What Is the Simplest Way to Convert Your VHS Tapes to DVD in Perth?

Archaeological evidence attests to human habitation in the Perth area for at least 48,000 years;^{[26]: 9â€Å}  according to Noongar tradition, they have occupied the area since "time immemorial".^[27] Noongar country encompasses the south-west corner of Western Australia, with particular significance attached to the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain, both spiritually (featuring in local mythology) and as a source of food.^[28]

The current central business district location is within the traditional territory of the Mooro, a Noongar clan, led by Yellagonga at the time of the British settlement. The Mooro was one of several Noongar clans based around the Swan River, known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk themselves were one of a larger group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar (meaning 'the people' in their language), also sometimes called the Bibbulmun.^[29][30][31]

On 19 September 2006, the Federal Court of Australia ruled in the case of Bennell v State of Western Australia [2006] FCA 1243 that Noongar native title persisted over Perth metropolitan area.^[32] An appeal was subsequently filed, and in 2008, the Full Court of the Federal Court upheld parts of the appeal by the Western Australian and Commonwealth governments.^[33] Following this appeal, the Western Australian Government and the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council negotiated the South West Native Title Settlement. This settlement, including the Whadjuk Indigenous Land Use Agreement over the Perth region, was finalised by the Federal Court on 1 December 2021.^[34] As part of this agreement, the Noongar (Koorah, Nitja, Boordahwan) (Past, Present, Future) Recognition Act was passed in 2016, officially recognising the Noongar people as the traditional owners of the south-west region of Western Australia.^[35]

On 10 January 1697, Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh conducted the first documented exploration of the present-day Perth region. His crew initially explored the area on foot, leading them to what is now central Perth.^[36] Vlamingh's expedition also ventured far up the Swan River, in search of native inhabitants.^[37] They named the river Swarte Swaene-Revier, a reference to the black swans prevalent in the region.^[37] After Vlamingh's expedition, other Europeans conducted further voyages of exploration in the period between 1697 and 1829. However, as with Vlamingh's assessments, they judged the area inhospitable and unsuitable for the agriculture necessary to sustain a European-style settlement.^[38]

Despite the Colony of New South Wales establishing a convict-supported settlement at King George's Sound (later Albany) on the south coast of Western Australia in 1826, responding to rumours of potential French annexation, Perth marked the first comprehensive European settlement in the western third of the continent of Australia in 1829. Officially designated as "Western Australia" in 1832, the colony retained the informal moniker "Swan River Colony" for many years, after the area's major watercourse.^[39]

On 4 June 1829, newly arriving British colonists had their first view of the mainland.^{[contradictory]} Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, noted that the site was "as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed".^[40] On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the second ship, Sulphur, felled a tree to commemorate the town's founding.^[41] From 1831 onward, confrontations between British settlers and the Noongar people escalated due to conflicting land-value systems and increased land use as the colony expanded. These confrontations resulted in multiple events, including the murder of settlers (such as Thomas Peel's servant Hugh Nesbitt^[42]), the execution without trial of Whadjuk elder Midgegooroo,^[43] the killing of his son Yagan in 1833,^[44] and the Pinjarra massacre in 1834.^{[26]: 114 [45]}

The strained relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans arose due to these events. Agricultural development on the land restricted the traditional hunter-gatherer practices of the native Whadjuk Noongar, compelling them to camp in designated areas, including swamps and lakes north of the European settlement. Third Swamp, known to them as Boodjamooling, remained a primary campsite for the remaining Noongar people in the Perth region, also accommodating travellers, itinerants, and homeless individuals. During the gold rush in the 1890s, miners on their way to the goldfields joined this community.^[46]

In 1850, at a time when penal transportation to Australia's eastern colonies had ceased, Western Australia was opened to convicts at the request of farming and business people due to a shortage of labour.^[47] Over the next eighteen years, 9,721 convicts arrived in Western Australia aboard 43 ships,^[48][49] outnumbering the approximately 7,300 free settlers.^[50]

The designation of Perth as a city was formally announced by Queen Victoria in 1856. However, despite this recognition, Perth remained a tranquil town. A description from 1870 by a Melbourne journalist depicted it as:^[51][52]

a quiet little town of some 3000 inhabitants spread out in straggling allotments down to the water's edge, intermingled with gardens and shrubberies and half rural in its aspect ... The main streets are macadamised, but the outlying ones and most of the footpaths retain their native state from the loose sand—the all pervading element of Western Australia—productive of intense glare or much dust in the summer and dissolving into slush during the rainy season.

With the discovery of gold at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie in the late 19th century, Western Australia experienced a mining boom.^[53] Perth became a key hub for supplying the goldfields, and the newfound prosperity helped finance the construction of important public buildings, roads and railways. Perth's population grew from approximately 8,500 in 1881 to 61,000 in 1901.^[54]

After a referendum in 1900,^[55] Western Australia joined the Federation of Australia in 1901,^[51] and "became a founding state of Australia".^[26] It was the last of the Australian colonies to agree to join the Federation, and it did so only after the other colonies had offered several concessions, including the construction of a transcontinental railway line from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie to link Perth with the eastern states.^[56]

In 1927, Indigenous people were prohibited from entering large swathes of Perth under penalty of imprisonment, a ban that lasted until 1954.^[57]

In 1933, two-thirds of Western Australians voted in a referendum to secede from the rest of Australia. However, the state general election held at the same time as the referendum had voted out the pro-independence government, replacing it with a government that did not support the independence movement. Respecting the result of the referendum, the new government nonetheless petitioned the Imperial Parliament at Westminster. The House of Commons established a select committee to consider the issue but after 18 months of negotiations and lobbying, finally refused to consider the matter, declaring that it could not legally grant secession.^[55][58]

Perth entered the post-war period with a population of approximately 280,000 and an economy that had not experienced sustained growth since the 1920s. Successive state governments, beginning with the Willcock Labor Government (1936–1945), determined to change this. Planning for post-war economic development was initially driven by Russell Dumas, who as Director of Public Works (1941–1953) drew up plans for Western Australia's major post-war public-works projects, including the raising of the Mundaring and Wellington dams, the development of the new Perth Airport, and the development of a new industrial zone centred on Kwinana. The advent of the McLarty Liberal Government (1947–1953) saw the emergence of something of a consensus on the need for continuing economic development. Economic growth was fuelled by large-scale public works, the post-war immigration program, and the success that various state governments had in attracting substantial foreign investment into the state, beginning with the construction of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Refinery at Kwinana in 1951–52.^[59]

The result of this economic activity was the rapid growth of the population of Perth and a marked change in its urban design. Commencing in the 1950s, Perth began to expand along an extensive highway network laid out in the Stephenson-Hepburn Report, which noted that Perth was beginning to resemble a pattern of development less in line with the British experience and more in line with North America.^[60] This was encouraged by the opening of the Narrows Bridge and the gradual closure of the Perth and Fremantle tram systems. The mining-pastoral boom of the 1960s only accelerated the pace of urban growth in Perth.

In 1962, Perth received global media attention when city residents lit their house lights and streetlights as American astronaut John Glenn passed overhead while orbiting the Earth on Friendship 7. This led to its being nicknamed the "City of Light".^{[a][61][62][63]} The city repeated the act as Glenn passed overhead on the Space Shuttle in 1998.^[64][65]

Perth's development and relative prosperity, especially since the mid-1960s,^[66] has resulted from its role as the main service centre for the state's resource industries, which extract gold, iron ore, nickel, alumina, diamonds, mineral sands, coal, oil and natural gas.^[67] Whilst most mineral and petroleum production takes place elsewhere in the state, the non-base services provide most of the employment and income to the people of Perth.^[68]

Perth experienced a period of recovery in 1990. In July 1994, the state government separated the city's CBD from its suburban districts, creating the City of Perth and three other local government areas.^{[citation needed]}

The central business district of Perth is bounded by the Swan River to the south and east, with Kings Park on the western end and the railway reserve as the northern border.^{[citation needed]} A state and federally funded project named Perth City Link sank a section of the railway line to allow easy pedestrian access between Northbridge and the CBD. The Perth Arena is an entertainment and sporting arena in the city link area that has received several architectural awards from institutions such as the Design Institute of Australia, the Australian Institute of Architects, and Colorbond.^[69] St Georges Terrace is the area's prominent street, with a large amount of office space in the CBD. Hay Street and Murray Street have most of the retail and entertainment facilities. The city's tallest building is Central Park, the twelfth tallest building in Australia.^[70] The CBD until 2012 was the centre of a mining-induced boom, with several commercial and residential projects being built, including Brookfield Place, a 244-metre (801 ft) office building for Anglo-Australian mining company BHP.^[71]

Perth's metropolitan area extends along the coast to Two Rocks in the north and Singleton to the south,^[72] a distance of approximately 125 kilometres (80 mi).^[73] From the coast in the west to Mundaring in the east is a distance of approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi). The Perth metropolitan area covers 6,418 square kilometres (2,478 sq mi).^[2] The built-up urban area of Perth is 1,722 square kilometres (665 sq mi), the same as Wuhan or Salt Lake City and slightly smaller than London, making Perth the 67th-largest urban area in the world. Perth is also the 50th-least densely populated out of the 990 urban areas in the world with a population above 500,000.^[74]

The metropolitan region is defined by the Planning and Development Act 2005 to include 30 local government areas, with the outer extent being the City of Wanneroo and the City of Swan to the north, the Shire of Mundaring, City of Kalamunda and the City of Armadale to the east, the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale to the south-east and the City of Rockingham to the south-west, and including Rottnest Island and Garden Island off the west coast.^[75] This extent correlates with the Metropolitan Region Scheme, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Perth (Major Statistical Division).^[75]

The metropolitan extent of Perth can be defined in other ways—the Australian Bureau of Statistics Greater Capital City Statistical Area, or Greater Perth in short, consists of that area, plus the City of Mandurah and the Pinjarra Level 2 Statistical Area^[76] of the Shire of Murray,^[77][78] while the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993 includes the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale in the Peel region.^[79]

The largest river flowing through Perth is the Swan River, named for the native black swans by Willem de Vlamingh, captain of a Dutch expedition and namer of WA's Rottnest Island, who discovered the birds while exploring the area in 1697.^[80] This water body is also known as Derbarl Yerrigan.^[81] The city centre and most of the suburbs are on the sandy and relatively flat Swan Coastal Plain, which lies between the Darling Scarp and the Indian Ocean. The soils of this area are quite infertile.

Much of colonial Perth was built on the Perth Wetlands, a series of freshwater wetlands running from Herdsman Lake in the west through to Claisebrook Cove in the east.^[82]

To the east, the city is bordered by a low escarpment called the Darling Scarp. Perth is on generally flat, rolling land, largely due to the high amount of sandy soils and deep bedrock. The Perth metropolitan area has two major river systems, one made up of the Swan and Canning Rivers, and one of the Serpentine and Murray Rivers, which discharge into the Peel Inlet at Mandurah. The Perth-Gingin Shrublands and Woodlands and Banksia Woodlands of the Swan Coastal Plain straddle the metropolitan area.

Perth receives moderate, though highly seasonal, winter-based rainfall. Summers are generally hot, sunny and dry, lasting from December to March, with February generally the hottest month. Winters are relatively mild and wet, giving Perth a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa).^[83][84] Perth has an average of 8.8 hours of sunshine per day, which equates to around 3,200 hours of sunshine and 138.7 clear days annually, making it Australia's sunniest capital city.^[85]

Summers are typically hot and dry but not completely devoid of rain, with sporadic rainfall in the form of short-lived thunderstorms, weak cold fronts and on occasions decaying tropical cyclones from Western Australia's north-west, which can bring heavy rain. Temperatures above 35 °C (95 °F) occur, on average, 26 days per year and rise above 40 °C (104 °F) on 5 days per year. The highest temperature recorded in Perth was 46.2 °C (115.2 °F) on 23 February 1991, although Perth Airport recorded 46.7 °C (116.1 °F) on the same day.^[85][86] On most summer afternoons a sea breeze, known locally as the Fremantle Doctor, blows from the south-west, providing relief from the hot north-easterly winds. Temperatures often fall below 30 °C (86 °F) a few hours after the arrival of the wind change.^[87] In the summer, the 3 p.m. dewpoint averages at around 12 °C (54 °F).^[85]

Winters are mild and wet, with most of Perth's annual rainfall between May and September. Winters see significant rainfall as frontal systems move across the region, interspersed with clear and sunny days where minimum temperatures tend to drop below 5 °C (41 °F). The lowest temperature recorded in Perth was −0.7 °C (30.7 °F) on 17 June 2006.^[86] The lowest temperature within the Perth metropolitan area was −3.4 °C (25.9 °F) on the same day at Jandakot Airport, although temperatures at or below zero are rare occurrences. The lowest maximum temperature recorded in Perth is 8.8 °C (47.8 °F) on 26 June 1956. It occasionally gets cold enough for frost to form.^[88] While snow has never been recorded in the Perth CBD, light snowfalls have been reported in outer suburbs of Perth in the Perth Hills around Kalamunda, Roleystone and Mundaring. The most recent snowfall was in 1968.

