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Old 02-09-2024, 01:59 PM
DVtyro DVtyro is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2022
Posts: 137
M was from 1981 to about 1986. Then there was M2 until about 1992. Then D3. There were also W-VHS and D-VHS. I don't consider any of these formats to be some variant of VHS, just like I don't consider Betacam to be a variant of Betamax, or HDV to be a variant of DV just because they use the same cassettes and transport.

In any case, M and M2 died long before VHS died, I actually have a video on the topic, I think I posted the link before, so I am not going to spam here.

OTOH, I consider SVHS to be a variant of VHS. They are similar enough, despite that SVHS tapes would not play correctly on a regular VHS VCR. They would play on an SQPB VCR, and it looks like there are more compatible VCRs than I thought: it seems that only Panasonic used "SQPB" label, other brands simply specified somewhere in the specs that this or that VCR is capable to play SVHS tapes albeit at VHS quality.

I am wondering maybe there was a pro VHS model that was produced past 2006? It seems unlikely though, because camcorders are not directly linked to distribution formats, so camcorder formats can change much quicker without affecting the distrubution. Analog video formats, in particular Betacam SP, but also Hi8, were still used in the late 1990s, but it seems that starting with 2000s everyone has switched to digital for acquisition.

Then again, I only checked the American market. I bet that there were lots of interesting camcorders on the Japanese market that I haven't even heard of.
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