Video History

Vintage - Early - Antique - Obsolete

Video Archiving - Restoration - Remastering - Duplication - Transfer - Vintage - Antique




This is not a comprehensive - all encompassing in-depth history of every known video format since mankind
had emerged from the swamps, but for the most part, is the History of Video comprised of the formats we
currently support. As time allows, more will be added. Thus it'll always be perhaps, a work in progress !
We offer Transfer Services for most of these formats

This page is image intensive and will (as you're probably discovering) take a long time to download !
Link Table of the most popular vintage obsolete video formats
Quadruplex * 2" IVC 1 inch
1"
EV-300 1
inch 1"
1 inch Type
A 1"
1 inch
Type C 1"
Skip Field
CV 1/2"
Concord
12 ips
1/2"
Craig 1/2" inch Shibaden
1/2" inch
EIAJ-1 1/2"
inch
EIAJ-2 1/2"
inch
Pilot
Tone
1/2"
VX
Cartridge **
VCord I &
II
Technicolor CVC Funai CVC Akai 1/4"
inch *
CED
Videodisc
3/4-U 3/4
inch
3/4-U-SP
3/4inch
PAL 3/4-U
3/4 inch
Beta Betamax
1,2,3
Superbeta ED-Beta M 1/2 inch M-II 1/2inch VHS
VHS-C S-VHS D-VHS 8mm Hi8 Digital8 DV
DVCAM Laserdisc DVD VCD SVCD MPEG-1 MPEG-2
MiniDV MPEG-4 Divx .AVI .M2V DVD-RAM DVD-R / -
RW
DVD+R / +R/W Sony
Portapack


* Denotes machines out of service - awaiting parts

* Denotes Parts Located - To be back on line shortly
** The VX cartridge format is also known as the Quasar VR-1000 or Great Time Machine
We transfer almost any videotape format to another, including video to DVD transfer (known also as video archiving) as
well as the newer digital formats.
To date there are over 65 "popular" NTSC video formats that have claimed their place in video history, that have
come and gone since the introduction of quadruplex. Include the list of formats that weren't commercially viable, and
the list grows to slightly over 100. Add to that the world standards such as PAL and SECAM and all their variations
and the number soars by at least a factor of 5.
This is not a complete video history - and more will be added as they are acquired. It does however, account for the
vast majority !

Video History in chronological order

Phonovision (1927)
The very first video format. Never widely adopted - it was for practical purposes, an experimental format that used a
record and a stylus to record and play back video. Experimental or not, it worked !
To learn more about this most interesting format & it's place in history, check out Phonovision at www.tvdawn.com A
great site dedicated to the world's first video !

2 inch Quadruplex (1956)

Introduced in 1956, 2" quadruplex was the first commercially viable professional broadcast video format to secure it's
position in Video History. Instead of evolving into a broadcast format, Quadruplex was conceived and designed from the
very start as being a professional broadcast format.
To achieve a broadcast quality 5mhz bandwidth or 400 lines of resolution, a head to tape speed equivalent to 1500
inches/second was required. In the quadruplex system, this was achieved by a tape speed of 15 inches/sec passing a
rotating drum containing 4 heads placed 90 degrees apart. The drum rotates at 14,400 rpm or 240 revs/sec and the
sound it produces when up to speed is un-mistakable ! (Our "Company Cats" run for cover whenever one of the Quads
starts to "spool up" !) ..... Anyways, the 4 head arrangement not surprisingly, gave rise to this format's name.
Most "normal" folk would have a Grandfather's Clock or a hutch in their living rooms to display their prized china.........
Not so here !
Instead, a working Ampex AVR-2 Quadruplex machine occupies and "adorns" that coveted position !


Historical Need for Videotape Recording
Up until the advent of videotape, the west coast would view the broadcast in the late afternoon, while the east coast
would view it during the evening. TV shows were all broadcast live or had to be filmed for later broadcast, which was
time consuming and expensive. That all changed in 1953 when the first commercially viable video tape recorder was
introduced - the Ampex VR-1000. Early considerations were that the format had to meet NTSC standards (the very same
video specifications in use today) and had to have full 5mhz bandwidth (400 lines of resolution) as well as the capacity to
support color in the future. Quite an impressive achievement back then ! Early pioneering work was done by RCA and
Ampex . As an interesting aside, Ampex's development team included Ray Dolby (the 4th from the left in the above
picture) whose name later went on to become synonymous with sound processing systems. Most stereo equipment
today sports the Dolby logo !
The first commercially sold machines were the Ampex VR-1000 and the RCA TRT-1A. Both used the same agreed upon
format - the 2" Quadruplex system. The format utilized 2 inch wide tape loaded on a monstrous 4800 ft reel. The
machines were gi-normous behemoths ! All vacuum tubes and weighed in at about 2600 lbs - the weight of a typical
compact car ! The VR-1000 sold for $50,000 and could play/record up to 90 minute reels.
History of Technical Challenges
To record a 5 MHz bandwidth, a relative recording/playback head to tape speed of approximately 1500 inches/sec was
required with the head technology available at the time ! (1500 ips is not a typo !). This equates to 125 ft/second - or
about 85 miles/hour if recording was to be made in a linear fashion like an audio tape recorder ! The very first video tape
recorder was in fact just such a device - a linear recorder that functioned like a mono audio recorder on steroids ! They
were engineering prototypes only to prove the feasibility of video recording to magnetic tape. Whatever happened to
those early engineering lab machines is unknown. Anyways, linear recording though possible, was unworkable. A
required speed of 1500 ips would consume 450,000 ft (85 miles worth) of tape every hour by recording video on a single
linear track ! Clearly, there had to be a way around this problem. The solution was to transversely record each field of
video across the tape - a method we today call scanning. To achieve a relative head to tape speed of 450,000 ft/hour (85
MPH) , the tape moved at a speed of just 15 inches/second thru the transport. It then passed over a head drum that had 4
recording heads set 90 degrees apart spinning at 14,400 rpm ! Voila ! - an effective head to tape speed of 1500
inches/second ! (do the math !) Not only did it effectively get the head to tape speed up to 1500 ips, it made full use of the
magnetic tape by recording the sweeps of video transversely across the tape ! Each head recorded 16 lines of video, or
64 lines for each drum revolution or 4 revolutions/field = 8 revolutions/frame ! A separate control track (the control track
is to videotape as are the sprocket holes on film) was recorded on one outside edge of the tape while a single audio
track was recorded on the opposite edge. A separate cue track was also recorded for future time code or audio for
network instructions & communications.
Head to tape contact was critical, as should the tape lift from the drum by even the smallest amount, then signal would
be lost. The tape was held to the drum by an air vacuum, while inside the spinning drum, compressed air was was blown
thru the assembly to provide cooling plus blow the inevitable debris out of the way. The compressed air also supplied
the necessary pressure for the head drum air bearings. Air bearings ensured the least amount of friction and stability as
the heads spun at an incredible 14,400 rpm. Huge & cumbersome, the machine required a vacuum pump and an external
source of compressed air. Later machines only required compressed air, as the necessary vacuum was obtained from an
internal vacuum manifold.