The rainfall pattern has changed in Perth and south-west Western Australia since the mid-1970s. A significant reduction in winter rainfall has been observed with a greater number of extreme rainfall events in the summer,^[89] such as the slow-moving storms on 8 February 1992 that brought 120.6 millimetres (4.75 in) of rain,^[86][87] heavy rainfall associated with a tropical low on 10 February 2017, which brought 114.4 millimetres (4.50 in) of rain,^[90] and the remnants of ex-Tropical Cyclone Joyce on 15 January 2018 with 96.2 millimetres (3.79 in).^[91] Perth was also hit by a severe thunderstorm on 22 March 2010, which brought 40.2 mm (1.58 in) of rain, and large hail and caused significant damage in the metropolitan area.^[92]

The average sea temperature ranges from 18.9 °C (66.0 °F) in October to 23.4 °C (74.1 °F) in March.^[93]

With more than two million residents, Perth is one of the most isolated major cities in the world. The nearest city with a population of more than 100,000 is Adelaide, over 2,100 km (1,305 mi) away.^[95] Perth is geographically closer to both East Timor (2,800 km or 1,700 mi), and Jakarta, Indonesia (3,000 km or 1,900 mi), than to Sydney (3,300 km or 2,100 mi).^[95]

Perth is Australia's fourth-most-populous city, having overtaken Adelaide in 1984.^[99] In June 2023 there was an estimated resident population of 2,309,338 in the Greater Perth area, representing an increase of approximately 3.6% from the 2022 estimate of 2,228,020, the highest growth rate of Australia's capital cities.^[1]

Country of birth (2021)^[100]

Birthplace[b]	Population
Australia	1,258,506
England	169,938
New Zealand	59,459
India	58,229
South Africa	38,793
Malaysia	31,268
Philippines	30,806
China	27,237
Scotland	23,280
Vietnam	17,174
Italy	16,536
Ireland	16,412
Singapore	15,387
Indonesia	13,031
Zimbabwe	10,743

At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated ancestries were:^[100]

Perth's population is notable for the high proportion of British- and Irish-born residents. At the 2021 Census, 169,938 England-born Perth residents were counted,^[100] ahead of even Sydney (151,614),^[102] despite the latter having well over twice the population.

The ethnic make-up of Perth changed in the second part of the 20th century when significant numbers of continental European immigrants arrived in the city. Prior to this, Perth's population had been almost completely Anglo-Celtic in ethnic origin. As Fremantle was the first landfall in Australia for many migrant ships coming from Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, Perth started to experience a diverse influx of people, including Italians, Greeks, Dutch, Germans, Turks, Croats and Macedonians. The Italian influence in the Perth and Fremantle area has been substantial, evident in places like the "Cappuccino strip" in Fremantle featuring many Italian eateries and shops. In Fremantle, the traditional Italian blessing of the fleet festival is held every year at the start of the fishing season. In Northbridge every December is the San Nicola (Saint Nicholas) Festival, which involves a pageant followed by a concert, predominantly in Italian. Suburbs surrounding the Fremantle area, such as Spearwood and Hamilton Hill, also contain high concentrations of Italians, Croatians and Portuguese. Perth has also been home to a small Jewish community since 1829^[104]—numbering 6,331 in 2021—who have emigrated primarily from Eastern Europe and more recently from South Africa.^[105]

A more recent wave of arrivals includes White South Africans. South Africans overtook those born in Italy as the fourth-largest foreign group in 2001. By 2016, there were 35,262 South Africans residing in Perth.^[106] Many Afrikaners and Anglo-Africans emigrated to Perth during the 1980s and 1990s, with the phrase "packing for Perth" becoming associated with South Africans who choose to emigrate abroad, sometimes regardless of the destination.^[107][108] As a result, the city has been described as "the Australian capital of South Africans in exile".^[109] The reason for Perth's popularity among white South Africans has often been attributed to the location, the vast amount of land, and the slightly warmer climate compared to other large Australian cities—Perth has a Mediterranean climate reminiscent of Cape Town.

Since the end of the White Australia policy in 1973, Asia has become an increasingly significant source of migrants, with communities from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mainland China and India all now well established. There were 112,293 persons of Chinese descent in Perth in 2016—5.3% of the city's population.^[100] These are supported by the Australian Eurasian Association of Western Australia,^[110] which also serves a community of Portuguese-Malacca Eurasian or Kristang immigrants.^[111]

Middle Eastern immigrants have a presence in Perth. They come from a variety of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, The United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and Afghanistan.

The Indian community includes a substantial number of Parsees who emigrated from Bombay—Perth being the closest Australian city to India—in 2021 those with Indian ancestry accounted for 3.5% of Perth's population^[100] Perth is also home to the largest population of Anglo-Burmese in the world; many settled here following the independence of Burma in 1948 with immigration taking off after 1962. The city is now the cultural hub for Anglo-Burmese worldwide.^[112] There is also a substantial Anglo-Indian population in Perth, who also settled in the city following the independence of India.

At the 2021 census, 2% of Perth's population identified as being Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.^[e][113]

At the 2021 census, 74% of inhabitants spoke only English at home, with the next most common languages being Mandarin (2.3%), Italian (1.1%), Vietnamese (1.0%), Punjabi (0.9%) and Cantonese (0.9%).^[113]

41.8% of the 2021 census respondents in Perth had no religion,^[113] as against 38.4% of national population.^[113] In 1911, the national figure was 0.4%.^[114]

Catholics are the largest single Christian denomination in the Greater Perth area at 19.5%.^[113] Perth is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Perth.^[115] The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross claims over 2,000 members.^[116] Anglicans are 9.9% of the population.^[113] Perth is the seat of the Anglican Diocese of Perth.^[117]

Buddhism and Islam each have more than 50,000 adherents.^[118] The suburb of Gidgengannup in the Perth Hills is home to the Dhammasara Nuns Monastery of the Buddhist Thai Forest Tradition.^[119][120] Over 31,000 members of the Uniting Church in Australia live in Perth.^[118]

Perth has the third largest Jewish population in Australia, numbering approximately 6,331 in the 2021 census.^[105] Perth's Jewish Day School, Carmel School claims a city Jewish population closer to 10,000.^[121] The city is home to both Orthodox and Progressive synagogues, most notably Perth Hebrew Congregation and Temple David.

The Baháʼí community in Perth numbers around 2,178.^[118] Hinduism has over 49,000 adherents in Perth;^[118] the Diwali (festival of lights) celebration in 2009 attracted over 20,000 visitors. There are Hindu temples in Canning Vale, Anketell and a Swaminarayan temple in Bennett Springs.^[122] Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in Australia.^[123] Perth is also home to 4,719 Mormons^[118] and the Perth Australia Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Perth, like the rest of Australia, is governed by three levels of government: local, state and federal.^[124]

The Perth metropolitan area is divided into thirty local government bodies, including the City of Perth which administers Perth's central business district. The outer extent of the administrative region of Perth comprises the City of Wanneroo and the City of Swan to the north, the Shire of Mundaring, City of Kalamunda and the City of Armadale to the east, the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale to the south-east and the City of Rockingham to the south-west, and including the islands of Rottnest Island and Garden Island off the west coast.^[125]

Perth houses the Parliament of Western Australia and the Governor of Western Australia. As of the 2008 state election^[update], 42 of the Legislative Assembly's 59 seats and 18 of the Legislative Council's 36 seats are based in Perth's metropolitan area.

The state's highest court, the Supreme Court, is located in Perth,^[126] along with the District^[127] and Family^[128] Courts. The Magistrates' Court has six metropolitan locations.^[129]

Perth is represented by 10 full seats and significant parts of three others in the Federal House of Representatives, with the seats of Canning, Pearce and Brand including some areas outside the metropolitan area.

The Federal Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia (previously the Federal Magistrates Court)^[130][131] occupy the Commonwealth Law Courts building on Victoria Avenue,^[132] which is also the location for annual Perth sittings of Australia's High Court.^[133]

By virtue of its population and role as the administrative centre for business and government, Perth dominates the Western Australian economy, despite the major mining, petroleum and agricultural export industries being located elsewhere in the state.^[134] Perth's function as the state's capital city, its economic base and population size have also created development opportunities for many other businesses oriented to local or more diversified markets. Perth's economy has been changing in favour of the service industries since the 1950s. Although one of the major sets of services it provides is related to the resources industry and, to a lesser extent, agriculture, most people in Perth are not connected to either; they have jobs that provide services to other people in Perth.^[135]

As a result of Perth's relative geographical isolation, it has never had the necessary conditions to develop significant manufacturing industries other than those serving the immediate needs of its residents, mining, agriculture and some specialised areas, such as, in recent times, niche shipbuilding and maintenance. It was simply cheaper to import all the needed manufactured goods from either the eastern states or overseas.

Industrial employment influenced the economic geography of Perth. After WWII, Perth experienced suburban expansion aided by high levels of car ownership. Workforce decentralisation and transport improvements made it possible for the establishment of small-scale manufacturing in the suburbs. Many firms took advantage of relatively cheap land to build spacious, single-storey plants in suburban locations with plentiful parking, easy access and minimal traffic congestion. "The former close ties of manufacturing with near-central and/or rail-side locations were loosened."^[134]

Industrial estates such as Kwinana, Welshpool and Kewdale were post-war additions contributing to the growth of manufacturing south of the river. The establishment of the Kwinana industrial area was supported by standardisation of the east–west rail gauge linking Perth with eastern Australia. Since the 1950s the area has been dominated by heavy industry, including an oil refinery, steel-rolling mill with a blast furnace, alumina refinery, power station and a nickel refinery. Another development, also linked with rail standardisation, was in 1968 when the Kewdale Freight Terminal was developed adjacent to the Welshpool industrial area, replacing the former Perth railway yards.^[134]

With significant population growth post-WWII,^[136] employment growth occurred not in manufacturing but in retail and wholesale trade, business services, health, education, community and personal services, and in public administration. Increasingly it was these services sectors, concentrated around the Perth metropolitan area, that provided jobs.^[134]

Perth has also become a hub of technology-focused startups since the early 2000s that provide a pool of highly skilled jobs to the Perth community. Companies such as Canva, VGW, Appbot, Agworld and Healthengine all hail from Perth and have made headlines internationally. Organisations like StartupWA, Spacecubed and Perth Angels, and programs like Meshpoints, Curtin Accelerate and Plus Eight are all focused on creating a thriving startup culture in Perth and growing the next generation of Perth-based employers.^[137]

Education is compulsory in Western Australia between the ages of six and seventeen, corresponding to primary and secondary school.^[138] Tertiary education is available through several universities and technical and further education (TAFE) colleges.

Students may attend either public schools, run by the state government's Department of Education, or private schools, usually associated with a religion, or engage in home schooling.

The Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) is the credential given to students who have completed Years 11 and 12 of their secondary schooling.^[139]

In 2012 the minimum requirements for students to receive their WACE changed^[how?].^[140]

Perth is home to four public universities: the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, Murdoch University and Edith Cowan University. There are also two private universities, the University of Notre Dame Australia, and a local campus of the University of Divinity.

