VHS

A rather crude and low quality tape-based video recording format from the 70s, which remained popular 'till the 90s, mainly because it was the lowest common denominator (practically everybody back then had a VHS machine). VHS can capture only a portion of the detail the TV signal offers (less than 50%), even in "standard play" mode. Original VHS recorders could only record low quality mono sound, but later-day VHS recorders could also record Hi-Fi stereo. The biggest disadvantages of VHS were it's low quality blurry picture, and the fact the tapes lost even more detail when stored, played or copied. So, once you wrote something on VHS, it was guaranteed to become progressively worse in terms of quality over time. A close cousin of VHS is S-VHS, an upgraded version which captures most of the detail the TV signal offers (close to 90%), but unfortunately S-VHS tapes lose detail over time too. People like me who like to preserve their family videos and TV recordings for as long as possible hate even the mention of the name VHS (and S-VHS), as it brings back bleak memories from the 80s of their favorite videos rotting away without them being able to do something to save them (copying them resulted in loss of detail by itself and was only a temporary measure). Better recording alternatives include DV recorders, DVD recorders, DVRs and media center PCs. Believe it or not, there are people who still like VHS and mourn over it's loss, for reasons that contradict common logic.