VHS video improved greatly with the inception of S-VHS or Super VHS as the format is also known.

S-VHS

what is the deal with S-VHS videotapes over the standard video tape?

S-VHS made little impact on the home market, but gained dominance in the camcorder market due to its superior picture quality.

During 1987, JVC introduced the new format called Super VHS [S-VHS], which extended the video bandwidth, yielding more lines of horizontal resolution equivalent to 560x486 in digital terminology terms format compared to DVD of 720 x 480.

So before DVD came to be S-VHS was the only high-end home system for video recording and good quality playback that was superior to the plain vanilla VHS.

S-VHS improved the luminance resolution to 400 horizontal per picture height as against 250 for VHS/Beta and 500 for DVD, pretty close at the time S-VHS was going to be the top pro format but Sony manage to salvage some pride when the Beta format became the pro level & television broadcast standard.

These days it is all digital video, never mind the hard drive cameras on the market today. S-VHS  is still in use and a much loved format of S-VHS owners.

Despite DVD's better quality of 500 lines versus 250 lines horizontal resolution, VHS tapes & VCR's are still widely used in home recording of television programs, due to the large number base and the lower cost of VHS recorders and tape and quite a few homes have the S-VHS VCR for higher image quality.

S-VHS also appeared in the homes of audiophiles and purist - enthusiasts as well as a satellite recording medium since some of the better S-VHS VCR decks could take satellite programs as well as the usual TV programs.

VHS camera users also found that transferring ordinary video recordings onto S-VHS provided much better viewing results.

Of course, gadget geeks owned a S-VHS VCR’s as well as the odd snob value owners who just had to have the best, the latest and the greatest in the neighborhood.

Since S-VHS is a smaller segment of the market and most owners are reluctant to upgrade, they are happy with their trusted S-VHS VCR and may have thought a replacement can be purchased. As their machines go down S-VHS deck owners will be in for a bitter disappointment as it is now really difficult if not impossible to acquire a new S-VHS VCR if at all these days.

JVC no longer make a professional or studio level S-VHS or MiniDV & S-VHS combo decks are also gone for good, the last JVC S-VHS pro level VCR’s was removed from JVC on line catalog in early 2008.

While you can still find VHS VCR's in any department store of retail consumer electronics-stores and they are really a bargain since the market

has been taken over by VHS & DVD combo players and VHS>DVD recorders are also on the way out with the emergence of digital PVR (Personal Video Recorders) spelling the demise of VHS as a format for home use. I doubt very much if you can find a new S-VHS VCR except from a dead stock mover.

So, what to do with your S-VHS tapes?

Having your S-VHS tapes converted to DVD is a real quality issue since most transfer services use only industrial VHS VCR's and very few can actually do a transfer of S-VHS in the original resolutions because most do not have a S-VHS deck in house.

We scoured the net to find only one service in Australia that has S-VHS ability in house Avid Tech DVD Transfer Centre PAL S-VHS transfer to DVD. Many others claim to transfer S-VHS but they are done on a standard VHS VCR so the quality will be almost half that of a proper S-VHS to DVD transfer. In Canada we found Chroma Services. 

USA we found www.abetdisc.com

In addition, in the UK we found www.video99.uk

It pays to get the right S-VHS transfer service in the first place if you don’t want to wind up with half the quality. NTSC S-VHS

You can find more local services below.