page_title: Video Cassette Recording
section_title: Variants
hierarchical_section_title: Video Cassette Recording / Variants
caption_attribution_description: English: Grundig SVR format video recorder. This very rare, fully working machine is at www.video99.co.uk and is still occasionally used for playback.
context_page_description: Video Cassette Recording is an early domestic analog recording format designed by Philips. It was the first successful consumer-level home videocassette recorder system. Later variants included the VCR-LP and Super Video formats.
  The VCR format was introduced in 1972, just after the Sony U-matic format in 1971. Although at first glance the two might appear to have been competing formats, they were aimed at very different markets. After failing as a consumer format, U-matic was marketed as a professional television production format, whilst VCR was targeted particularly at educational but also domestic users. Unlike some other early formats such as Cartrivision, the VCR format does record a high-quality video signal without resorting to Skip field.
  Home video systems had previously been available, but they were open-reel systems and were expensive to both buy and operate. They were also unreliable and often only recorded in black and white such as the EIAJ-1. The VCR system was easy to use and recorded in colour but was still expensive: when it was introduced in 1972 the N1500 recorder cost nearly £600. By comparison, a small car could be purchased for just over £600.
context_section_description: VCR later evolved into a related format known as VCR-LP. This exploited slant azimuth to greatly increase the recording time. Although both formats used identical VCR cassettes, the recordings were incompatible between the two systems, and few if any dual-format recorders existed. Philips N1700, released in 1977, supported the VCR-LP format.
  A later even longer-playing variant, Super Video (SVR) was manufactured by Grundig exclusively. SVR was designed to exclusively use BASF- and Agfa-manufactured chrome-dioxide tape in cassettes that were identical to the earlier Philips ones, with the exception of a small actuator added to the bottom of the cassette. This meant that only the BASF/Agfa tapes would work in SVR machines, but that such tapes could also be used in the older VCR and VCR-LP machines.  Just as VCR-LP recordings are incompatible with VCR, so SVR recordings are incompatible with both VCR and VCR-LP.  The only model to be built was the Grundig SVR4004, with a few detail variations such as optional audio/video connectors, plus a rebadged ITT 240.
caption: The rare Grundig SVR4004 machine.
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