JVC

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Victor Company of Japan, Limited (日本ビクター株式会社, Nihon Bikutā Kabushiki-gaisha^?) (TYO: 6792 ), usually referred to as JVC, is an international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927. The company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions, and inventing the VHS.

History

1920s - 1960s

JVC was founded in 1927 as "The Victor Company of Japan" as a subsidiary of the United States' leading phonograph and record company, the Victor Talking Machine Company. In 1929 majority ownership was transferred to RCA-Victor. In the 1930s JVC produced phonographs and records, but in 1932 JVC started producing radios, and in 1939 they introduced Japan's first TV. JVC severed relations with its foreign partners during World War II, and since 1953, JVC has been owned by Matsushita, who holds a majority stake in the company.

1970s - 1980s

JVC invented the VHS format, and introduced the first VHS players for the consumer market in 1976 for $885. Sony introduced the Betamax home videocassette tape a year before in 1975, becoming the main competitor to JVC's VHS into the 1980s creating the Videotape format war. The Betamax cassette was smaller than the VHS cassette, and the format produced a sharper picture, although the difference was not always obvious to the home consumer, as both technologies progressed. By 1984, forty companies utilized the VHS format in comparison with Betamax's twelve. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when they also began producing VHS recorders.

In 1970 JVC marketed the Videosphere, a modern portable CRT television inside a space helmet shaped casing with an alarm clock at the base. It was a commercial success. In 1976 JVC introduced the 3060, a 3" portable television with an included cassette player.

In 1979 JVC demonstrated a prototype of their VHD/AHD disc system. This system was capacitance-based like CED, but the discs were grooveless with the stylus being guided by servo signals in the disc surface. The VHD discs were initially handled by the operator and played on a machine that looked like an audio LP turntable, but JVC used caddy housed discs when the system was marketed. Development was interrupted continually, but in April 1983 it was first marketed in Japan, and then in the UK in 1984 to a limited industrial market. By this time both Philips and Sony already had compact discs on the market, and the VHD format never caught on.

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