by Richard Briers, with the tagline ‘you’d be surprised how much you’d miss Dunlop’. Tim was quite pleased at having nabbed this ad on his first evening as a VHS user. It had prefaced a broadcast of the satirical comedy film The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer, which he had also recorded, in full. Even though it had only been on the night before, we sat and watched the whole film again – for the sheer novelty value of being able to do so.

I was impressed at this new piece of technology, but wasn’t quite so quick to take advantage of it myself. It was another year before I managed to convince my mum and dad that, if they’d take care of the paperwork, I personally would pay the monthly rental on a VHS machine. We already rented our TV set from Radio Rentals, so adding a video recorder to the package was simple enough. The monthly fee was something like £10 or £15 which I shamefully paid out of my student grant. No loans in those days! By comparison, the full retail price of a VHS machine in 1980 was £495, while a typical Betamax machine was £545 (equivalent to around £2,000-£2,500 in 2026).

The tapes weren’t cheap either. One payed an average of £10-£12 for a three hour E180 cassette. In time the prices came down, but for the first couple of years, one considered oneself lucky to find them for as little as £7.99. Pre-recorded tapes sold for eye-watering prices: £75 or more for a single feature film. This over-pricing probably helped to drive the rental market which within a few years would become huge. In 1982, I paid £25 for a pre-recorded tape of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and considered it a bargain!

The video recorder arrived on Wednesday 11 November 1980. It was a Ferguson branded ‘Videostar’ model, with the familiar top-loading tape mechanism and so-called ‘piano key’ controls. It felt rugged and solidly put together. There was a corded remote control available, but I preferred to use the controls on the machine itself, holding it on ‘pause’ while I waited for a programme to begin (I didn’t want to record any of the between shows continuity or, heaven forbid, commercials).

Curiously, my diary mentions that, on Monday 8 December, less than a month after taking delivery of the VCR, the machine was replaced. What was wrong with it? I’m at a loss to remember. In all probability I had mistaken tape faults (white line dropouts were common) for something the matter with the hardware. Renting meant that it was simple to upgrade the units, but I always preferred that original Videostar with its huge, clunky controls. Within a year, it had been superceded by a new model with electronic, push-button controls which somehow felt less reassuring in operation. The video age had arrived in our house – yes, we'd got a video! Now, what were we to do with it?

In part two, I’ll look at some of the material I recorded and consider the ultimate fate of VHS.