Was there ever a way to capture the full NTSC bandwidth on tape?

[Videogamer555]

I know VHS tapes (and associated VCR recording/playback circuitry) had about half the bandwidth of an actual NTSC composite baseband signal, and I know S-VHS tapes and compatible VCRs had slightly improved bandwidth. But was there every a home-video recorder technology that actually allowed recording the full bandwidth of an NTSC composite baseband video signal? I think there was a way with VCRs to select video quality for recording and playback with modes like LP, SP, and EP with VCRs, but the lower quality modes only further reduced the bandwidth from the already limited bandwidth of the device. And I think Beta tapes (the competing technology to VHS tapes, and requiring a Beta VCR for playback) had improved bandwidth, but I don't know if it still supported the full NTSC bandwidth. And NTSC baseband video signal has about 4.5MHz of bandwidth when it's compatible with the NTSC TV broadcast rules, so a recorder and tape technology that could record at least 4.5MHz of bandwidth for the baseband video signal would be needed if you wanted to record and playback an NTSC TV broadcast without any loss of horizontal resolution of the image. So was there ever a home-video type of tape and recorder that would support the full 4.5MHz bandwidth of an NTSC video baseband signal? Or would that have only ever been possible on professional tape equipment?

[aramkolt]

This chart you might find useful:
https://cool.culturalheritage.org/videopreservation/dig_mig/video_formats_v4_850.html

While not a "consumer" format, Betacam SP (not betamax, but still analog) stored in component video, at 4.5MHz for luma and 1.5MHz for chroma which likely exceeded the actual broadcast standard and also had a roughly doubled signal to noise ratio over SVHS and Hi8. Even Betacam SP doesn't claim the 480 horizontal lines of resolution as the broadcast standard, so I think you could safely say that there was no way to losslessly preserve a live analog transmission even with professional equipment in the analog realm.

Consumer DV meets most of the analog specs, but has some heavy compression along the way and is limited to 8 bit color and the "broadcast spec" doesn't really specify chroma vs luma bandwidth, just says 4.5MHz total.

So, I guess I'm curious, is this more for an informational video, or does it have a practical application? Wouldn't be that hard to record a known good digital component signal into composite and S-Video and record on a bunch of formats and then capture to see how much the results differ versus a direct capture of that S-Video signal and see if any look particularly lossless (visually) with the correct test patterns.

[lollo]

Not sure I fully understand the question, but this explains the difference between NTSC signal and VCR recorded signal and shows the frequency domains (and then the resolutions) of VHS, S-VHS and Beta: https://docs.ampnuts.ru/eevblog.docs/Sencore/Sencore_Tech_Tips/TT189p%20-%20Comparison...%20Formats.pdf

[lingyi]

Prosumer, but much more popular in Japan than the West, there is ED-Beta.

ED-Beta (Extended Definition Betamax)
Logo of ED-Beta
Logo of ED-Beta
In 1988, Sony would again push the envelope with ED-Beta, or "Extended Definition" Betamax, capable of up to 500 lines of luma resolution, comparable to then-future DVD quality. In order to store the ~6.5 MHz-wide luma signal, with the peak frequency at 9.3 MHz, Sony used a metal formulation tape borrowed from the Betacam SP format (branded "ED-Metal") and incorporated some improvements to the transport to reduce mechanically induced aberrations in the picture. ED-Beta also featured a luminance carrier deviation of 2.5 MHz, as opposed to the 1.2 MHz used in SuperBeta, improving contrast with reduced luminance noise.[15] Chroma resolution remained unchanged, which made artifacts like color fringing more pronounced. To cancel chroma signal crosstalk, the chroma portion of the signal was delayed by one or two scan lines during playback, smearing the color even more.[16] The chroma delay could be disabled on higher end VCRs by turning on EDIT mode to "reduce editing faults" when dubbing a tape.[17]

Sony introduced two ED decks and a camcorder in the late 1980s. The top end EDV-9500 (EDV-9300 in Canada) deck was a very capable editing deck, rivaling much more expensive U-Matic set-ups for its accuracy and features, but did not have commercial success due to lack of timecode and other pro features. Sony did market ED-Beta to "semiprofessional" users, or "prosumers". As for the EDC-55 "ED CAM" camcorder, the major complaint concerned its low light sensitivity due to the use of two CCDs instead of the typical single-CCD imaging device. ED-Beta machines only recorded in βII and βIII modes, with the ability to play back βI and βIs.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax

Edit: In addition [to] the EDV 9300/9500, there was the EDV-7300/7500 in the West and EDV-5000/6000/7000/8000/9000 in Japan. AFAIK, there was no PAL or SECAM ED-Beta machines.