There was no such thing as interchangeability between machines as we know it today. Getting a tape to play recorded
on another quad machine (even the same exact model) required a bit (read: sometimes a LOT) of tweaking. Positioning
of the vacuum guide and air pressures were critical for the best picture (or sometimes ANY picture for that matter).
The same scanning recording strategy developed for these machines is still used in the consumer as well as broadcast
VCR's of today - The only difference is that quad machines recorded transversely across the tape (transverse scanning)
while current head scanners record at a much lower angle called helical scanning allowing only one or two heads to do
the recording. The concept of employing a rotating scanner came out of those first quad machines. No one's yet come
up with anything better, and is a tribute to the engineers who originally conceived and designed it.



Advancements in the Technology of Quadruplex
As time progressed. the machines became much smaller. The Ampex AVR-1 was now down to a single console size and
used only a fraction of the power. (Now a mere 240 volts at 22 amps ! - still more than most small arc welders !)
Later in the timeline, RCA's TR-600 and the Ampex AVR-2 were perhaps the most popular and both tiny compared to the
first VR-1000. The TR-600 weighed in at a mere 900 lbs or so (though I never measured it) and the AVR-2 was even
less.... a paltry 680 lbs. An even smaller record-only machine was also developed for field acquisition and saw life in
many a broadcast trailer.
Keeping an old quadruplex machine alive and working can be considered nothing short of a labor of love. Video heads
are expensive and last an average of only 200 hours. Other parts are difficult and sometimes near impossible to find,
resulting in a re-design of some circuits. They're loud, ornery, cantankerous, fickle and not by any stretch of the
imagination, "Team Players". They're self centered, very individualistic and oftentimes stubborn...... It's either Their way
or No way..... Keeping them operational and tuned, requires a strong knowledge of alchemy as well as a solid grounding
in the black arts.
That being said: The 2" quadruplex format was so well conceived that it remained in common use up until the early 80's.
In the history of broadcast video, it's an impressive record that still stands today & is unlikely ever to be
broken.

1" Sony EV Format (1964) CLP-1B

Sony Introduced this format in 1964 with the release of the EV-200. It was the first "portable" machine intended for
general use and most found their way into the educational and industrial marketplaces. The term "portable" back in the
early 60's meant only that the machine had handles, and in no way was meant to imply that the machine was actually
even close to being lightweight or compact. Most machines of this format weighed in at around 90 lbs or so. Of course,
compared to Quadruplex, they were indeed "portable" for their day.
The format uses 1" tape and employs a 2 head helical scanning system. Maximum recording time is 1 hour with 2400 ft
of tape on an 8 inch reel. Tape speed is 7.8 ips. The EV-200 was a monochrome machine only, but later models in the
EV-200 and 300 series were color capable by use of an external color adapter.
A small tip off to the tape's format (though not 100% accurate) is that unlike most other 1" formats, the Sony reels did
not use NAB style hubs, but rather the common star spindle design.


Although all the Sony EV series after the 200 were color capable, none of the VTR's by themselves came with the color
processing circuitry built in. That is where the CLP-1B came in.
For recording, the processor separated the color from the composite signal and recorded it at a lower fm carrier on the
tape. Color resolution was about 240 lines.
On playback, the process was reversed. The CLP-1B internally processed the color signal and fed it back to the VTR
where the composite output was now in color.
The unit connected to the VTR via a standard 10 pin camera cable.



