Welcome to VHS:

The Video Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard for analog video cassette recorders (VCRs), developed by Victor Company of Japan, Limited, aka JVC, and launched in September 1976.

By the 1990s, VHS became a standard format for consumer recording and viewing, after competing in a fierce format war with Sony Corporation's Betamax and, to a lesser extent, Philips' Video 2000. VHS initially offered a longer playing time than the Betamax system, and it also had the advantage of a far less complex tape transport mechanism. Although VHS and Betamax were competing formats, several of VHS' critical technology are licensed from Sony. Early VHS machines could rewind and fast forward the tape considerably faster than a Betamax VCR since they unthreaded the tape from the playback heads before commencing any high-speed winding. Most newer VHS machines do not perform this unthreading step, as head-tape contact is no longer an impediment to fast winding, due to improved engineering.

The week of 15 June 2003 marked the first time the DVD format (which was launched in the late 1990s) became more popular than VHS in the USA. Although still popular for home recording, the VHS tape has largely been replaced by DVD for pre-recorded home video content.

As of July 2006, most major film studios have stopped releasing new movie titles in VHS format, opting for DVD-only releases. VHS prerecorded cassettes, however, are still popular with many collectors, mainly because there are thousands of titles that are still unavailable on DVD or other newer formats.