Original photo by LIAL/ Shutterstock
In the 1950s, long before they were compact and more affordable, the earliest VCRs took up as much space as a piano and cost more than a house. We can trace the technology to engineer Charles Ginsburg, who was hired by electronics company Ampex to work on the development of a new video tape recorder (VTR). The resulting machine, called the Ampex VRX-1000, debuted in 1956 and allowed users to edit and play back recorded video on tape reels. However, these devices were humongous and cost roughly $50,000 (around $580,000 today), making them out of reach for personal use. Instead, Ampex found a market in large television networks such as CBS, which used the VRX-1000 to replace costly live broadcasts with prerecorded, edited content that could be re-aired.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factAccording to IMDb, the bestselling VHS tape of all time is 1994’s “The Lion King,” which sold an estimated 32 million copies. The runner-up is Disney’s “Aladdin” with 30 million copies sold. Among live-action films, the bestselling VHS tape is “Titanic,” which sold roughly 25 million copies.
The personal VCR market developed further into the 1960s, starting with the work of Sony engineer Nobutoshi Kihara, who unveiled the CV-2000 in 1965. This was a smaller and more affordable device priced at $695 (around $7,000 today), capable of recording and playing back black-and-white images. But the CV-2000 still relied on tape reels; it wasn’t until 1971 that the first VCR to use cassettes debuted. This was the Sony VO-1600, which incorporated Sony’s new U-matic technology, in which the tape was encased inside a cassette — a direct predecessor to modern VHS tapes. The retail price of the Sony VO-1600 was still in excess of $1,000. But as the technology continued to develop throughout the 1980s, the cost of a new VCR dipped into the low hundreds.
Numbers Don't Lie
More Interesting Reads
The last remaining Blockbuster store is located in ______.
Ready to reveal?
Confirm your email to play the next question?
The last remaining Blockbuster store is located in Bend, Oregon.
The first and last VHS movies released in the U.S. came less than 30 years apart.
VHS tapes made their commercial debut in the United States in 1977, one year after they first hit shelves in Japan. Some of the earliest titles from that year included indelible classics such as The Sound of Music, Patton, and the film version of M*A*S*H. The VHS format exploded in popularity throughout the 1980s and 1990s, though it began to wane in the early 2000s when DVD sales overtook VHS sales for the first time.
Studios continued to produce feature films on VHS until the mid-2000s before they stopped manufacturing VHS versions of feature films altogether. According to the Los Angeles Times, the last major Hollywood movie released on VHS was the 2005 David Cronenberg thriller A History of Violence, which was brought to market on VHS the following year, marking the end of the medium’s 30-year production run.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Optimism Media, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
top picks from the optimism network
Interesting Facts is part of Optimism, which publishes content that uplifts, informs, and inspires.