1/2" Skip Field Recording (1964) - Sony CV Format
- Video Rover
Sony introduced the CV-2000 VTR in 1964 and was released in the US in 1965. It was the first reel to reel b/w only VTR
introduced for home use, though most found their way into industrial service. This format only recorded the luminance
information. There were no electronics to process or record color information, thus color programming would be
recorded only in black and white monochrome.
In the skip field format, video is recorded by only one of the two video heads, resulting in only one field being recorded.
On playback, the second rotating head sweeps the same track as the first, effectively repeating the same field. Since the
tape has advanced by the time the second head was coming into position for the second sweep, the "B" head was
placed slightly behind and below the "A" head as opposed to 180 degrees apart and on the same horizontal plane as in
other schemes. The positioning of the "B" head was critical and set by the factory and thus no provision for field
adjustment is possible.
Since there were very few video recorders in the marketplace, there was never the thought of tape/machine
interchangeability. Video recorded on your CV machine was meant to be played back only on that machine and would
probably not play back reliably on another. There was no tracking control on the CV series of machines for this reason.
Since there is usually little change from field to field, picture quality losses employing this technique were negligible and
the resulting quality surprisingly good. Employing this technique allowed efficient use of the tape - effectively, a 2 to1
compression !
The CV-2000 as depicted to the right, used 1/2" reel to reel tape on 7" 2400 ft reels. The unit weighs approximately 70 lbs
and originally sold for $695 when it was first introduced..... Though $695 doesn't sound too bad a price today, consider
that $695 in 1965 equates to about $4150 in 2005 dollars ! Only several hundred CV-2000 models were ever sold in the
US, though later CV models such as the CV-2100 and CV-2200 were sold in far greater numbers. Though the machines
used the same tape stock as the later to come EIAJ machines and were similar in appearance, the format was not
compatible with EIAJ.
Video Rover - Sony DV-2400
The Sony Video Rover was released in 1967 as a record only machine that recorded in the Skip Field Format. Every
effort was made to keep the machine as light as possible for the sole purpose of recording video and as such, any
feature not absolutely required to record video was left out. That even included a motorized rewind function ! Instead, it
came with a hand crank for manually rewinding the tape !

To better understand what a skip field format is, requires a basic understanding of video fields and frames and just why
we have interlaced video in the first place. The following will simply explain the concepts....
What is Interlaced Video - Fields and Frames Explained
In the NTSC system, 30 separate images (called Frames) are displayed at a rate of 30 frames/second (actually 29.97 fps
in color) and consisting of 525 lines.
Instead of drawing each of the 525 lines in sequence - called progressive scanning) (ie: drawing lines 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 . . . . .
525) then going back & repeating the process 30 times/second), the NTSC specification calls for each frame to be divided
into 2 Fields.
Field 1 draws only the odd lines (ie 1,3,5,7,9 . . . . . . 525) while the second field draws & fills in the even lines (2,4,6,8,10 .
. . . . 524). Drawing or scanning first the odd lines then coming back to fill in the even lines is called interlaced scanning.
Why use Interlaced Video ?
For Video to appear "smooth" and without flicker, images should be refreshed 60 times each second. So why not just
draw lines 1 to 525 sequentially & repeat the process 60 times each second ??? Seems simple enough..... yet for the
limited technology of the day it had one serious limitation.......
In the early days of TV, there was a severe limit as to how many pixels or lines of resolution could be transmitted each
millisecond compared with today. Only so much information could be crammed down the "narrow electronic pipe".
Today, we define that as having a limited bandwidth. Vacume tubes and the large capacitor - resistor discreet circuitry
of the day, was very slow and was incapable of passing high frequency information... It simply was incapable of
passing such a huge amount of information in such a short time.....
The NTSC standard however, specified 30 frames per second refresh rate. In order that moving objects not look
smeared, the phosphors on the picture tube had to fade between "visits" by the electron beam. At the agreed on
resolution for NTSC for example, the entire picture could be redrawn (repainted; refreshed) a maximum of 30 times a
second. However 30 fps was too slow.... At that rate, the top of the picture began to fade before the bottom was
completely drawn - resulting in a "fading flicker", for lack of a better way of describing it. Using a longer persistence
phosphor to eliminate the fading flicker would result in smearing of any motion - the "cure" now being worse than the
original ill. It was clear that a 30 frames/second refresh rate was simply not going to be fast enough.....
The obvious solution was to simply double the refresh rate to say 60 frames/sec. Only problem back then, was that the
technology for achieving such a high bandwidth was not yet available with the vacuum tube technology of the day. No
way could 525 lines of information be repeated 60 times each second.... Then someone came up with the idea of
drawing all the odd scan lines first in 1/60th of a second, then coming back and filling in the even scan lines in the
second 1/60th of a second, which virtually eliminated that rolling fading flicker and obtained a much better looking and
smoother picture for the same amount of transmitted information.
Effectively, it doubled the refresh rate without any increase in bandwidth, by refreshing only 1/2 the information but twice
as fast.
Pretty clever !

1" Type A (1965)
Ampex introduced this format in 1965. This format employed a full wrap, single head design and was the predecessor to
1" Type C.
Initially, it was marketed to the home market though because of the high cost, most found their way into the educational
and industrial markets. Most machines of this format (Ampex VR series) weighed in at about 100 lbs. Tape speed was 9.6
ips.
Later development of the format resulted in machines capable of high band color recording and playback such as the
Ampex VPR-1, which was he early predecessor to the much higher 1 inch Type C format. In fact Ampex released an
upgrade to the VPR-1 effectively converting it to a 1 Inch Type C !
Video resolution of the 1 Inch Type A format was an impressive 350 lines ! If not for the standardization and
"compromise" between the various manufacturers, which led to the adoption of 1 Inch Type C, 1 inch Type A would
undoubtedly have become the broadcast standard format.
However, it was not to be..... Though very similar to 1 Inch Type C in many respects, 1 Inch Type A recorded tapes will
not play back on 1" Type C equipment.


