Compared to Quad, Type C had a smaller size, comparative ease of operation, and slightly higher
video quality. 1-inch Type C is capable of "trick-play" functions such as still, shuttle, and variable-speed playback, including
slow motion. 2-inch quadruplex videotape machines lacked these capabilities, due to the segmented manner in which it recorded video
tracks onto the
magnetic tape. 1-inch Type C VTRs required much less maintenance and used less power and space than did 2-inch machines. 1-inch Type C records
composite video at a very high video quality that was superior to contemporary color-under formats such as
U-matic, and of comparable quality to analog
component video formats like
Betacam and
MII. Both analog component formats were notoriously fussy and trouble-prone, so in practice Type C gave a stable, more reliable picture than the broadcast quality analog cassette-based videotape formats. Because television was broadcast as a composite signal, there was no real downside to Type C in television broadcasting and distribution. It had approximately 300
lines of resolution, and a
bandwidth of 5 MHz, with recording being done with the heads moving across the tape at (a writing speed of) , for
NTSC signals, and for
PAL signals. As for linear tape speeds, type C VTRs could run at for NTSC, and for PAL. Sometimes in interlaced video a field is called a frame which can lead to confusion. The NTSC and PAL formats recorded by Type C VTRs are interlaced video formats and thus there is a vertical blanking interval after every field of video. The format is almost immune to dropouts. PAL Type C VTRs may have higher writing speeds to achieve higher bandwidth given PAL's 5–6 MHz bandwidth versus NTSC's 4.2 MHz. In practice, type C VTRs may have a bandwidth of 4.2 MHz for NTSC, and 5 MHz for PAL. Some Type C VTRs could support reels with enough tape for 126 minutes of playback with NTSC, and 128 minutes with PAL, with reels. ==Usage==