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S-VHS or Super VHS was an improved,
backward-compatible version of the
VHS standard for domestic
video cassette recorders.
It offered substantially better colour fidelity and resolution, with
approximately double the number of dots per line (the standard measure of
analog video resolution). They could actually represent a better picture
than broadcast analog television - in practice, little improvement over
standard VHS was visible when viewing material recorded off-air.
To view the better picture, a direct video connection to the monitor
was required, ideally a component connection. Older
television sets tended not to support this, negating much of the
improvement in picture quality.
Home S-VHS decks never became popular outside of Japan, probably mainly
due to their high cost, lack of prerecorded content, and the lack of
visible performance improvements in playing off-air recording. S-VHS
camcorders did become popular for high-end amateur work, as it allowed
for at least second-generation copies (necessary for editing) to be made
at a reasonable quality.
S-VHS is now mostly obsolete, as it has been replaced by
DVD for playing prerecorded content, and by the various
digital video formats for amateur and semi-professional video
production.
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