The University of Western Australia, which was founded in 1911,^[141] is renowned as one of Australia's leading research institutions.^[142] The university's monumental neo-classical architecture, most of which is carved from white limestone, is a notable tourist destination in the city. It is the only university in the state to be a member of the Group of Eight, as well as the Sandstone universities. It is also the state's only university to have produced a Nobel Laureate:^[143] Barry Marshall, who graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1975 and was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2005 with Robin Warren.

Curtin University, previously known as Western Australian Institute of Technology (1966–1986) and Curtin University of Technology (1986–2010), is Western Australia's largest university by student population.^[144]

Murdoch University was founded in 1973 and incorporates Western Australia's only veterinary school and, until its controversial closure in 2020, Australia's only theology program to be completely integrated into a secular university.

Edith Cowan University was established in 1991 from the existing Western Australian College of Advanced Education which itself was formed on 11 December 1981 from the existing Teachers Colleges at Claremont, Nedlands, Churchlands and Mount Lawley after Graylands had merged into Claremont, Churchlands and Mount Lawley in 1979. It incorporates the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

The University of Notre Dame Australia was established in 1990. Notre Dame was established as a Catholic university with its lead campus in Fremantle and a large campus in Sydney, and a campus in Broome. Its lead campus is in the west end of Fremantle, using historic port buildings built in the 1890s, giving Notre Dame a distinct European university atmosphere.

The Melbourne-based University of Divinity established a campus in Perth in 2022 through its admission of Wollaston College, the theological college of the Anglican Diocese of Perth, as a collegiate college of the University.

Colleges of TAFE provide trade and vocational training, including certificate- and diploma-level courses. TAFE began as a system of technical colleges and schools under the Education Department, from which they were separated in the 1980s and ultimately formed into regional colleges. Two are in the Perth metropolitan area: North Metropolitan TAFE (formerly Central Institute of Technology and West Coast Institute of Training); and South Metropolitan TAFE (formerly Polytechnic West and Challenger Institute of Technology).

The main newspapers for Perth are The West Australian and The Sunday Times. Localised free community papers cater to each local government area. The local business paper is Western Australian Business News.

Radio stations are on AM, FM and DAB+ frequencies. ABC stations include ABC News, ABC Radio Perth, Radio National, Classic FM and Triple J. The six local commercial stations are 6PR and 6IX on AM; Triple M, Nova 93.7, Mix 94.5 and 96FM on FM. DAB+ has mostly the same as both AM and FM plus national stations from the ABC/SBS, Radar Radio and Novanation, along with local stations My Perth Digital, Hot Country Perth and 98five Christian radio. Major community radio stations include RTRFM, Sonshine FM,^[145] SportFM^[146] and Curtin FM.^[147]

Perth is served by thirty digital free-to-air television channels:

ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and 10 were also broadcast in an analogue format until 16 April 2013, when the analogue transmission was switched off.^[148] Community station Access 31 closed in August 2008. In April 2010 a new community station, West TV, began transmission (in digital format only). West TV ceased broadcasting in February 2020.

Foxtel provides a subscription-based satellite and cable television service. Perth has its own local newsreaders on ABC (Pamela Medlen), Seven (Rick Ardon, Susannah Carr), Nine (Michael Thomson, Monika Kos) and Ten (Natalie Forrest).

An annual telethon has been broadcast since 1968 to raise funds for charities including Princess Margaret Hospital for Children. The 24-hour Perth Telethon claims to be "the most successful fundraising event per capita in the world."^[149]

Online news media outlets covering the Perth area include TheWest.com.au backed by The West Australian, Perth Now from the newsroom of The Sunday Times, and WAToday from Nine Entertainment.

A number of cultural events are held in Perth. Held annually since 1953, Perth Festival is Australia's longest running annual cultural festival and includes the Perth Writers Festival and the Winter Arts Festival. The Fringe World Festival has been held annually across January and February in Perth since 2012.^[150] Perth also hosts annual music festivals including Listen Out, Origin and St Jerome's Laneway Festival. The Perth International Comedy Festival features a variety of local and international comedic talent, with performances held at the Astor Theatre and nearby venues in Mount Lawley. Regular night food market events are held during the summer months throughout the Perth CBD and surrounding suburbs. Sculpture by the Sea showcases a range of local and international sculptors' creations along Cottesloe Beach. There is also a wide variety of public art and sculptures on permanent display across the city.

The Perth Cultural Centre is home to many of the city's major arts, cultural and educational institutions, including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Western Australian Museum, State Library of Western Australia, State Records Office and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA).^[151] The State Theatre Centre of Western Australia is also located there,^[151] and is the home of the Black Swan State Theatre Company^[152] and the Perth Theatre Company.^[153] Other performing arts companies based in Perth include the West Australian Ballet, the West Australian Opera and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, all of which present regular programs.^{[154][155][156]} The Western Australian Youth Orchestras provide young musicians with performance opportunities in orchestral and other musical ensembles.^[157]

Perth is also home to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at Edith Cowan University, from which many actors and broadcasters have launched their careers.^[158][159] The city's main performance venues include the Riverside Theatre within the Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre,^[160] the Perth Concert Hall,^[161] the historic His Majesty's Theatre,^[162] the Regal Theatre in Subiaco^[163] and the Astor Theatre in Mount Lawley.^[164] Perth Arena can be configured as an entertainment or sporting arena, and concerts are also hosted at other sporting venues, including Perth Stadium, Perth High Performance Centre and Perth Rectangular Stadium. Outdoor concert venues include Quarry Amphitheatre, Supreme Court Gardens, Kings Park and Russell Square.

The largest performance area within the State Theatre Centre, the Heath Ledger Theatre, is named in honour of Perth-born film actor Heath Ledger. Other performers born and raised in Perth include Judy Davis^[165] and Melissa George.^[166][167] Performers raised in Perth include Tim Minchin,^[168] Lisa McCune,^[169] Troye Sivan, Sam Worthington and Isla Fisher.^[170] Performers that studied in Perth at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts include Hugh Jackman and Lisa McCune.^[159]

Due to Perth's relative isolation from other Australian cities, overseas performing artists sometimes exclude it from their Australian tour schedules. This isolation, however, has helped foster a strong local music scene, with many local music groups. Famous musical performers from Perth include the late AC/DC frontman Bon Scott, whose heritage-listed grave at Fremantle Cemetery is reportedly the most visited grave in Australia.^[171] Perth-born performer and artist Rolf Harris became known by the nickname the boy from Bassendean.^[172] Further notable music acts from Perth include The Triffids,^[173] The Scientists,^[174] The Drones,^[175] Tame Impala,^[176] and Karnivool.^[177]

Perth has inspired various artistic and cultural works. John Boyle O'Reilly, a Fenian convict transported to Western Australia, published Moondyne in 1879, the most famous early novel about the Swan River Colony. Perth is also the setting for various works by novelist Tim Winton, most notably Cloudstreet (1991). Songs that refer to the city include "I Love Perth" (1996) by Pavement, "Perth" (2011) by Bon Iver, and "Perth" (2015) by Beirut. Films shot or set in Perth include Japanese Story (2003), These Final Hours (2013), Kill Me Three Times (2014) and Paper Planes (2015).

Tourism is an important part of Perth's economy, with approximately 2.8 million domestic visitors and 0.7 million international visitors in the year ending March 2012.^[178] Tourist attractions are generally focused around the city centre, Fremantle, the coast and the Swan River. In addition to the Perth Cultural Centre, there are dozens of museums across the city. The Scitech Discovery Centre in West Perth is an interactive science museum, with regularly changing exhibitions on a large range of science and technology-based subjects. Scitech also conducts live science demonstration shows and operates the adjacent Horizon planetarium. The Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle displays maritime objects from all eras. It houses Australia II, the yacht that won the 1983 America's Cup, as well as a former Royal Australian Navy submarine. Also in Fremantle is the Army Museum of Western Australia, situated within a historic artillery barracks. The museum consists of several galleries that reflect the Army's involvement in Western Australia and the military service of Western Australians.^[179] The museum holds numerous items of significance, including three Victoria Crosses.^[180] Aviation history is represented by the Aviation Heritage Museum in Bull Creek, with its significant collection of aircraft, including a Lancaster bomber and a Catalina of the type operated from the Swan River during WWII.^[181]

There are many heritage sites in Perth's CBD, Fremantle and other parts of the metropolitan areas. Some of the oldest remaining buildings, dating back to the 1830s, include the Round House in Fremantle, the Old Mill in South Perth, and the Old Court House in the city centre. Registers of important buildings are maintained by the Heritage Council of Western Australia and local governments. A late heritage building is the Perth Mint.^[182] Yagan Square connects Northbridge and the Perth CBD, with a 45-metre-high digital tower and the 9-metre statue Wirin designed by Noongar artist Tjyllyungoo. Elizabeth Quay is also a notable attraction in Perth, featuring Swan Bells, a panoramic view of Swan River, and the sculpture Spanda by artist Christian de Vietri.

Retail shopping in the Perth CBD is focused around Murray Street and Hay Street. Both these streets are pedestrian malls between William Street and Barrack Street. Forrest Place is another pedestrian mall, connecting the Murray Street mall to Wellington Street and the Perth railway station. A number of arcades run between Hay Street and Murray Street, including the Piccadilly Arcade, which housed the Piccadilly Cinema until it closed in late 2013. Other shopping precincts include Watertown in West Perth, featuring factory outlets for major brands, the historically significant Fremantle Markets, which date to 1897, and the Midland townsite on Great Eastern Highway, combining historic development around the Town Hall and Post Office buildings with the modern Midland Gate shopping centre further east. Joondalup's central business district is largely a shopping and retail area lined with townhouses and apartments, and also features Lakeside Joondalup. Joondalup was granted the status of "tourism precinct" by the State Government in 2009, allowing for extended retail trading hours.

Restaurants, bars and nightclubs can be found in the entertainment hubs of Northbridge (just north of the Perth CBD), the west end of the CBD itself, Elizabeth Quay, Leederville, Beaufort Street, Scarborough and Fremantle. The Crown casino and resort is located at Burswood.

The Swan Valley, with fertile soil, uncommon in the Perth region, features numerous wineries, such as the large complex at Houghtons, the state's biggest producer, Sandalfords and many smaller operators, including microbreweries and rum distilleries. The Swan Valley also contains specialised food producers, many restaurants and cafes, and roadside local produce stalls that sell seasonal fruit throughout the year. Tourist Drive 203 is a circular route in the Swan Valley, passing by many attractions on West Swan Road and Great Northern Highway.

Kings Park, in central Perth between the CBD and the University of Western Australia, is one of the world's largest inner-city parks,^[183] at 400.6 hectares (990 acres).^[184] It has many landmarks and attractions, including the State War Memorial Precinct on Mount Eliza, Western Australian Botanic Garden and children's playgrounds. Other features include DNA Tower, a 15 m (49 ft) high double helix staircase that resembles the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule,^[185] and Jacob’s Ladder, comprising 242 steps that lead down to Mounts Bay Road.

Hyde Park is another inner-city park 2 km (1.2 mi) north of the CBD. It was gazetted as a public park in 1897, created from 15 ha (37 acres) of a chain of wetlands known as Third Swamp.^[186] Avon Valley, John Forrest and Yanchep national parks are areas of protected bushland at the northern and eastern edges of the metropolitan area. Within the city's northern suburbs is Whiteman Park, a 4,000-hectare (9,900-acre) bushland area, with bushwalking trails, bike paths, sports facilities, playgrounds, a vintage tramway, a light railway on a 6-kilometre (3.7 mi) track, motor and tractor museums, and Caversham Wildlife Park.

Perth Zoo, in South Perth, houses a variety of Australian and exotic animals from around the globe. The zoo is home to highly successful breeding programs for orangutans and giraffes, and participates in captive breeding and reintroduction efforts for a number of Western Australian species, including the numbat, the dibbler, the chuditch and the western swamp tortoise.^[187]

More wildlife can be observed at the Aquarium of Western Australia in Hillarys, Australia's largest aquarium, specialising in marine animals that inhabit the 12,000-kilometre-long (7,500 mi) western coast of Australia. The northern Perth section of the coastline is known as Sunset Coast; it includes numerous beaches and the Marmion Marine Park, a protected area inhabited by tropical fish, Australian sea lions and bottlenose dolphins, and traversed by humpback whales. Tourist Drive 204, also known as Sunset Coast Tourist Drive, is a designated route from North Fremantle to Iluka along coastal roads.