1" IVC-600 700 800 & 900 Format (1967)

IVC (International Video Corporation) introduced this format
in 1967 in an attempt to compete with the 1" Type A format. Tapes were interchangeable between the 6, 7, 8 & 900 series
machines and color reproduction was possible via an optional external color adapter.
The format used a single head with an Alpha Wrap. The IVC-600 was the low end machine that had manually operated
control linkage. The 700 shown on the left and later models used solenoids which allowed for remote operation. Tape
speed was 6.9 ips, which yielded 1 hour of record time on an 8 inch reel. The 700 & 800 series machines accepted up to 8
inch reels, while the 900 series accepted up to 12.5 inch reels allowing for up to 3 hrs of continuous recording.
The IVC-870 shown here on the right is a color capable machine...
IVC-900 was introduced, possibly in anticipation that 1" Type A would be adopted as the new broadcast standard to
replace Quadruplex. The major selling point to the broadcast industry, was that the 900 could accommodate a huge 12"
reel which would allow up to 3 hours of continuous run time... Just perfect for the broadcast of full length movies !
Though both 1" Type A and IVC 900 series machines were far less expensive to produce than Quadruplex, they could not
match the quality standards of Quad. However, both formats laid the groundwork for development of 1 Inch Type C
which finally became a reality in 1978.




Concord 12 ips 1/2" Helical Format (1967)

Concord released this machine as a significant improvement over the skip field format machines sold by Sony. Part of
the better quality as compared to Sony's Skip Field Format, was attributable to it's faster tape speed of 12 inches/second
plus the full recording of both fields. The head drum was also larger, which enabled faster writing speeds which
translated into slightly higher video bandwidth. This allowed approximately 40 minutes of video to be recorded on a
standard 7" 2400 ft reel.
Panasonic also tried their hand with this format with the release of the NV-8000 and NV-8100 machines. The format
never caught on - probably due to it's limited recording time of only 40 minutes on a full 7" reel. Panasonic saw the
writing on the wall and quickly abandoned the format and made no other machines I'm aware of that supported it.
Concord stuck with it to the bitter end with the 600 and 700 series machines, but even Concord eventually threw in the
towel and adopted the new EIAJ standard.
The format though superior to Sony's Skip Field Format, never made wide market penetration. Today, this format is
considered very rare. The only commonality, is that Concord, like all the other half inch open reel formats, used the very
same 1/2 inch tape stock.
Shown here is the Panasonic 8100 torn down with the skins removed, in the process of receiving a complete overhaul.




Shibaden 1/2 " Helical (1967) - (Also re-badged as Apeco and Bell & Howell)

Shibaden released this format in 1967. The format was the only other one that used the skip field recording technique
much like the Sony CV series, but it was however incompatible with the Sony CV's, or any other 1/2" helical format for
that matter. The recording media was standard 1/2 inch open reel tape.
The format was also sold under the Apeco and Bell & Howell labels, though all came off the same Shibaden production
line.... Thus Apeco and Bell & Howell's are simply re-badged Shibaden's.
The primary difference between Sony's Skip Field format and Shibaden's, was the much larger diameter of the Shibaden
head drum. EIAJ, Skip Field, & Pilot Tone formats all used a 4.5" diameter head drum, whereas Shibaden employed a
much larger 5.8" diameter drum. Tape speed was the same at 7.5 ips, however due to the larger head drum diameter, the
Shibaden format employed a faster head to tape writing speed as well as at a reduced helical azimuth angle. The
increased writing speed resulted in slightly superior image quality over Sony's Skip Field Format. Because of different
azimuth and write speed of the video tracks, the Shibaden format, though conceptually very similar to Sony's Skip Field
Format, is not compatible.
Though technically superior to the Skip field format, Sony simply out-marketed and out-outsold the Shibaden format
machines. Thus, the Shibaden format is quite rare, never having made significant market penetration.
Shown here is the Apeco Teletape with the top skin removed. Of all the half inch open reel formats, it had the largest
head drum... If it looks identical to the Shibaden machine, it's because it is ! It came off the same Shibaden assembly
line and was re-badged as an Apeco. Many of the older generation may recall Apeco photocopiers. Yes.... it's the
same company ! They had a brief foray into video.

CBS/Motorola EVR Teleplayer (1967)

Dubbed the EVR for Electronic Video Recorder, it was actually manufactured by CBS and sold under the Motorola Brand
name.
Whether this system belongs as part of a video history reference might be debatable as it is somewhat of a hybrid... It's
somewhat of a cross between a film recorder and a video machine.
It uses 8.75 mm black & white film (sprocket-less) on 7" reels to record the monochromatic images and then used a
magnetic strip to encode the color information electronically. On playback, the color information is in effect
superimposed on top of the scanned black & white images.
Two other magnetic strips allowed for stereo audio...
The plan was to offer cameras to allow recording capability, since the home consumer machines were playback only.
One would send off the film back to the factory to have it processed...
Operation was simple: "Drop a film cartridge on the spindle, close the the lid - push the play button, and the film
automatically threads".
Color cartridges played for 25 minutes, while Black & White cartridges played for 50 minutes.....
It was also one of the first machines to offer accurate frame by frame slow motion and stop action and stereo all in one
unit.
It could be successfully argued that the system was more of a film unit. The B/W film was scanned by what amounted to
a "flying spot scanner" that converted the film image to video. The chroma information from the magnetic strip was then
added to create a color composite video signal that was then RF modulated for connecting to one's home TV... It was
really more a telecine than a video Tape Player...

Thanks to Michael Muderick who supplied the picture and a brochure of the unit.


