The oldest colour broadcast videotape known to exist is an episode of An Evening With Fred Astaire from 1958.
Think CVA for videotape recycling.
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A Brief History Of Video Tape
Believe it or not, the first practical professional videotape machines were introduced as early as 1956. They were the open reel Ampex Quadruplex, a two inch tape recorder that worked with four transverse recording heads. This meant the heads scanned the tape across its width. A rival system, called VERA, pioneered by the BBC used a half inch tape, but this quickly faded away because of the massive speed the tape had to run - 200 inches per second.
Quadruplex was in standard use for 20 years in spite of its shortcomings. It did not have the ability to freeze frame, picture search, and the reels wore out very quickly. It was best practice for tapes to be erased and re-used because of their high cost. This meant that tape became a better and more cost-effective time delay for broadcasters, especially in the four time zones across the US.
A one inch format gained prominence in the 1970s. C-Format finally introduced shuttling and still-frame features, but most agreed that the sound and picture reproduction were inferior to that of Quadruplex.
At the same time, a cassette tape was launched. Sony developed the three quarter inch composite U-Matic, and later refined the format into Umatic SP. These tapes were still being widely used in British advertising firms as late as 2005, due to their massive durability and the fact that they had been designed to be recycled by professional evaluation machines. This lead to their dramatic increase in life.
Likewise, the later tape formats of the Betacam family. Starting with Betamax, through Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, Betacam SX and today's HDCam. These tapes are still widely used today, again because of their excellent video and sound quality, and the ability to recycle them.
To read about the developments in HD (High Definition), please click here. And to learn about the various DVD formats now in use, click here.
Consumer Formats
It wasn't until the 1970s that video cassette recorders were released on the domestic, home-use market. Two rival formats were launched by the Japanese companies Sony and JVC. Sony's was an extension of their Beta brand, and actually provided better video and sound capture, but the cheaper equipment meant that JVC's VHS format finally won through. Developments remained stagnant for the next 25 years, in spite of the improved S-VHS and D-VHS follow ups. It wasn't until the battle with DVD that VHS slipped into obsolescence.
But in Camcorders, the range of formats was much more diverse. Early models used the VHS or Betamax tapes, then 8mm gained prominence for some time. More recently, MiniDV has become the popular choice for domestic camcorder users worldwide. The format provides near broadcast quality video and a sophisticated nonlinear editing capability on consumer equipment. The trend at the moment is either towards the HD version of MiniDV, HDV, or towards solid state or hard disk storage.
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Believe it or not, the first practical professional videotape machines were introduced as early as 1956. They were the open reel Ampex Quadruplex, a two inch tape recorder that worked with four transverse recording heads. This meant the heads scanned the tape across its width. A rival system, called VERA, pioneered by the BBC used a half inch tape, but this quickly faded away because of the massive speed the tape had to run - 200 inches per second.
Quadruplex was in standard use for 20 years in spite of its shortcomings. It did not have the ability to freeze frame, picture search, and the reels wore out very quickly. It was best practice for tapes to be erased and re-used because of their high cost. This meant that tape became a better and more cost-effective time delay for broadcasters, especially in the four time zones across the US.
A one inch format gained prominence in the 1970s. C-Format finally introduced shuttling and still-frame features, but most agreed that the sound and picture reproduction were inferior to that of Quadruplex.
At the same time, a cassette tape was launched. Sony developed the three quarter inch composite U-Matic, and later refined the format into Umatic SP. These tapes were still being widely used in British advertising firms as late as 2005, due to their massive durability and the fact that they had been designed to be recycled by professional evaluation machines. This lead to their dramatic increase in life.
Likewise, the later tape formats of the Betacam family. Starting with Betamax, through Betacam SP, Digital Betacam, Betacam SX and today's HDCam. These tapes are still widely used today, again because of their excellent video and sound quality, and the ability to recycle them.
To read about the developments in HD (High Definition), please click here. And to learn about the various DVD formats now in use, click here.
Consumer Formats
It wasn't until the 1970s that video cassette recorders were released on the domestic, home-use market. Two rival formats were launched by the Japanese companies Sony and JVC. Sony's was an extension of their Beta brand, and actually provided better video and sound capture, but the cheaper equipment meant that JVC's VHS format finally won through. Developments remained stagnant for the next 25 years, in spite of the improved S-VHS and D-VHS follow ups. It wasn't until the battle with DVD that VHS slipped into obsolescence.
But in Camcorders, the range of formats was much more diverse. Early models used the VHS or Betamax tapes, then 8mm gained prominence for some time. More recently, MiniDV has become the popular choice for domestic camcorder users worldwide. The format provides near broadcast quality video and a sophisticated nonlinear editing capability on consumer equipment. The trend at the moment is either towards the HD version of MiniDV, HDV, or towards solid state or hard disk storage.
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