The climate of Perth allows for extensive outdoor sporting activity, and this is reflected in the wide variety of sports available to residents of the city. Perth was host to the 1962 Commonwealth Games and the 1987 America's Cup defence (based at Fremantle). Australian rules football is the most popular spectator sport in Perth—nearly 23% of Western Australians attended a match at least once in 2009–2010.^[188] The two Australian Football League teams located in Perth, the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Football Club, have two of the largest fan bases in the country. The Eagles, the older club, was until recently, one of the most successful teams in the league, and one of the largest sporting clubs in Australia. The next level of football is the Western Australian Football League, comprising nine clubs each having a League, Reserves and Colts team. Each of these clubs has a junior football system for ages 7 to 17. The next level of Australian rules football is the Perth Football League, comprising 68 clubs servicing senior footballers within the metropolitan area. Other popular sports include cricket, basketball, soccer, rugby league and rugby union.^[189]

Active sports teams in Perth

Club	League	Sport	Venue	Established
Fremantle Dockers	AFL/AFL Women's	Australian rules football	Optus Stadium	1994
West Coast Eagles	AFL/AFL Women's/WAFL	Australian rules football	Optus Stadium	1986
Perth Wildcats	National Basketball League	Basketball	RAC Arena	1982
Perth Lynx	Women's NBL	Basketball	Bendat Basketball Centre	1988
Perth Glory	A-League Men	Soccer	HBF Park	1995
Perth Glory Women	A-League Women	Soccer	Macedonia Park HBF Park	2008
Western Force	Super Rugby	Rugby union	HBF Park	2005
Western Force Super W	Super W	Rugby union	Harvey Field Kingsway Reserve	2018
Perth Heat	Australian Baseball League	Baseball	Harley-Davidson Ballpark	1989
West Coast Fever	Suncorp Super Netball	Netball	RAC Arena	1997
West Coast Pirates	S.G. Ball Cup	Rugby league	HBF Park	2012
Western Australia Men	Sheffield Shield	Cricket	WACA Ground	1893
Perth Scorchers	Big Bash/Women's Big Bash	Cricket	Optus Stadium	2011
Western Australia Women	Women's National Cricket League	Cricket	WACA Ground	1934
Perth Inferno	Australian Women's Ice Hockey League	Ice hockey	Cockburn Ice Arena	2016
Perth Thunder	Australian Ice Hockey League	Ice hockey	Perth Ice Arena	2010
Perth Thundersticks	Hockey One	Field hockey	Perth Hockey Stadium	2019
Perth Steel	AVSL	Volleyball	Multiple	2012

Perth has hosted numerous state and international sporting events. Ongoing international events include the ATP Cup (replacing the Hopman Cup in 2020) during the first week of January at the Perth Arena, and the Perth International golf tournament at Lake Karrinyup Country Club. In addition to these Perth has hosted the Rally Australia of the World Rally Championships from 1989 to 2006, international rugby union games, including qualifying and pool stage matches for the 2003 Rugby World Cup and the Bledisloe Cup in 2019. The 1991 and 1998 FINA World Championships were held in Perth.^[190] Four races (2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010) in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship have been held on a stretch of the Swan River called Perth Water, using Langley Park as a temporary airfield.^[191] Several motorsport facilities exist in Perth including Perth Motorplex, catering to drag racing and speedway, and Wanneroo Raceway for circuit racing and drifting, which hosts a V8 Supercars round. Perth also has two thoroughbred racing facilities: Ascot, home of the Railway Stakes and Perth Cup; and Belmont Park. Daniel Ricciardo is a Perth-born Formula 1 driver who most recently raced for the Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team from 2023 to 2024 and previously from 2012 to 2013 when the team was known as Scuderia Toro Rosso, having also raced for Red Bull Racing, Renault and McLaren, respectively.

The WACA Ground opened in the 1890s and has hosted Test cricket since 1970. The Western Australian Athletics Stadium opened in 2009.

Perth has ten large hospitals with emergency departments. As of 2013^[update], Royal Perth Hospital in the city centre is the largest, with others spread around the metropolitan area: Armadale Health Service, Joondalup Health Campus, King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women in Subiaco, Rockingham General Hospital, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Nedlands, St John of God Murdoch and Subiaco Hospitals, Midland Health Campus in Midland, and Fiona Stanley Hospital in Murdoch. Perth Children's Hospital is the state's only specialist children's hospital, and Graylands Hospital is the only public stand-alone psychiatric teaching hospital. Most of these are public hospitals, with some operating under public-private partnerships. St John of God Murdoch and Subiaco Hospitals, and Hollywood Hospital are large privately owned and operated hospitals.

A number of other public and private hospitals operate in Perth.^[192]

Perth is served by Perth Airport in the city's east for regional, domestic and international flights and Jandakot Airport in the city's southern suburbs for general aviation and charter flights.

Perth has a road network with three freeways—Mitchell, Kwinana and Graham Farmer—and nine metropolitan highways. The Northbridge Tunnel, part of the Graham Farmer Freeway, is the only significant road tunnel in Perth.

Perth metropolitan public transport is known as Transperth, and includes trains, buses and ferries, which are provided by the Public Transport Authority. Links to rural areas provided by Transwa. There are 74 railway stations and 14 bus-only stations on the Transperth network.^[193]

Perth provides zero-fare bus and train trips around the city centre (the "Free Transit Zone"), including four high-frequency CAT bus routes.

The Indian Pacific passenger rail service connects Perth with Adelaide and Sydney once per week in each direction. The Prospector passenger rail service connects Perth with Kalgoorlie via several Wheatbelt towns, while the Australind connects to Bunbury, the MerredinLink connects to Merredin and the AvonLink connects to Northam.

Rail freight terminates at the Kewdale Rail Terminal, 15 km (9 mi) south-east of the city centre.

Perth's main container and passenger port is at Fremantle, 19 km (12 mi) south-west at the mouth of the Swan River.^[194] The Fremantle Outer Harbour at Cockburn Sound is one of Australia's major bulk cargo ports.^[195]

Perth's electricity is predominantly generated, supplied and retailed by three Western Australian Government corporations. Verve Energy operates coal and gas power generation stations, as well as wind farms and other power sources.^[196] The physical network is maintained by Western Power,^[197] while Synergy, the state's largest energy retailer, sells electricity to residential and business customers.^[198]

Alinta Energy, which was previously a government owned company, had a monopoly in the domestic gas market since the 1990s. However, in 2013 Kleenheat Gas began operating in the market, allowing consumers to choose their gas retailer.^[199]

The Water Corporation is the dominant supplier of water, as well as wastewater and drainage services, in Perth and throughout Western Australia. It is also owned by the state government.^[200]

Perth's water supply has traditionally relied on both groundwater and rain-fed dams. Reduced rainfall in the region over recent decades had greatly lowered inflow to reservoirs and affected groundwater levels. Coupled with the city's relatively high growth rate, this led to concerns that Perth could run out of water in the near future.^[201] The Western Australian Government responded by building desalination plants, and introducing mandatory household sprinkler restrictions. The Kwinana Desalination Plant was opened in 2006,^[202][203] and Southern Seawater Desalination Plant at Binningup (on the coast between Mandurah and Bunbury) began operating in 2011. A trial winter (1 June – 31 August) sprinkler ban was introduced in 2009 by the State Government, a move which the Government later announced would be made permanent.^[204]

• 1955 Plan for the Metropolitan Region, Perth and Fremantle
• List of islands of Perth, Western Australia
• List of Perth suburbs

• City of Perth
• Watch historical footage of Perth and Western Australia from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's collection.
• Historical photos of Perth from the State Library of Western Australia
• Tourism Australia Page
• Metropolitan Region Scheme Archived 24 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine—The Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage
• Metropolitan Perth LGA boundaries Archived 29 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine—The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development

 

In 1956, after several attempts by other companies, the first commercially successful VTR, the Ampex VRX-1000, was introduced by Ampex Corporation.^[15] At a price of US$50,000 in 1956 (equivalent to $578,274 in 2024) and US$300 (equivalent to $3,470 in 2024) for a 90-minute reel of tape, it was intended only for the professional market.^[16]

Kenjiro Takayanagi, a television broadcasting pioneer then working for JVC as its vice president, saw the need for his company to produce VTRs for the Japanese market at a more affordable price. In 1959, JVC developed a two-head video tape recorder and, by 1960, a color version for professional broadcasting.^[17] In 1964, JVC released the DV220, which would be the company's standard VTR until the mid-1970s.^{[citation needed]}

In 1969, JVC collaborated with Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric (Matsushita was the majority stockholder of JVC until 2011) to build a video recording standard for the Japanese consumer.^[18] The effort produced the U-matic format in 1971, which was the first cassette format to become a unified standard for different companies.^{[citation needed]} It was preceded by the reel-to-reel

1⁄2" EIAJ format.

The U-matic format was successful in businesses and some broadcast television applications, such as electronic news-gathering, and was produced by all three companies until the late 1980s, but because of cost and limited recording time, very few of the machines were sold for home use.^{[citation needed]} Therefore, soon after the U-Matic release, all three companies started working on new consumer-grade video recording formats of their own. Sony started working on Betamax, Matsushita started working on VX, and JVC released the CR-6060 in 1975, based on the U-matic format.

In 1971, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano put together a team to develop a VTR for consumers.^[19]

By the end of 1971, they created an internal diagram, "VHS Development Matrix", which established twelve objectives for JVC's new VTR:^[20]

• The system must be compatible with any ordinary television set.
• Picture quality must be similar to a normal air broadcast.
• The tape must have at least a two-hour recording capacity.
• Tapes must be interchangeable between machines.
• The overall system should be versatile, meaning it can be scaled and expanded, such as connecting a video camera, or dubbing between two recorders.
• Recorders should be affordable, easy to operate, and have low maintenance costs.
• Recorders must be capable of being produced in high volume, their parts must be interchangeable, and they must be easy to service.

In early 1972, the commercial video recording industry in Japan took a financial hit. JVC cut its budgets and restructured its video division, shelving the VHS project. However, despite the lack of funding, Takano and Shiraishi continued to work on the project in secret. By 1973, the two engineers had produced a functional prototype.^[20]

In 1974, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), desiring to avoid consumer confusion, attempted to force the Japanese video industry to standardize on just one home video recording format.^[21] Later, Sony had a functional prototype of the Betamax format, and was very close to releasing a finished product. With this prototype, Sony persuaded the MITI to adopt Betamax as the standard, and allow it to license the technology to other companies.^[20]

JVC believed that an open standard, with the format shared among competitors without licensing the technology, was better for the consumer. To prevent the MITI from adopting Betamax, JVC worked to convince other companies, in particular Matsushita (Japan's largest electronics manufacturer at the time, marketing its products under the National brand in most territories and the Panasonic brand in North America, and JVC's majority stockholder), to accept VHS, and thereby work against Sony and the MITI.^[22] Matsushita agreed, primarily out of concern that Sony might become the leader in the field if its proprietary Betamax format was the only one allowed to be manufactured. Matsushita also regarded Betamax's one-hour recording time limit as a disadvantage.^[22]

Matsushita's backing of JVC persuaded Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sharp^[23] to back the VHS standard as well.^[20] Sony's release of its Betamax unit to the Japanese market in 1975 placed further pressure on the MITI to side with the company. However, the collaboration of JVC and its partners was much stronger, which eventually led the MITI to drop its push for an industry standard. JVC released the first VHS machines in Japan in late 1976, and in the United States in mid-1977.^[24]

Sony's Betamax competed with VHS throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s (see Videotape format war). Betamax's major advantages were its smaller cassette size, theoretical higher video quality, and earlier availability, but its shorter recording time proved to be a major shortcoming.^[7]

Originally, Beta I machines using the NTSC television standard were able to record one hour of programming at their standard tape speed of 1.5 inches per second (ips).^[25] The first VHS machines could record for two hours, due to both a slightly slower tape speed (1.31 ips)^[25] and significantly longer tape. Betamax's smaller cassette limited the size of the reel of tape, and could not compete with VHS's two-hour capability by extending the tape length.^[25] Instead, Sony had to slow the tape down to 0.787 ips (Beta II) in order to achieve two hours of recording in the same cassette size.^[25] Sony eventually created a Beta III speed of 0.524 ips, which allowed NTSC Betamax to break the two-hour limit, but by then VHS had already won the format battle.^[25]

Additionally, VHS had a "far less complex tape transport mechanism" than Betamax, and VHS machines were faster at rewinding and fast-forwarding than their Sony counterparts.^[26]

VHS eventually won the war, gaining 60% of the North American market by 1980.^[27][7]

The first VCR to use VHS was the Victor HR-3300, and was introduced by the president of JVC in Japan on September 9, 1976.^[28][29] JVC started selling the HR-3300 in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan, on October 31, 1976.^[28] Region-specific versions of the JVC HR-3300 were also distributed later on, such as the HR-3300U in the United States, and the HR-3300EK in the United Kingdom. The United States received its first VHS-based VCR, the RCA VBT200, on August 23, 1977.^[30] The RCA unit was designed by Matsushita and was the first VHS-based VCR manufactured by a company other than JVC. It was also capable of recording four hours in LP (long play) mode. The UK received its first VHS-based VCR, the Victor HR-3300EK, in 1978.^[31]

Quasar and General Electric followed-up with VHS-based VCRs – all designed by Matsushita.^[32] By 1999, Matsushita alone produced just over half of all Japanese VCRs.^[33] TV/VCR combos, combining a TV set with a VHS mechanism, were also once available for purchase.^[34] Combo units containing both a VHS mechanism and a DVD player were introduced in the late 1990s, and at least one combo unit, the Panasonic DMP-BD70V, included a Blu-ray player.