Philips LDL-1000 (1968)
The LDL-1000 is a 1/2" b/w helical Reel to Reel machine & was the predecessor to the N1500. Both NTSC and PAL
machines were manufactured.
The drum takes a 1/2 wrap of tape and scans with two heads very similar to the EIAJ format. Tape speed is 6.63 ips or
18.84 cm/sec.
An interesting feature of the machine is that the take-up and supply reels are not driven by any belts or rubber idler
wheels. Instead, both reels are driven from a magnetic disc that couples the rotating magnetic flux force to the take-up
and supply reel discs. The only belts in the machine are thus belts for the head drum, capstan and tape counter. The
mechanical system is the ultimate in simplicity and works amazingly well.
Why this technology wasn't more widely adopted is somewhat of a mystery.


Craig 1/2" Format (1968)
Released in 1968, the Craig half inch open reel format is unique to all the half inch open reel formats in many ways. It is
also the rarest of all the half inch open reel machines.
It uses a two head half wrap scanning system as used by the other half inch open reel formats, but most of the
similarities end there. It is also only a monochrome capable format.
First; it supports reels up to 8 and a half inches in diameter. Although not clear in the image to the right, the Craig reel is
slightly larger than the Sony reel... It is the only format machine that accepts reels up to 8.5 inches in diameter.
The next unique thing about this format is the tape recording speed of 9.5 inches per second. All the other half inch open
reel formats with the exception of the Concord 12ips format, used a tape speed of 7.5 inches per second. Thus when
playing a Craig format tape on an EIAJ machine (assuming the reel fits) the first thing you will notice is that the audio will
play at a 26% slower tempo and pitch.
The head drum diameter is also a bit larger than the EIAJ, Skip Field and Pilot Tone Formats, resulting in slightly higher
write speeds..
The closest other format to the Craig is the Concord 12ips format. When a Craig format recorded tape is played on a
Concord 12ips machine, you will be able to make out a video image, but there will be severe mis-tracking across
numerous fields owing to the radically different azimuth angle due to the different tape speed. What you might find
surprising is that the image (or what you can make of it) will be upside down ! The Craig is the ONLY half inch open
reel format machine that reverse scans the tape !
Very few of these machines were ever made and they are quite rare to find in any condition, much less one in working
condition.
With that said, they were built like "tanks" - the mechanical design was over killed...
The Craig machines with their superior mechanical design should have captured a much larger market share than they
did, but they were simply out marketed by the likes of Sony and Panasonic.


Akai 1/4" Format (1969)
What's peculiar to this format was it's use of 1/4" tape. Even standard audio tape could be used, though naturally, better
image quality was obtained using Akai's video tape.
The machines used 2 heads in an Omega wrap. Tape speed was 11.25 ips which yielded a 20 minute recording time on 5
inch reels. The machines were monochrome and were capable of only monophonic audio.
Their strong selling point was their amazing compactness and light weight, though studio machines were also available.
Image quality was just fair and no match for 1", but neither was their price nor their weight - making them truly portable.
Dropouts are a common problem to this format as well as other small format tapes. A small imperfection in the oxide
represents a larger picture area than would a similar size imperfection in say any of the 1/2 inch formats.
But compared to the much larger other format machines, it was indeed lightweight and truly portable !


Pilot Tone System - Sony AV-5000 (1970) - AV-
5000A (1970) Non EIAJ Color
Sony introduced the AV-5000 1/2" reel to reel VTR in 1970. It met the EIAJ-1 standard for black & white but was released
4 years before the EIAJ-2 color standard was agreed upon.
Sony apparently thought this machine would be the adopted basis for the new EIAJ-2 color standard, but marketing
"jumped the gun" so to speak, and it was not to be. The EIAJ-2 standard did not adopt Sony's approach to the way the
color information would be processed... Sony used instead what's known as a non standard Pilot Tone signal system
instead. After shipping but a very limited number of the AV-5000's, Sony decided to improve on the quality and raise the
pilot tone carrier frequency to achieve better color bandwidth. This model was named the AV-5000A. The reality was that
this in itself became yet another format as it was not color compatible with the former. Both machines are considered
rare and the format in danger of immediate extinction.
Though both AV-5000 series VTR's were EIAJ-1 compatible for monochrome, neither was EIAJ-2 color compatible. Both
machines are similar in appearance to the Sony AV-8600.
The only difference between EIAJ-2 and Pilot Tone and the two variants of Pilot Tone format, is the way the color
information is encoded and processed. In fact Pilot Tone tapes will play back on EIAJ equipment fine. It will just be in
black & white monochrome.
The original pilot tone format is quite rare.... Only 100 machines were ever sold into the US market. Having one of
these machines back in the period between 1970 to 1974, would have been considered very "cutting edge" in the
consumer/industrial market place... Sony's only other color equivalent at the time would have been the one inch EV
series of machines that required a separate color processor called the CLP-1.... The EV series were very heavy and
much more costly than the half inch pilot tone format...
.

EIAJ - EIAJ-1 (1970) & EIAJ-2 (1974)


Introduced in 1969 but not widely adopted until the following year, EIAJ (Electronic Industries Association of Japan) was
the first actual standardized format agreed upon by the Japanese manufacturers. Up to that point, manufacturers were
left to their own creative devices as to format and as a result, the marketplace was a confused nightmare of totally
incompatible formats - even across the same manufacturer's own product lines. The adoption of EIAJ solved all that !
The machines utilized 1/2 inch reel to reel tape on 30 minute 5 inch reels or 60 minute 7 inch reels. However, a few
machines were manufactured by Sony and Panasonic that were cassette based machines. The EIAJ cassette was one of
the first cassette based machines ! However, those first cassettes were prone to mis-loads and jams, and were never
widely accepted. (They are also quite rare - for that very reason !). The cassettes measured 5x5x1 inches. The picture on
the left depicts the bottom of the cassette.



