" ... VHS was originally JVC's baby and they were having problems with it, so they asked for help. From Sony. ..."
I'm not so sure that's true, or, if it is, it's the first I've heard of it, and I was in the business at the time. My store (3 locations) sold more Technics tables than any other dealer in Canada for a few years in the late 70's, so we got plenty of face-time with both the Canadian and Japanese grunts and execs from Matsushita. Since Panasonic and SONY competed directly with each other in the broadcast market (via Panasonic Industrial, which first sold broadcast gear in 1958) I would be very surprised to have not heard something, and even more surprised to learn they worked together on VHS.
This part I do know for sure, though: VHS was refined by Matsushita Electric, whom most people know as Panasonic/Technics. JVC had been a majority owned by Matshushita since the 1950's but remained an independent company (which is why savvy shoppers on eBay look for JVC turntables ... they came from the same factories as Technics units, but sell for much less, typically. Bonus: they tend to be a little fancier).
JVC also had a broadcast presence (that was the roots of the company) and had it's own video tape system. Matsushita, who had developed a different videotape format that was slated to launch at the same time as Beta, chose JVC's format over it's own because they felt it was technically superior, but they also felt it needed further development, so while Matsushita worked with JVC on VHS, Beta was able to be introduced one year sooner.
SONY refused to license Beta initially, which allowed Matsushita and JVC to sign up licensees with RCA, General Electric, Philips (who also was working on it's own video format, but chose VHS for the same technical reasons Matsushita did), NEC, Toshiba, and Sanyo, before the product launch.
Matsushita was not a small company that needed to look outside for technical help; about this time they owned 600 electronics companies, and during the 80's they manufactured computers for IBM. While most people know SONY bought Columbia, Matsushita bought MCA (sold to Seagrams later).
JVC was sold to a US-based investment group (Texas Pacific Group) in 2007, so who makes their current stuff is anyone's guess.
As for the gift (back on topic), I don't know your budget, or his tastes, but there are some awesome Neil Young reissues right now.
Neil Young: Archives Vol 1 & 2 1963-1972 (10-disk Blu-Ray; 8-disc CD)
Perhaps more interesting to him:
Neil Young Official Release Series, Disks 1-4 (180gm vinyl; Neil Young [1969], Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere [1969], After The Gold Rush [1970], Harvest [1972].