VHS has been standardized in IEC 60774–1.^[35]

The VHS cassette is a 187 mm wide, 103 mm deep, and 25 mm thick (7

3⁄8 × 4

1⁄16× 1 inch) plastic shell held together with five Phillips-head screws. The flip-up cover, which allows players and recorders to access the tape, has a latch on the right side, with a push-in toggle to release it (bottom view image). The cassette has an anti-despooling mechanism, consisting of several plastic parts between the spools, near the front of the cassette (white and black in the top view). The spool latches are released by a push-in lever within a 6.35 mm (

1⁄4 inch) hole at the bottom of the cassette, 19 mm (

3⁄4 inch) in from the edge label.^{[citation needed]} The tapes are made, pre-recorded, and inserted into the cassettes in cleanrooms, to ensure quality and to keep dust from getting embedded in the tape and interfering with recording (both of which could cause signal dropouts)

There is a clear tape leader at both ends of the tape to provide an optical auto-stop for the VCR transport mechanism. In the VCR, a light source is inserted into the cassette through the circular hole in the center of the underside, and two photodiodes are on the left and right sides of where the tape exits the cassette. When the clear tape reaches one of these, enough light will pass through the tape to the photodiode to trigger the stop function; some VCRs automatically rewind the tape when the trailing end is detected. Early VCRs used an incandescent bulb as the light source: when the bulb failed, the VCR would act as if a tape were present when the machine was empty, or would detect the blown bulb and completely stop functioning. Later designs use an infrared LED, which has a much longer life.^{[citation needed]}

The recording medium is a Mylar^[36] magnetic tape, 12.7 mm (

1⁄2 inch) wide, coated with metal oxide, and wound on two spools.

The tape speed for "Standard Play" mode (see below) is 3.335 cm/s (1.313 ips) for NTSC, 2.339 cm/s (0.921 ips) for PAL—or just over 2.0 and 1.4 metres (6 ft 6.7 in and 4 ft 7.2 in) per minute respectively. The tape length for a T-120 VHS cassette is 247.5 metres (812 ft).^[37]

As with almost all cassette-based videotape systems, VHS machines pull the tape out of the cassette shell and wrap it around the inclined head drum, which rotates at 1,800 rpm in NTSC machines^[38] and at 1,500 rpm for PAL, one complete rotation of the head corresponding to one video frame. VHS uses an "M-loading" system, also known as M-lacing, where the tape is drawn out by two threading posts and wrapped around more than 180 degrees of the head drum (and also other tape transport components) in a shape roughly approximating the letter M.^[39] The heads in the rotating drum get their signal wirelessly using a rotary transformer.

A VHS cassette holds a maximum of about 430 m (1,410 ft) of tape at the lowest acceptable tape thickness, giving a maximum playing time of about four hours in a T-240/DF480 for NTSC and five hours in an E-300 for PAL at "standard play" (SP) quality. More frequently, however, VHS tapes are thicker than the required minimum to avoid complications such as jams or tears in the tape.^[26] Other speeds include "long play" (LP), "extended play" (EP) or "super long play" (SLP) (standard on NTSC; rarely found on PAL machines^[40]). For NTSC, LP and EP/SLP double and triple the recording time accordingly, but these speed reductions cause a reduction in horizontal resolution – from the normal equivalent of 250 vertical lines in SP, to the equivalent of 230 in LP and even less in EP/SLP.

Due to the nature of recording diagonally from a spinning drum, the actual write speed of the video heads does not get slower when the tape speed is reduced. Instead, the video tracks become narrower and are packed closer together. This results in noisier playback that can be more difficult to track correctly: The effect of subtle misalignment is magnified by the narrower tracks. The heads for linear audio are not on the spinning drum, so for them, the tape speed from one reel to the other is the same as the speed of the heads across the tape. This speed is quite slow: for SP it is about 2/3s that of an audio cassette, and for EP it is slower than the slowest microcassette speed. This is widely considered inadequate for anything but basic voice playback, and was a major liability for VHS-C camcorders that encouraged the use of the EP speed. Color depth deteriorates significantly at lower speeds in PAL: often, a color image on a PAL tape recorded at low speed is displayed only in monochrome, or with intermittent color, when playback is paused.^{[citation needed]}

VHS cassettes for NTSC and PAL/SECAM systems are physically identical, although the signals recorded on the tape are incompatible. The tape speeds are different too, so the playing time for any given cassette will vary between the systems. To avoid confusion, manufacturers indicate the playing time in minutes that can be expected for the market the tape is sold in: E-XXX indicates playing time in minutes for PAL or SECAM. T-XXX indicates playing time in minutes for NTSC or PAL-M.

To calculate the playing time for a T-XXX tape in a PAL machine, this formula is used:

PAL/SECAM recording time = T-XXX in minutes × 1.426

To calculate the playing time for an E-XXX tape in an NTSC machine, this formula is used:

NTSC recording time = E-XXX in minutes × 0.701

Since the recording/playback time for PAL/SECAM is roughly 1/3 longer than the recording/playback time for NTSC, some tape manufacturers label their cassettes with both T-XXX and E-XXX marks, like T60/E90, T90/E120 and T120/E180.

SP is standard play, LP is long play (

1⁄2 speed, equal to recording time in DVHS "HS" mode), EP/SLP is extended/super long play (

1⁄3 speed)^[41] which was primarily released into the NTSC market.

Common tape types, approximate

Label; nominal length (minutes)	Length		Recording time, NTSC			Recording time, PAL
	(m)	(ft)	SP	LP	EP/SLP	SP	LP	EP/SLP
NTSC market
T-20	44	145	20 min	40 min	60 min (1h)	28.52 min	57.04 min	85.56 min (1h 25.56)
T-30 (typical VHS-C)	63	207	30 min	60 min (1h)	90 min (1h 30)	42.78 min	85.56 min (1h 25.56)	128.34 min (2h 8.34)
T-45	94	310	45 min	90 min (1h 30)	135 min (2h 15)	64.17 min (1h 04.17)	128.34 min (2h 8.34)	192.51 min (3h 12.51)
T-60	126	412	60 min (1h)	120 min (2h)	180 min (3h)	85.56 min (1h 25.56)	171.12 min (2h 51.12)	256.68 min (4h 16.68)
T-90	186	610	90 min (1h 30)	180 min (3h)	270 min (4h 30)	128.34 min (2h 8.34)	256.68 min (4h 16.68)	385.02 min (6h 25.02)
T-120 / DF240	247	811	120 min (2h)	240 min (4h)	360 min (6h)	176 min (2h 56)	342.24 min (5h 42.24)	513.36 min (8h 33.36)
T-130	277	910	130 min (2h 10)	260 min(4h 20)	390 min (6h 30)	185.38 min (3h 5.38)	370.76 min (6h 10.76)	556.14 min (9h 16.14)
T-140	287.5	943	140 min (2h 20)	280 min (4h 40)	420 min (7h)	199.64 min (3h 19.64)	399.28 min (6h 39.28)	598.92 min (9h 58.92)
T-150 / DF300	316.5	1,040	150 min (2h 30)	300 min (5h)	450 min (7h 30)	213.9 min (3h 33.9)	427.8 min (7h 7.8)	641.7 min (10h 41.7)
T-160	328	1,075	160 min (2h 40)	320 min (5h 20)	480 min (8h)	228.16 min (3h 48.16)	456.32 min (7h 36.32)	684.48 min (11h 24.48)
T-180 / DF-360	369	1,210	180 min (3h)	360 min (6h)	540 min (9h)	256.68 min (4h 16.68)	513.36 min (8h 33.36)	770.04 min (12h 50.04)
T-200	410	1,345	200 min (3h 20)	400 min (6h 40)	600 min (10h)	285.2 min (4h 45.2)	570.4 min (9h 30.4)	855.6 min (14h 15.6)
T-210 / DF420	433	1,420	210 min (3h 30)	420 min (7h)	630 min (10h 30)	299.46 min (4h 59.46)	598.92 min (9h 58.92)	898.38 min (14h 58.38)
T-240 / DF480	500	1,640	240 min (4h)	480 min (8h)	720 min (12h)	342.24 min (5h 42.24)	684.48 min (11h 24)	1026.72 min (17h 6.72)
PAL market
E-30 (typical VHS-C)	45	148	22.5 min	45 min	68 min (1h 08)	32 min	64 min (1h 04)	96 min (1h 36)
E-60	88	290	44 min	88 min (1h 28)	133 min (2h 13)	63 min (1h 03)	126 min (2h 06)	189 min (3h 09)
E-90	131	429	65 min (1h 05)	131 min (2h 11)	196 min (3h 16)	93 min (1h 33)	186 min (3h 06)	279 min (4h 39)
E-120	174	570	87 min (1h 27)	174 min (2h 54)	260 min (4h 20)	124 min (2h 04)	248 min (4h 08)	372 min (6h 12)
E-150	216	609	108 min (1h 49)	227 min (3h 37)	324 min (5h 24)	154 min (2h 34)	308 min (5h 08)	462 min (7h 42)
E-180	259	849	129 min (2h 09)	259 min (4h 18)	388 min (6h 28)	184 min (3h 04)	369 min (6h 09)	552 min (9h 12)
E-195	279	915	139 min (2h 19)	279 min (4h 39)	418 min (6h 58)	199 min (3h 19)	397 min (6h 37)	597 min (9h 57)
E-200	289	935	144 min (2h 24)	284 min (4h 44)	428 min (7h 08)	204 min (3h 24)	405 min (6h 45)	612 min (10h 21)
E-210	304	998	152 min (2h 32)	304 min (5h 04)	456 min (7h 36)	217 min (3h 37)	433 min (7h 13)	651 min (10h 51)
E-240	348	1,142	174 min (2h 54)	348 min (5h 48)	522 min (8h 42)	248 min (4h 08)	496 min (8h 16)	744 min (12h 24)
E-270	392	1,295	196 min (3h 16)	392 min (6h 32)	589 min (9h 49)	279 min (4h 39)	559 min (9h 19)	837 min (13h 57)
E-300	435	1,427	217 min (3h 37)	435 min (7h 15)	652 min (10h 52)	310 min (5h 10)	620 min (10h 20)	930 min (15h 30)

As VHS was designed to facilitate recording from various sources, including television broadcasts or other VCR units, content producers quickly found that home users were able to use the devices to copy videos from one tape to another. Despite generation loss in quality when a tape was copied,^[42] this practice was regarded as a widespread problem, which members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) claimed caused them great financial losses.^[43][44] In response, several companies developed technologies to protect copyrighted VHS tapes from casual duplication by home users. The most popular method was Analog Protection System, better known simply as Macrovision, produced by a company of the same name.^[45] According to Macrovision:

The technology is applied to over 550 million videocassettes annually and is used by every MPAA movie studio on some or all of their videocassette releases. Over 220 commercial duplication facilities around the world are equipped to supply Macrovision videocassette copy protection to rights owners...The study found that over 30% of VCR households admit to having unauthorized copies, and that the total annual revenue loss due to copying is estimated at $370,000,000 annually.^[46]

The system was first used in copyrighted movies beginning with the 1984 film The Cotton Club.^[47]

Macrovision copy protection saw refinement throughout its years, but has always worked by essentially introducing deliberate errors into a protected VHS tape's output video stream. These errors in the output video stream are ignored by most televisions, but will interfere with re-recording of programming by a second VCR. The first version of Macrovision introduces high signal levels during the vertical blanking interval, which occurs between the video fields. These high levels confuse the automatic gain control circuit in most VHS VCRs, leading to varying brightness levels in an output video, but are ignored by the TV as they are out of the frame-display period. "Level II" Macrovision uses a process called "colorstriping", which inverts the analog signal's colorburst period and causes off-color bands to appear in the picture. Level III protection added additional colorstriping techniques to further degrade the image.^[48]

These protection methods worked well to defeat analog-to-analog copying by VCRs of the time. Consumer products capable of digital video recording are mandated by law to include features which detect Macrovision encoding of input analog streams, and disrupt copying of the video.^{[citation needed]} Both intentional and false-positive detection of Macrovision protection has frustrated archivists who wish to copy now-fragile VHS tapes to a digital format for preservation. As of the 2020s, modern software decoding^[49] ignores Macrovision as software is not limited to the fixed standards that Macrovision was intended to disrupt in hardware based systems.