The EIAJ format was designed with low-band specifications or about 240 lines of resolution. With the
advent of EIAJ that recorded both fields, the skip field formats were
quickly abandoned. EIAJ-1 was the spec. for black & white, while EIAJ-2 was the color specification. Note that EIAJ-2
was the color specification, and was not released until 1974. Chroma bandwidth was quite poor by today's standards -
even poorer than VHS... But it did record and playback in full color.. Quite an achievement for it's day in an relatively
affordable consumer grade format.. Though billed as a consumer VTR, color recorders were still very "pricey" and color
cameras also very expensive... As a result, most were sold into the commercial/industrial marketplace.
Up until this time, interchangeability between machines was pretty much a hit or miss affair (mostly misses actually.....).
Not a broadcast quality format, it was mostly used in the industrial and consumer marketplaces. EIAJ-1 is by far the
most popular of the half inch open reel video formats. A lot of early family and industrial videos were recorded on this
format in the 1970's and EIAJ machines were becoming quite popular.
Perhaps the earliest popular portable VTR to make significant market penetration was the Sony AV-3400, also better
known as the Portapack as shown here on the left.
Until EIAJ's slow demise beginning in the late 70's when Betamax and VHS were first introduced, EIAJ open reel was by
far the most popular consumer/industrial tape format of its time.


3/4 U-matic (1971)
Introduced in 1971, it initially became a standard for early news gathering that was rapidly replacing 16mm film at the
time. Image quality and particularly signal to noise ratio was superior to either Vhs or Beta. With only a 3 MHz
bandwidth, it was capable of only 240 lines of resolution. Though a color under low-band format and definitely not "hi
res", it was comparatively clean and would survive better the multi generation losses incurred during editing - - - much
better than VHS or even Beta could ever hope to match.
With the advent of BetaCam, it was relegated to the higher end industrial marketplace. Using a quality verses price
metric, the 3/4 U format was perhaps the most successful format of all time.

Capacitance Electronic Disc CED (1973)

The Capacitance Electronic Disc also known as the CED, was developed by RCA in 1973. The early prototype was
limited to 10 minutes play time per side, so it was not ready for the marketplace. But by 1981 the technology evolved to
allow viable play times when RCA released the first CED player in the US.
Metric Spec
Playback Time 63 Minutes/side
Disc Diameter 12 inches
Resolution 250 Lines
Luminance/Chroma
S/N
46/40 dB
Unlike all the videotape formats, the CED is much more similar to a phonograph record. The discs are pressed much like
any other record and a diamond stylus tracks the undulations of the groove. Unlike a conventional audio stylus
however, the the modulated signal is sensed by a varying capacitance instead of a moving coil as is common in audio
cartridges. Since there is no hysteresis concerns by varying the capacitance, the high frequency response as required
by video was achievable. As the stylus rides up & down the hill and dale of the groove, the distance between the two
"plates" similarly varies. This varying capacitance is then used to create an amplitude modulated waveform - in this
case, both video and stereo audio, and hence it's name.
The technology was quite simple compared to video tape machines and became somewhat popular due to the low price
point. When VCR's became less expensive to manufacture however, that sealed the fate of the Videodisc. RCA ceased
production in 1986.
Like any other record, dirt - scratches - and inevitable groove wear from repeated playing, did not make it a robust
format. But for a stylus based video machine that was only several technological leaps away from Edison's first
phonograph, the system actually makes acceptable color pictures ! (Quality wise; very similar to a VHS tape recorded in
LP mode)
Unlike video tape with all it's "chemistry problems", CED discs will perhaps still be playable in another 100 years !
(assuming of course, one can locate a working CED player)
For more in depth information on CED players, check out CED Magic www.cedmagic.com

VCord I & II (1974)
Introduced by Sanyo in 1974, the first VCord format (VCord I) basically took 1/2 " reel to reel tape and repackaged it in a
cassette. In fact, it was the first commercially successful video cassette format !
The first type I machines could record and play 30 & 60 minute cassettes, while the later type II machines such as the
VTC-8200 shown here, could accept the slightly larger 120 minute cassettes. The type II machines were backwards
compatible with the type 1 (one) 30 & 60 minute tapes.
What is interesting to note is how the tape is pulled out the left side of the cartridge and then loaded around the head
drum.
Sanyo and Toshiba were the key players in this market. Also interesting to note in the video history timeline, is that this
was the very first consumer vcr to offer two recording speeds !
Had it not been for the release of Betamax and VHS a year or two later, the format might have gained much wider market
penetration.
VCord cartridges look very similar to the Quasar VX cartridges shown below.
Today the format is considered quite rare.

VCord VTC-7100 (1976)
This machine is also a VCord format machine, but is not compatible with the VCord I or II which were color machines.
Though it records on the same half inch tape, the recording format is monochrome only. Also, the tape speed is twice
that of VCord I speed. This combined with a 4 head system, allowed smooth slow motion and noiseless still frames by
use of a separate slow motion tracking control. Though taken for granted today, slow motion playback was not possible
in small portable machines during that time period. The VCord 7100 was one of the first !
Tapes recorded on this machine are even more rare than VCord I or II...
(I listed it here which is a little out of the time line sequence, so that it might be more closely compared with the VCord I
& II machines directly above.


