Videocassette Recorder

The videocassette recorder (or VCR, also known as the video recorder) is an electro-mechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time. This use of a VCR is commonly referred to as television program Timeshifting. Most domestic VCRs are equipped with a television broadcast receiver (tuner) for TV reception, and a programmable clock (timer) for unattended recording of a certain television channel at a particular time. These features began as simple mechanical counter-based single event timers, but were later replaced by multiple event digital clock timers that afforded greater flexibility to the user. In later models the multiple timer events could be programmed through a menu interface that was displayed on the playback TV screen. This allowed multiple programs to be recorded easily, and this particular feature of the video recorder quickly became a major selling point and benefit to people working unsociable hours who usually missed many television broadcasts. With the VCR being a main way to watch movies the remote control improved the VCR. The craze of the VCR, became bigger because now one had more of a control of what they wanted to watch. One could create personal libraries on what to watch.

A VCR operates in a different way from a video tape recorder. VTRs originated as individual tape reels, serving as a replacement for motion picture film stock and making recording for television applications cheaper and quicker. VTRs are reel-to-reel devices that require hand-threading of the tape from a single supply reel, through the recording mechanism and onto a separate take-up reel. VCRs tend to be lower maintenance than reel-to-reel VTRs, since the tape path is usually fully enclosed to keep dust out of the mechanism, and the tape is almost never touched by the user except when malfunctions occur.