The recording process in VHS consists of the following steps, in this order:

• The tape is pulled from the supply reel by a capstan and pinch roller, similar to those used in audio tape recorders.
• The tape passes across the erase head, which wipes any existing recording from the tape.
• The tape is wrapped around the head drum, using a little more than 180 degrees of the drum.
• One of the heads on the spinning drum records one field of video onto the tape, in one diagonally oriented track.
• The tape passes across the audio and control head, which records the control track and the linear audio tracks.
• The tape is wound onto the take-up reel due to torque applied to the reel by the machine.

The erase head is fed by a high-level, high-frequency AC signal that overwrites any previous recording on the tape.^[50] Without this step, the new recording cannot be guaranteed to completely replace any old recording that might have been on the tape.

The tape path then carries the tape around the spinning video-head drum, wrapping it around a little more than 180 degrees (called the omega transport system) in a helical fashion, assisted by the slanted tape guides.^[41] The head rotates constantly at^[a] 1798.2 rpm in NTSC machines, exactly 1500 in PAL, each complete rotation corresponding to one frame of video.

Two tape heads are mounted on the cylindrical surface of the drum, 180 degrees apart from each other, so that the two heads "take turns" in recording. The rotation of the inclined head drum, combined with the relatively slow movement of the tape, results in each head recording a track oriented at a diagonal with respect to the length of the tape, with the heads moving across the tape at speeds higher than what would otherwise be possible. This is referred to as helical scan recording. A tape speed of

1+5⁄16 inches per second corresponds to the heads on the drum moving across the tape at (a writing speed of) 4.86^[51][41] or 6.096 meters per second.^[52]

To maximize the use of the tape, the video tracks are recorded very close together. To reduce crosstalk between adjacent tracks on playback, an azimuth recording method is used: The gaps of the two heads are not aligned exactly with the track path. Instead, one head is angled at plus six degrees from the track, and the other at minus six degrees.^[41] This results, during playback, in destructive interference of the signal from the tracks on either side of the one being played.

Each of the diagonal-angled tracks is a complete TV picture field, lasting

1⁄60 of a second (

1⁄50 on PAL) on the display. One tape head records an entire picture field. The adjacent track, recorded by the second tape head, is another

1⁄60 or

1⁄50 of a second TV picture field, and so on. Thus one complete head rotation records an entire NTSC or PAL frame of two fields.

The original VHS specification had only two video heads. When the EP recording speed was introduced, the thickness of these heads was reduced to accommodate the narrower tracks. However, this subtly reduced the quality of the SP speed, and dramatically lowered the quality of freeze frame and high speed search. Later models implemented both wide and narrow heads, and could use all four during pause and shuttle modes to further improve quality^[53] although machines later combined both pairs into one.^[54] In machines supporting VHS HiFi (described later), yet another pair of heads was added to handle the VHS HiFi signal.^[55] Camcorders using the miniaturized drum required twice^[56] as many heads to complete any given task. This almost always meant four heads on the miniaturized drum with performance similar to a two head VCR with a full sized drum. No attempt was made to record Hi-Fi audio with such devices, as this would require an additional four heads to work. W-VHS decks could have up to 12 heads in the head drum, of which 11 were active including a flying erase head for erasing individual video fields, and one was a dummy used for balancing the head drum.^[57]

The high tape-to-head speed created by the rotating head results in a far higher bandwidth than could be practically achieved with a stationary head.

VHS machines record up to 3 MHz of baseband video bandwidth and 300 kHz of baseband chroma bandwidth.^[58] The luminance (black and white) portion of the video is frequency modulated and combined with a down-converted "color under" chroma (color) signal that is encoded using quadrature amplitude modulation.^[41] Including side bands, the signal on a VHS tape can use up to 10 MHz of RF bandwidth.^[59]

VHS horizontal resolution is 240 TVL, or about 320 lines across a scan line. The vertical resolution (number of scan lines) is the same as the respective analog TV standard (625 for PAL or 525 for NTSC; somewhat fewer scan lines are actually visible due to overscan and the VBI). In modern-day digital terminology, NTSC VHS resolution is roughly equivalent to 333×480 pixels for luma and 40×480 pixels for chroma. 333×480=159,840 pixels or 0.16 MP (1/6 of a megapixel).^[60] PAL VHS resolution is roughly 333×576 pixels for luma and 40×576 pixels for chroma (although when decoded PAL and SECAM half the vertical color resolution).

JVC countered 1985's SuperBeta with VHS HQ, or High Quality. The frequency modulation of the VHS luminance signal is limited to 3 megahertz, which makes higher resolutions technically impossible even with the highest-quality recording heads and tape materials, but an HQ branded deck includes luminance noise reduction, chroma noise reduction, white clip extension, and improved sharpness circuitry. The effect was to increase the apparent horizontal resolution of a VHS recording from 240 to 250 analog (equivalent to 333 pixels from left-to-right, in digital terminology). The major VHS OEMs resisted HQ due to cost concerns, eventually resulting in JVC reducing the requirements for the HQ brand to white clip extension plus one other improvement.

In 1987, JVC introduced a new format called Super VHS (often known as S-VHS) which extended the bandwidth to over 5 megahertz, yielding 420 analog horizontal (560 pixels left-to-right). Most Super VHS recorders can play back standard VHS tapes, but not vice versa. S-VHS was designed for higher resolution, but failed to gain popularity outside Japan because of the high costs of the machines and tapes.^[26] Because of the limited user base, Super VHS was never picked up to any significant degree by manufacturers of pre-recorded tapes, although it was used extensively in the low-end professional market for filming and editing.

After leaving the head drum, the tape passes over the stationary audio and control head. This records a control track at the bottom edge of the tape, and one or two linear audio tracks along the top edge.^[41]

In the original VHS specification, audio was recorded as baseband in a single linear track, at the upper edge of the tape, similar to how an audio compact cassette operates. The recorded frequency range was dependent on the linear tape speed. For the VHS SP mode, which already uses a lower tape speed than the compact cassette, this resulted in a mediocre frequency response^[41] of roughly 100 Hz to 10 kHz for NTSC,^{[citation needed]} frequency response for PAL VHS with its lower standard tape speed was somewhat worse of about 80 Hz to 8 kHz. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was an acceptable 42 dB for NTSC and 41 dB for PAL. Both parameters degraded significantly with VHS's longer play modes, with EP/NTSC frequency response peaking at 4 kHz. S-VHS tapes can give better audio (and video) quality, because the tapes are designed to have almost twice the bandwidth of VHS at the same speed.

Sound cannot be recorded on a VHS tape without recording a video signal because the video signal is used to generate the control track pulses which effectively regulate the tape speed on playback. Even in the audio dubbing mode, a valid video recording (control track signal) must be present on the tape for audio to be correctly recorded. If there is no video signal to the VCR input during recording, most later VCRs will record black video and generate a control track while the sound is being recorded. Some early VCRs record audio without a control track signal; this is of little use, because the absence of a signal from the control track means that the linear tape speed is irregular during playback.^[41]

More sophisticated VCRs offer stereo audio recording and playback. Linear stereo fits two independent channels in the same space as the original mono audiotrack. While this approach preserves acceptable backward compatibility with monoaural audio heads, the splitting of the audio track degrades the audio's signal-to-noise ratio, causing objectionable tape hiss at normal listening volume. To counteract the hiss, linear stereo VHS VCRs use Dolby B noise reduction for recording and playback. This dynamically boosts the high frequencies of the audio program on the recorded medium, improving its signal strength relative to the tape's background noise floor, then attenuates the high frequencies during playback. Dolby-encoded program material exhibits a high-frequency emphasis when played on non-Hi-Fi VCRs that are not equipped with the matching Dolby Noise Reduction decoder, although this may actually improve the sound quality of non-Hi-Fi VCRs, especially at the slower recording speeds.

High-end consumer recorders take advantage of the linear nature of the audio track, as the audio track could be erased and recorded without disturbing the video portion of the recorded signal. Hence, "audio dubbing" and "video dubbing", where either the audio or video is re-recorded on tape (without disturbing the other), were supported features on prosumer linear video editing-decks. Without dubbing capability, an audio or video edit could not be done in-place on master cassette, and requires the editing output be captured to another tape, incurring generational loss.

Studio film releases began to emerge with linear stereo audiotracks in 1982. From that point, nearly every home video release by Hollywood featured a Dolby-encoded linear stereo audiotrack. However, linear stereo was never popular with equipment makers or consumers.

Another linear control track at the tape's lower edge holds pulses that mark the beginning of every frame of video; these are used to fine-tune the tape speed during playback, so that the high speed rotating heads remained exactly on their helical tracks rather than somewhere between two adjacent tracks (known as "tracking"). Since good tracking depends on precise distances between the rotating drum and the fixed control/audio head reading the linear tracks, which usually varies by a couple of micrometers between machines due to manufacturing tolerances, most VCRs offer tracking adjustment, either manual or automatic, to correct such mismatches.

The control track is also used to hold index marks, which were normally written at the beginning of each recording session, and can be found using the VCR's index search function: this will fast-wind forward or backward to the nth specified index mark, and resume playback from there. At times, higher-end VCRs provided functions for the user to manually add and remove these marks.^[61][62]

By the late 1990s, some high-end VCRs offered more sophisticated indexing. For example, Panasonic's Tape Library system assigned an ID number to each cassette, and logged recording information (channel, date, time and optional program title entered by the user) both on the cassette and in the VCR's memory for up to 900 recordings (600 with titles).^[63]

Around 1984, JVC added Hi-Fi audio to VHS (model HR-D725U, in response to Betamax's introduction of Beta Hi-Fi.) Both VHS Hi-Fi and Betamax Hi-Fi delivered flat full-range frequency response (20 Hz to 20 kHz), excellent 70 dB signal-to-noise ratio (in consumer space, second only to the compact disc), dynamic range of 90 dB, and professional audio-grade channel separation (more than 70 dB). VHS Hi-Fi audio is achieved by using audio frequency modulation (AFM), modulating the two stereo channels (L, R) on two different frequency-modulated carriers and embedding the combined modulated audio signal pair into the video signal. To avoid crosstalk and interference from the primary video carrier, VHS's implementation of AFM relied on a form of magnetic recording called depth multiplexing. The modulated audio carrier pair was placed in the hitherto-unused frequency range between the luminance and the color carrier (below 1.6 MHz), and recorded first. Subsequently, the video head erases and re-records the video signal (combined luminance and color signal) over the same tape surface, but the video signal's higher center frequency results in a shallower magnetization of the tape, allowing both the video and residual AFM audio signal to coexist on tape. (PAL versions of Beta Hi-Fi use this same technique). During playback, VHS Hi-Fi recovers the depth-recorded AFM signal by subtracting the audio head's signal (which contains the AFM signal contaminated by a weak image of the video signal) from the video head's signal (which contains only the video signal), then demodulates the left and right audio channels from their respective frequency carriers. The result of the complex process was audio of high fidelity, which was uniformly solid across all tape-speeds (EP, LP or SP.) Since JVC had gone through the complexity of ensuring Hi-Fi's backward compatibility with non-Hi-Fi VCRs, virtually all studio home video releases produced after this time contained Hi-Fi audio tracks, in addition to the linear audio track. Under normal circumstances, all Hi-Fi VHS VCRs will record Hi-Fi and linear audio simultaneously to ensure compatibility with VCRs without Hi-Fi playback, though only early high-end Hi-Fi machines provided linear stereo compatibility.