VX Cartridge Format (1975) - VR-1000 The Quasar
Great Time Machine
Introduced in the US in 1974, the Quasar VR-1000 was one of the first "cassette" type machines introduced. The VX tape
cartridge was specifically designed for this machine and is about the same size as a 3/4-U cassette - - - (5.75 x 8.3 x 1.75
inches). The tape is 1/2 inch wide, spooled on 2 reels inside the cartridge that sit atop one another. The cartridge was
available in several lengths and was capable of recording up to 2 hrs of color video with a VC120. VC20 & VC60 sizes
were also popular. Image quality is surprisingly good !
What is unique about this machine is the way
the tape is "threaded". Instead of the tape being pulled out of the cassette and threaded around the drum, the drum as
well as audio/control track & erase heads are effectively inserted into the cartridge ! The cartridge actually "drops" into
position with the partial pre-formed loop dropping around the head drum. No auto-threading here..... After inserting the
cartridge and pushing down to seat it, a manually operated, long throw lever opens the cartridge, unlocks the loop and
finishes the loading sequence. To eject, the lever is slid to the far left whereby the cartridge lock screw is re-tightened,
thus securing the loop in the cartridge. Pushing the lever to the extreme left and down, ejects the cartridge. Perhaps one
of the craziest loading/cartridge systems ever devised.
Say what you may about it being a "Rube Goldberg" design - but it works reliably and I've yet too witness a jam or mis-
load !



Unlike the soon to come Beta format, the VX format used
only one helical scan head with a full head wrap design. An innovative feature of the VR-1000, is that the head drum
assembly is held in by a single thumb screw. Head changes require no tools - simply unscrew the entire assembly - lift it
out - drop in the replacement and tighten down the knurl nut using only finger pressure. No tools whatsoever required !
A 6 year old could easily perform a head replacement ! ....... Truly a great innovation that was sadly forgotten by all the
manufacturer's to date.
Another innovation that did find it's way into future machines, was a dehumidifier or drum heater to overcome the
condensation or "dew" formation on the head drum. The machine had a dew sensor that would place the transport into
a shutdown mode as indicated by a front panel lamp. The dehumidifier was then turned on manually by a switch behind
the front control panel cover. In many respects, the VR-1000 was ahead of it's time.
The VX format is very rare today and was considered a commercial flop, despite the excellent quality of video produced
for a consumer format machine of that era. If not for the introduction of Beta at nearly the same exact time, there's little
doubt the format would have been much more successful.
The VR-1000 initially sold under Panasonic's Quasar label, though LabGuy's World reports others being sold under
the Matsushita and Panasonic divisions. All however, came off the same assembly line. Quasar marketing dept. dubbed
it as "The Great Time Machine".
Many of the machines found their way into corporate environments where the simplicity of dropping in a cartridge
without having to manually thread reel to reel tape (and then having to call the "A/V guy" for help) was a major selling
point.
Though quite rare today, there are still family as well as corporate videos still residing on VX cartridges hidden away in
the dark depths of corporate archives or home closets.


Sony Beta/BetaMax 1,2,3 (1975)
Introduced in 1975, Beta was the first successful consumer cassette format that put an end to the reel to reel era.
Later in the video history timeline, Beta 2 and 3 were introduced (synonymous with lp and slp in Vhs "jargon"
respectively). The success was short lived however.
Though vastly superior to Vhs in picture quality, it lost market acceptance mostly through a series of marketing
blunders by Sony when JVC introduced the Vhs format a year later. In a side to side comparison of Beta vs Vhs , Beta
was the obvious winner - hands down - no contest ! So good was the quality that some broadcasters used it for news
gathering as an inexpensive alternative to 3/4" U-matic. Though not true broadcast quality, it was the technically
superior consumer format of the time, that should have succeeded much better than it ever did.

Development of a cassette Based Consumer Video Format
Sony had been working on a new cassette based vcr which they hoped would revolutionize the home video market and
literally change the way we watch TV. In that respect, they were 100% successful !
A year before Betamax release (1974), Sony had approached Matsushita and JVC (its two partners for the 3/4" U Format)
about unifying product specifications for better compatibility across product lines. At that time, Sony had disclosed
information regarding the Betamax specifications and technology to the two companies, apparently thinking they would
continue to be partners in a harmonious business relationship. Nothing much came out of that meeting as Matsushita
(The parent of Panasonic) and JVC delayed any decisions about unifying standards for that year.
In 1975 Sony released the Betamax. It was an overnight hit ! Success was short lived however as JVC in 1976 released
the first VHS machine, and took Sony by surprise. When Sony engineers got their hands on the first units, they were
aghast to find out that the early technology they developed and so freely given away to Matsushita and JVC in their
earlier meetings , was incorporated into that machine. (Guess hard lessons were learned and Sony never made THAT
mistake again !).
Oh well..... not to fear...... it was obvious to "anyone in the know" that Sony by far had the technically superior format
and had already penetrated the home marketplace. VHS didn't stand a chance..... (famous last words as it ironically
turned out).
Both Sony and JVC each courted a group of companies throughout 1976 to produce Beta and Vhs machines in large
volumes - the home video revolution was underway ! Sony visited Matsushita, at the company's head office in Osaka to
receive a final decision on whether Matsushita would produce the Betamax. Samples of both Sony and JVC products
with their covers removed, were placed on the desk. In a side by side comparison, it was clear that the VHS machine
would be easier and less expensive to produce. Alas, quality was tossed aside in favor of economics for assembly.
In the end, Sony Toshiba, Sanyo Electric, NEC, Aiwa, and Pioneer supported Sony's Beta format, while Matsushita,
Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, and Akai Electric accepted JVC's VHS format. The home electronics industry was
thus divided into two warring camps and a bitter fight for market dominance was about to ensue.
Betamax vs. VHS
Of course, Sony had complete confidence in its Beta format for home-use Vcr's. Although the recording time was only
one hour, the cassette size was smaller and the image quality was clearly superior. Moreover, technology that enabled
two-hour recording while maintaining high picture quality had already been developed. Too little, too late, as Vhs now
offered SP LP & SLP recording times in each machine. On a standard T-120, up to 6 hours of video could be recorded
(albeit at poor quality) while Sony had yet to make any single machine that would both play & record all 3 beta speeds -
Beta 1, 2 and 3.
Though the picture quality of the Beta format was clearly superior to the Vhs, the home consumer was driven by one
machine that could not only "do it all" (Vhs sp, lp & slp), but also could put a full length movie on just one cassette. To
the home consumer at the time, quality wasn't an issue. Video was new to them and the ability of an inexpensive, easy to
operate machine to record and playback anything at all, was fantastic enough in itself and simply good enough.

