page_title: VHS
section_title: Recording process
hierarchical_section_title: VHS / Recording process
caption_attribution_description: English: This diagram demonstrates the M-loading system in VHS, and at the same time illustrates the diagonal helical scan process, as well as the placement of the audio and index information.
context_page_description: VHS is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan on September 9, 1976, and in the United States on August 23, 1977.
  From the 1950s, magnetic tape video recording became a major contributor to the television industry, via the first commercialized video tape recorders. At that time, the expensive devices were used only in professional environments such as television studios and medical imaging. In the 1970s, videotape entered home use, creating the home video industry and changing the economics of the television and movie businesses. The television industry viewed videocassette recorders as having the power to disrupt their business, while television users viewed the VCR as a means to take control of their viewing experience.
  In the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a format war in the home video industry. Two of the standards, VHS and Betamax, received the most media exposure. VHS eventually won the war, dominating 60 percent of the North American market by 1980 and emerging as the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period.
context_section_description: The recording process in VHS consists of the following steps, in this order:
  The tape is pulled from the supply reel by a capstan and pinch roller, similar to those used in audio tape recorders.
  The tape passes across the erase head, which wipes any existing recording from the tape.
  The tape is wrapped around the head drum, using a little more than 180 degrees of the drum.
  One of the heads on the spinning drum records one field of video onto the tape, in one diagonally oriented track.
  The tape passes across the audio and control head, which records the control track and the linear audio track or tracks.
  The tape is wound onto the take-up reel due to torque applied to the reel by the machine.
caption: This illustration demonstrates the helical wrap of the tape around the head drum, and shows the points where the video, audio and control tracks are recorded.
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