The sound quality of Hi-Fi VHS stereo is comparable to some extent to the quality of CD audio, particularly when recordings were made on high-end or professional VHS machines that have a manual audio recording level control. This high quality compared to other consumer audio recording formats such as compact cassette attracted the attention of amateur and hobbyist recording artists. Home recording enthusiasts occasionally recorded high quality stereo mixdowns and master recordings from multitrack audio tape onto consumer-level Hi-Fi VCRs. However, because the VHS Hi-Fi recording process is intertwined with the VCR's video-recording function, advanced editing functions such as audio-only or video-only dubbing are impossible. A short-lived alternative to the HiFi feature for recording mixdowns of hobbyist audio-only projects was a PCM adaptor so that high-bandwidth digital video could use a grid of black-and-white dots on an analog video carrier to give pro-grade digital sounds though DAT tapes made this obsolete.

Some VHS decks also had a "simulcast" switch, allowing users to record an external audio input along with off-air pictures. Some televised concerts offered a stereo simulcast soundtrack on FM radio and as such, events like Live Aid were recorded by thousands of people with a full stereo soundtrack despite the fact that stereo TV broadcasts were some years off (especially in regions that adopted NICAM). Other examples of this included network television shows such as Friday Night Videos and MTV for its first few years in existence. Likewise, some countries, most notably South Africa, provided alternate language audio tracks for TV programming through an FM radio simulcast.

The considerable complexity and additional hardware limited VHS Hi-Fi to high-end decks for many years. While linear stereo all but disappeared from home VHS decks, it was not until the 1990s that Hi-Fi became a more common feature on VHS decks. Even then, most customers were unaware of its significance and merely enjoyed the better audio performance of the newer decks. VHS Hi-Fi audio has been standardized in IEC 60774-2.^[64]

Due to the path followed by the video and Hi-Fi audio heads being striped and discontinuous—unlike that of the linear audio track—head-switching is required to provide a continuous audio signal. While the video signal can easily hide the head-switching point in the invisible vertical retrace section of the signal, so that the exact switching point is not very important, the same is obviously not possible with a continuous audio signal that has no inaudible sections. Hi-Fi audio is thus dependent on a much more exact alignment of the head switching point than is required for non-HiFi VHS machines. Misalignments may lead to imperfect joining of the signal, resulting in low-pitched buzzing.^[65] The problem is known as "head chatter", and tends to increase as the audio heads wear down.

Another issue that made VHS Hi-Fi imperfect for music is the inaccurate reproduction of levels (softer and louder) which are not re-created as the original source.^[65]

Several improved versions of VHS exist, most notably Super-VHS (S-VHS), an analog video standard with improved video bandwidth. S-VHS improved the horizontal luminance resolution to 400 lines (versus 250 for VHS/Beta and 500 for DVD). The audio system (both linear and AFM) is the same. S-VHS made little impact on the home market, but gained dominance in the camcorder market due to its superior picture quality.

The ADAT format provides the ability to record multitrack digital audio using S-VHS media. JVC also developed SVHS-ET technology for its Super-VHS camcorders and VCRs, which simply allows them to record Super VHS signals onto lower-priced VHS tapes, albeit with a slight blurring of the image. Nearly all later JVC Super-VHS camcorders and VCRs have SVHS-ET ability.

Another variant is VHS-Compact (VHS-C), originally developed for portable VCRs in 1982, but ultimately finding success in palm-sized camcorders. The longest tape available for NTSC holds 60 minutes in SP mode and 180 minutes in EP mode. Since VHS-C tapes are based on the same magnetic tape as full-size tapes, they can be played back in standard VHS players using a mechanical adapter, without the need of any kind of signal conversion. The magnetic tape on VHS-C cassettes is wound on one main spool and uses a gear wheel to advance the tape.^[26]

The adapter is mechanical, although early examples were motorized, with a battery. It has an internal hub to engage with the VCR mechanism in the location of a normal full-size tape hub, driving the gearing on the VHS-C cassette. Also, when a VHS-C cassette is inserted into the adapter, a small swing-arm pulls the tape out of the miniature cassette to span the standard tape path distance between the guide rollers of a full-size tape. This allows the tape from the miniature cassette to use the same loading mechanism as that from the standard cassette.

Super VHS-C or S-VHS Compact was developed by JVC in 1987. S-VHS provided an improved luminance and chrominance quality, yet S-VHS recorders were compatible with VHS tapes.^[66]

Sony was unable to shrink its Betamax form any further, so instead developed Video8/Hi8 which was in direct competition with the VHS-C/S-VHS-C format throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Ultimately neither format "won" and both have been superseded by digital high definition equipment.

Wide-VHS (W-VHS) allowed recording of MUSE Hi-Vision analog high definition television, which was broadcast in Japan from 1989 until 2007. The other improved standard, called Digital-VHS (D-VHS), records digital high definition video onto a VHS form factor tape. D-VHS can record up to 4 hours of ATSC digital television in 720p or 1080i formats using the fastest record mode (equivalent to VHS-SP), and up to 49 hours of lower-definition video at slower speeds.^[67]

There is also a JVC-designed component digital professional production format known as Digital-S, or officially under the name D9, that uses a VHS form factor tape and essentially the same mechanical tape handling techniques as an S-VHS recorder. This format is the least expensive format to support a Sel-Sync pre-read for video editing. This format competed with Sony's Digital Betacam in the professional and broadcast market, although in that area Sony's Betacam family ruled supreme, in contrast to the outcome of the VHS/Betamax domestic format war. It has now been superseded by high definition formats.

In the late 1990s, there was a disposable promotional variation of the VHS format called V-Lite. It was a cassette constructed largely with polystyrene, with only the rotating components like the tape reels being of hard plastic with glued casings without standard features like a protective cover for the exposed tape. Its purpose was to be as lightweight as possible for minimized mass delivery costs for the purpose of a media company's promotional campaign and intended for only a few viewings with a runtime of typically 2 to 3 minutes. One such production so promoted was the A&E Network's 2000 adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The format arose concurrently and then rendered obsolete, with the rise of the DVD video format which eventually supplanted VHS, being lighter and less expensive still to mass-distribute, while video streaming would later supplant the use of physical media for video promotion.^[68]

Shortly after the introduction of the VHS format, VHS tape rewinders were developed. These devices served the sole purpose of rewinding VHS tapes. Proponents of the rewinders argued that the use of the rewind function on the standard VHS player would lead to wear and tear of the transport mechanism. The rewinder would rewind the tapes smoothly and also normally do so at a faster rate than the standard rewind function on VHS players. However, some rewinder brands did have some frequent abrupt stops, which occasionally led to tape damage.

Some devices were marketed which allowed a personal computer to use a VHS recorder as a data backup device. The most notable of these was ArVid, widely used in Russia and CIS states. Similar systems were manufactured in the United States by Corvus and Alpha Microsystems,^[69] and in the UK by Backer from Danmere Ltd. The Backer system could store up to 4 GB of data with a transfer rate of 9 MB per minute.^[70]

VHS can record and play back all varieties of analog television signals in existence at the time VHS was devised. However, a machine must be designed to record a given standard. Typically, a VHS machine can only handle signals using the same standard as the country it was sold in. This is because some parameters of analog broadcast TV are not applicable to VHS recordings, the number of VHS tape recording format variations is smaller than the number of broadcast TV signal variations—for example, analog TVs and VHS machines (except multistandard devices) are not interchangeable between the UK and Germany, but VHS tapes are. The following tape recording formats exist in conventional VHS (listed in the form of standard/lines/frames):

• SECAM/625/25 (SECAM, French variety)
• MESECAM/625/25 (most other SECAM countries, notably the former Soviet Union and Middle East)
• NTSC/525/30 (Most parts of Americas, Japan, South Korea)
• PAL/525/30 (i.e., PAL-M, Brazil)
• PAL/625/25 (most of Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, many parts of Asia such as China and India, some parts of South America such as Argentina, Uruguay and the Falklands, and Africa)

PAL/625/25 VCRs allow playback of SECAM (and MESECAM) tapes with a monochrome picture, and vice versa, as the line standard is the same. Since the 1990s, dual and multi-standard VHS machines, able to handle a variety of VHS-supported video standards, became more common. For example, VHS machines sold in Australia and Europe could typically handle PAL, MESECAM for record and playback, and NTSC for playback only on suitable TVs. Dedicated multi-standard machines can usually handle all standards listed, and some high-end models could convert the content of a tape from one standard to another on the fly during playback by using a built-in standards converter.

S-VHS is only implemented as such in PAL/625/25 and NTSC/525/30; S-VHS machines sold in SECAM markets record internally in PAL, and convert between PAL and SECAM during recording and playback. S-VHS machines for the Brazilian market record in NTSC and convert between it and PAL-M.

A small number of VHS decks are able to decode closed captions on video cassettes before sending the full signal to the set with the captions. A smaller number still are able, additionally, to record subtitles transmitted with world standard teletext signals (on pre-digital services), simultaneously with the associated program. S-VHS has a sufficient resolution to record teletext signals with relatively few errors,^[71] although for some years now it has been possible to recover teletext pages and even complete "page carousels" from regular VHS recordings using non-real-time computer processing.^[72]

VHS was popular for long-form content, such as feature films or documentaries, as well as short-play content, such as music videos, in-store videos, teaching videos, distribution of lectures and talks, and demonstrations. VHS instruction tapes were sometimes included with various products and services, including exercise equipment, kitchen appliances, and computer software. The aforementioned V-Lite format was designed specifically for this purpose for minimizing distribution costs.

VHS was the winner of a protracted and somewhat bitter format war during the late 1970s and early 1980s against Sony's Betamax format as well as other formats of the time.^[4]

Betamax was widely perceived at the time as the better format, as the cassette was smaller in size, and Betamax offered slightly better video quality than VHS – it had lower video noise, less luma-chroma crosstalk, and was marketed as providing pictures superior to those of VHS. However, the sticking point for both consumers and potential licensing partners of Betamax was the total recording time.^[22] To overcome the recording limitation, Beta II speed (two-hour mode, NTSC regions only) was released in order to compete with VHS's two-hour SP mode, thereby reducing Betamax's horizontal resolution to 240 lines (vs 250 lines).^[73] In turn, the extension of VHS to VHS HQ produced 250 lines (vs 240 lines), so that overall a typical Betamax/VHS user could expect virtually identical resolution. (Very high-end Betamax machines still supported recording in the Beta I mode and some in an even higher resolution Beta Is (Beta I Super HiBand) mode, but at a maximum single-cassette run time of 1:40 [with an L-830 cassette].)

