Many of the deficiencies of the open-reel systems were overcome with the invention of the videocassette recorder (VCR), where the videotape is enclosed in a user-friendly videocassette shell. This subsequently became the most familiar type of VTR known to consumers. In this system, the tape is preattached onto two reels enclosed within the cassette, and tape loading and unloading is automated. There is no need for the user to ever touch the tape, and the media can be protected from dust, dirt, and tape misalignments that can foul the recording mechanism. Typically, the only time the user ever touches the tape in a videocassette is when a failure results from a tape getting stuck in the mechanism.