Universal Studios Home Entertainment

The company was founded in 1980 as MCA Videocassette, Inc. with Gene Giaquinto as president of the division. It released 24 films on Betamax and VHS in May 1980, including Jaws, Animal House and The Deer Hunter as well as classic films such as Dracula, Animal Crackers, and Scarface. Jaws 2 and 1941 were also released that year. Before 1980 Castle Films (known as Universal 8 after 1977) had served as Universal's home film distribution unit. In late 1983, both the LaserDisc sister label MCA Videodisc and the MCA Videocassette label were consolidated into a single entity, MCA Home Video, alternating with the MCA Videocassette, Inc. name until December 1983.

By the mid-1980s, MCA Home Video began to license catalog titles to smaller, independent video firms with a focus on sell-through product. The first was in 1986 with Kartes Video Communications. The deal was followed with a similar agreement with GoodTimes Home Video in 1987.

In 1986, the company made agreements with Motown Productions and with children's book publisher Price Stern Sloan. Both deals were intended to expand MCA's non-theatrical product, 1987 was a busy year for MCA Home Video; the company underwent an executive shuffle, signed an exclusive three-year deal with International Video Entertainment for video distribution, and began offering new content from Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.

In 1990, with the 75th anniversary of Universal Studios, MCA Home Video became MCA/Universal Home Video and used that name alternating with the MCA Home Video name from 1990 until 1997. On December 9, 1996, the company was renamed Universal Studios Home Video when MCA was reincorporated as Universal Studios, which would then later be part of Vivendi Universal Entertainment in 2000.

Universal's first titles on DVD releases in 1997 were licensed to Image Entertainment for distribution. Those early bare-bones editions quickly fell out-of-print when Universal started making their own DVD releases.

When Universal's then-parent company (Seagram) purchased PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in 1998, Universal gained not only the Post-March 1996 PolyGram library, but also a brand new genre for Universal, in a form of Stand-up comedy from the likes of Roy Chubby Brown, Jethro, Jim Davidson, Billy Connolly and Lee Evans, Universal additionally gained distribution rights to some classic British television content as well, such as the Smallfilms library, The Vicar Of Dibley, Fun Song Factory and the then-upcoming Lock, Stock... television series, just to name quite a few, as well as the UK home video rights to Barney & Friends (until 2001, when HIT Entertainment purchased Lyrick Studios, after which, HIT immediately started self-releasing Barney titles).

In March 2001 when French media congolomate Vivendi had acquired Universal Studios Home Video's parent Universal Studios and its owner Seagram, Universal Studios established a new subsidiary that would handle, manage and expand Universal Pictures' key intellectual properties across multiple platforms entitled Universal Pictures Franchise Development with Universal Pictures Home Video including its animation production division Universal Cartoon Studios & London-based British production division Universal Pictures Visual Programming being placed into the new subsidiary alongside Universal Studios' consumer products & licensing division Universal Pictures Consumer Products which also became division of the new subsidiary while Louis Feola became president of the new subsidiary.

In 2004, due to the merger of Universal Studios and NBC to form NBCUniversal, Universal started releasing Universal DVD releases of shows from the newly established NBCUniversal Television Distribution. Before 2004, NBC shows were distributed on VHS and DVD by Lions Gate Home Entertainment and A&E Home Video under the label NBC Home Entertainment (formerly NBC Home Video under Trimark until it was bought by Lions Gate). NBC's home entertainment on-screen logo was simply the NBC Enterprises syndication logo.