Quote:
Originally Posted by Harvestman
Just out of curiosity - does anyone know when the first VCRs with stereo RCA outputs came onto the market?
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If I remember right, Akai was the first to manufacture and sell stereo (VHS) VCRs, probably in 1981. As Ed said, they (and the others that followed) split the audio track space on a regular VHS tape into two halves to record in stereo, and they added Dolby noise reduction to help compensate for the half-size audio recording area. Later, Hi-Fi audio (audio multiplexed onto the video signal/recording area) came along, that blew away the linear sound quality.