Because Betamax was released more than a year before VHS, it held an early lead in the format war. However, by 1981, United States' Betamax sales had dipped to only 25-percent of all sales.^[74] There was debate between experts over the cause of Betamax's loss. Some, including Sony's founder Akio Morita, say that it was due to Sony's licensing strategy with other manufacturers, which consistently kept the overall cost for a unit higher than a VHS unit, and that JVC allowed other manufacturers to produce VHS units license-free, thereby keeping costs lower.^[75] Others say that VHS had better marketing, since the much larger electronics companies at the time (Matsushita, for example) supported VHS.^[22] Sony would make its first VHS players/recorders in 1988, although it continued to produce Betamax machines concurrently until 2002.^[76]

VHS was widely used in television-equipped American and European living rooms for more than twenty years from its introduction in the late 1970s. The home television recording market, also known as the VHS market, as well as the camcorder market, has since transitioned to digital recording on solid-state memory cards. The introduction of the DVD format to American consumers in March 1997 triggered the market share decline of VHS.^[11]

DVD rentals surpassed those on the VHS format in the United States for the first time in June 2003.^[77] The Hill said that David Cronenberg's movie A History of Violence, sold on VHS in 2006, was "widely believed to be the last instance of a major motion picture to be released in that format".^[78][79] By December 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported on "the final truckload of VHS tapes" being shipped from a warehouse in Palm Harbor, Florida, citing Ryan J. Kugler's Distribution Video Audio Inc. as "the last major supplier".^[79]

Though 94.5 million Americans still owned VHS format VCRs in 2005,^[11] market share continued to drop. In the mid-2000s, several retail chains in the United States and Europe announced they would stop selling VHS equipment.^[80][81][82] In the U.S., no major brick-and-mortar retailers stock VHS home-video releases, focusing only on DVD and Blu-ray media. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment along with other companies ceased production of VHS in late 2010 in South Korea.^[83]

The last known company in the world to manufacture VHS equipment was Funai of Japan, who produced video cassette recorders under the Sanyo brand in North America. Funai ceased production of VHS equipment (VCR/DVD combos) in July 2016, citing falling sales and a shortage of components.^[14][84]

Despite the decline in both VHS players and programming on VHS machines, they are still owned in some households worldwide. Those who still use or hold on to VHS do so for a number of reasons, including nostalgic value, ease of use in recording, keeping personal videos or home movies, watching content currently exclusive to VHS, and collecting. Some expatriate communities in the United States also obtain video content from their native countries in VHS format.^[85]

Although VHS has been discontinued in the United States, VHS recorders and blank tapes were still sold at stores in other developed countries prior to digital television transitions.^[86][87] As an acknowledgement of the continued use of VHS, Panasonic announced the world's first dual deck VHS-Blu-ray player in 2009.^[88] The last standalone JVC VHS-only unit was produced October 28, 2008.^[89] JVC, and other manufacturers, continued to make combination DVD+VHS units even after the decline of VHS. Countries like South Korea released films on VHS until December 2010, with Inception being the last Hollywood film to be released on VHS in the country.

A market for pre-recorded VHS tapes has continued, and some online retailers such as Amazon still sell new and used pre-recorded VHS cassettes of movies and television programs. None of the major Hollywood studios generally issues releases on VHS. The last major studio film to be released in the format in the United States and Canada, other than as part of special marketing promotions, was A History of Violence in 2006. In October 2008, Distribution Video Audio Inc., the last major American supplier of pre-recorded VHS tapes, shipped its final truckload of tapes to stores in America.^[13]

However, there have been a few exceptions. For example, The House of the Devil was released on VHS in 2010 as an Amazon-exclusive deal, in keeping with the film's intent to mimic 1980s horror films.^[90] The first Paranormal Activity film, produced in 2007, had a VHS release in the Netherlands in 2010. The horror film V/H/S/2 was released as a combo in North America that included a VHS tape in addition to a Blu-ray and a DVD copy on September 24, 2013.^[91] In 2019, Paramount Pictures produced limited quantities of the 2018 film Bumblebee to give away as promotional contest prizes.^[92] In 2021, professional wrestling promotion Impact Wrestling released a limited run of VHS tapes containing that year's Slammiversary, which quickly sold out. The company later announced future VHS runs of pay-per-view events.^[93][94]

The VHS medium has a cult following. For instance, in February 2021, it was reported that VHS was once again doing well as an underground market.^[95] In January 2023, it was reported that VHS tapes were once again becoming valuable collectors items.^[96] VHS collecting would make a comeback in the 2020s.^[97][96] The 2024 horror film, Alien: Romulus, will have a limited release on VHS, marking the first major Hollywood film to receive an official VHS release since 2007.^[98]

The Video CD (VCD) was created in 1993, becoming an alternative medium for video, in a CD-sized disc. Though occasionally showing compression artifacts and color banding that are common discrepancies in digital media, the durability and longevity of a VCD depends on the production quality of the disc, and its handling. The data stored digitally on a VCD theoretically does not degrade (in the analog sense like tape). In the disc player, there is no physical contact made with either the data or label sides. When handled properly, a VCD will last a long time.

Since a VCD can hold only 74 minutes of video, a movie exceeding that mark has to be divided into two or more discs.

The DVD-Video format was introduced first on November 1, 1996, in Japan; to the United States on March 26, 1997 (test marketed); and mid-to-late 1998 in Europe and Australia.

While the DVD was highly successful in the pre-recorded retail market, it failed to displace VHS for in home recording of video content (e.g. broadcast or cable television). A number of factors hindered the commercial success of the DVD in this regard, including:

• A reputation for being temperamental and unreliable, as well as the risk of scratches and hairline cracks.^[99]
• Incompatibilities in playing discs recorded on a different manufacturer's machines to that of the original recording machine.^[100]
• Compression artifacts. MPEG-2 video compression can result in visible artifacts such as macroblocking, mosquito noise and ringing which become accentuated in extended recording modes (more than three hours on a DVD-5 disc). Standard VHS will not suffer from any of these problems, all of which are characteristic of certain digital video compression systems, but VHS will result in reduced luminance and chroma resolution, which makes the picture look horizontally blurred (resolution decreases further with LP and EP recording modes).^[101] VHS also adds considerable noise to both the luminance and chroma channels.^{[citation needed]}

High-capacity digital recording systems are also gaining in popularity with home users. These types of systems come in several form factors:

• Hard disk–based set-top boxes
• Hard disk/optical disc combination set-top boxes
• Personal computer–based media center
• Portable media players with TV-out capability

Hard disk-based systems include TiVo as well as other digital video recorder (DVR) offerings. These types of systems provide users with a no-maintenance solution for capturing video content. Customers of subscriber-based TV generally receive electronic program guides, enabling one-touch setup of a recording schedule. Hard disk–based systems allow for many hours of recording without user-maintenance. For example, a 120 GB system recording at an extended recording rate (XP) of 10 Mbit/s MPEG-2 can record over 25 hours of video content.

Often considered an important medium of film history, the influence of VHS on art and cinema was highlighted in a retrospective staged at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2013.^{[102][103][104][105]} In 2015, the Yale University Library collected nearly 3,000 horror and exploitation movies on VHS tapes, distributed from 1978 to 1985, calling them "the cultural id of an era."^{[106][107][108][109]}

The documentary film Rewind This! (2013), directed by Josh Johnson, tracks the impact of VHS on film industry through various filmmakers and collectors.^[110]

The last Blockbuster franchise is still renting out VHS tapes, and is based in Bend, Oregon, a town home to under 100,000 people as of 2020.^[111][112]

The VHS aesthetic is also a central component of the analog horror genre, which is largely known for imitating recordings of late 20th century TV broadcasts.

• Analog video
• Tape head cleaner
• Analog video on discs:
  • Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED)
  • Video High Density (VHD)
  • LaserDisc

• HowStuffWorks: How VCRs Work
• The 'Total Rewind' VCR museum – A covering the history of VHS and other vintage formats.
• VHSCollector.com: Analog Video Cassette Archive – A growing archive of commercially released video cassettes from their dawn to the present, and a guide to collecting.

 

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VHS-C

VHS-C Cassette Adapters (rear) and S-VHS-C cassette (front)
Media type	Magnetic cassette tape, ½-inch
Encoding	NTSC, PAL, SECAM
Capacity	30, 60 minutes
Read mechanism	Helical scan
Write mechanism	Helical scan
Standard	525 lines, 625 lines
Dimensions	92 × 58 × 20 mm (3â…” × 2¼ × ¾ in)
Usage	Home movies
Extended from	VHS
Released	1982; 43 years ago (1982)

VHS-C is the compact variant of the VHS videocassette format, introduced by Victor Company of Japan (JVC) in 1982,^[1] and used primarily for consumer-grade compact analog recording camcorders. The format is based on the same video tape as is used in VHS, and can be played back in a standard VHS VCR with an adapter.^[2] An improved version named S-VHS-C was also developed. S-VHS's main competitor was Video8; however, both became obsolete in the marketplace by the digital video formats MiniDV and MiniDVD, which have smaller form factors.

The magnetic tape on VHS-C cassettes is wound on one main spool and used a gear wheel which moves the tape forward. It can also be moved by hand. This development hampered the sales of the Betamax system somewhat, because the Betamax cassette geometry prevented a similar development.

VHS-C cassettes have a switch to inhibit recording of a cassette. Not all adapters propagate the state of this switch to the VCR itself, so accidental erasure of a write-protected cassette is possible if the adapter's write protect lug or switch allows it.

To reduce the size of cameras, the VHS-C mechanism uses a two-thirds size head drum (41.3 mm diameter instead of the original VHS drum size of 62 mm). The wrap angle is 270 degrees instead of VHS's 180 degrees. The drum rotates at a proportionately higher speed, and four rotary video heads are used to trace out exactly the same helical recording path as a standard sized VHS drum. By adding more heads, the same small VHS-C drum can record and playback FM Hi-Fi audio that is also fully compatible with a standard sized Hi-Fi video drum

VHS-C cassette was larger than Video8 cassette, but was compatible with VHS tape recorders, using a special adapter cassette. The adapter contains a standard full-size engagement hub for the VCR's takeup sprocket, which connected to a gear train to drive the VHS-C cassette takeup gear.

VHS end of tape is normally detected by a light in the VCR that inserts into the full-size cassette body, and detected by sensors in the VCR located at the far outer corners of the front of the cassette. Because the width of VHS-C is narrower than a full-size VHS cassette and does not align with the full-size end of tape sensors, the adapter has a guide roller swing arm to pull tape out of the VHS-C cartridge out to the far right edge where it would normally be located in a full-size cassette. When the VHS-C cartridge is to be removed from the adapter, a geared retraction system pulls in the excess loose tape when the swing arm retracts.

VHS-C had similar video quality as Video8, but a significantly shorter run time. During the 1980s, 20-minute VHS-C cassettes were the norm. In 1989 JVC increased the run time to 30 minutes by using thinner tape.^[3] Later, JVC offered 45-minute and 60-minute cassettes. For comparison, 120-minute 8-mm cassettes became available in the late 1985 and quickly became the norm. Later, 150-minute and 180-minute 8-mm cassettes were offered as well.

The later Hi8 and S-VHS-C systems both have a quality similar to the LaserDisc system.

Although DV video was ported to 8-mm hardware in 1999 to become Digital8, D-VHS was never adapted to a compact VHS format.^[a]

A higher quality version of VHS-C was released, based on S-VHS, known as S-VHS-C, that competed against Hi8, the higher quality version of Video8. The arrival on the market of inexpensive S-VHS-C camcorders led to the inclusion on many modern VCRs of a feature known as SQPB, or SuperVHS Quasi-PlayBack, but did not make a significant impact on the market as the arrival of MiniDV as a consumer standard made low-cost, digital, near-broadcast quality video widely available to consumers, and rendered analog camcorders largely obsolete.

Early VHS-C cassettes did not have a mechanism to ratchet or lock the supply reel when not in use, making them susceptible to spilling tape inside the shell. Consequently, manufacturers placed a label on their camcorders and adapters to warn the user to check that the tape is not slackened before inserting a cassette. The user could dissipate the slack by manually turning the take-up gear. Later cassettes corrected this problem by adding teeth to the supply reel to lock it in place when no upward pressure is applied. The spindle of the camcorder or VCR supplies pressure to float the reel's turntable and teeth above the shell, allowing it to rotate freely when in use.

If a tape with slack was loaded into a VHS-C adapter, the tape could sit on the wrong side of a tape guide when the adapter loaded. The result would be a tape and cassette combination that would not play in a video deck, and would damage the tape to some extent when being unloaded.

• youtube.com How to put VHS-C videos into Computer - Easy!
• youtube.com V2 Tech Video View - Dynex VHS-C -to- VHS Cassette Adapter
• MediaCollege.com The VHS-C Format
• panasonic.com VHS-C FAQ