The video recorder is similar in many ways, to the television receiver. The video recorder gathers the image signal either being cabled or broadcast to the home. Rather than the signal being sent to the television tube to be shown on the screen, the video recorder has the facility to record and store the information on tape. It is recorded on a tape cassette comparable to the type which records sound signals only wider to accommodate the additional video information.
The transmitted information goes to a record head, which records it to the magnetic tape. The tape can be replayed by sending the recorded signal to the television set via the playback head. To do this, the video tape must be able to travel past the head at a rapid speed in order to replay the video signals. Therefore, the head rotates quickly as the tape is passing and records the signals diagonally across the tape, this technique is called helical scanning. The main system used within the home, in the way of video cassette recorders, is the Video Home System (VHS) type. 8mm video format is popular with camcorder users due to its compact size.
In a bid to improve the video quality, a new format has recently been introduced. SVHS or `Super Video Home System' is a progression of VHS. SVHS VCR's will play both types of tape but SVHS tapes cannot be played on VHS recorders. SVHS gives improved image resolution by keeping two components of the video signal separate, whereas normally they are mixed or encoded and then decoded later, leading to video noise and reduced resolution.