Through a series of marketing blunders, Beta lost out to Vhs in the end. Vhs simply offered longer recording times and
was much better marketed.
Sony tried a technical coup with the introduction of ED-Beta in 1988. Though not compatible with the original beta
formats, it was a format that was far ahead of its time. The format never gained wide market acceptance however, and
although not obsolete, it is relatively rare and tapes are getting harder to find..
Though the Beta formats are effectively dead today, there remains a loyal group of Beta users - almost a cult following
(and I mean this in the kindest way !). There's a number of sites and clubs dedicated to the Beta format. Be sure to check
out www.palsite.com

Brief technical differences between VHS and Beta
The head drum on Beta machines was 21% larger than that of Vhs. Since they both spin at 29.97 revs/second, Beta's
larger diameter head drum results in a 21% higher video head writing speed. (5.832meters/seccompared to 4.86m/s for
vhs) This translates into a larger video bandwidth and higher fidelity recording.
Wider video tracks than VHS resulting in less crosstalk between tracks and in higher Signal-to-Noise ratios.
Chroma (color) signal is heterodyned from 3.58MHz (NTSC) down to 688kHz (The same as 3/4" U-matic) compared to just
629kHz for VHS, resulting in larger chroma bandwidth and superior color for Beta.
Comparing ED-Beta to S-Vhs and Beta wins hands down again..... ED Beta's have a peak of 9.3MHz and deviation of
2.5MHz compared to Super-VHS's measly 7.0MHz and 1.6MHz respectively. This results in 520-line horizontal resolution
for ED Beta compared to only 400-lines for S-VHS.

How Beta and VHS Technically Compare..... (bigger is better !)
Format Sync Tip Freq
(MHz)
Peak White Freq
(MHz)
FM Deciation
(MHz)
Luminance
Resolution (lines)
VHS 3.4 4.4 1.0 240
Beta 1 3.5 4.8 1.3 250
Beta 2/3 3.6 4.8 1.2 240
Super Beta 4.4 5.6 1.2 285
S-VHS 5.4 7.0 1.6 400
ED-Beta 6.8 9.3 2.5 520

How to interpret the chart:
(since no one ever seems to explain what the numbers mean....)
Video information is recorded on tape as an FM (frequency modulated) signal. As it relates to video, the lower the
frequency recorded, the darker the picture element and the higher the frequency, the brighter the picture element.
Though somewhat more involved, that's the simple gist of it anyways....
FM Deviation is the difference between the frequency at sync tip (The FM carrier frequency below absolute black
level) and the the Peak White Frequency (The FM carrier frequency at the peak white level). Since the video signal
is FM modulated, the greater the amount of FM deviation, the greater amount of information that can "carried" on
it. The amount of deviation available, primarily determines maximum resolution that may be obtained.

Betamax Tape Speeds & Recording Time Chart

Tape B1 B2 B3
L125 :15 :30 :45
L-250 :30 1:00 1:30
L-500 1:00 2:00 3:00
L-750 1:30 3:00 4:30
L-830 N/A 3:30 5:00


Tape length: tape numbers like L-500 means there is 500 feet of tape
ED Beta tapes are specified as "EL-###." ie: An EL-500 tape is the same length and recording time as an L-500
tape.


VHS/VHS-C (1976)
JVC introduced the VHS format in 1976 to go head to head with Sony's successful Betamax. Although inferior in image
quality to BetaMax, it offered 2 hour recording time on a larger T-120 cassette, which was a major factor to the cost
conscious home consumer - - - plus, an entire movie could be recorded onto one cassette. Ironically, much of the
technology and engineering concepts for this format were originally developed by Sony, and offered for free to JVC.
Guess hard lessons were learned, as Sony never made that mistake again !
Using sheer numbers as the sole metric, VHS is by far the winner and quickly became the premiere consumer format and
another major landmark in video history !
VHS-C was nothing more than a smaller physical cassette size to allow for more compact camcorder design which came
along somewhat later in the timeline. A simple adapter allows Vhs-C cassettes to be played back or recorded in any
standard full size Vhs machine.

LaserDisc (1977)
The Laserdisc made it's US debut in 1977. The 12" discs look much like an overgrown DVD on steroids. It might make
one believe that it's a completely digital format. But instead, video is recorded in an analog format while audio is
recorded in separate digital tracks adjacent to the video. Video resolution was an amazing 425 lines and incredibly clean.
Compare that to VHS which is only 240 lines and nothing short of "filthy". What might seem surprising, is that In a side
to side comparison between Laserdisc and today's state of the art DVD, the difference in picture quality albeit, is
noticeable but only very slight. Unless you see them literally side by side on a high quality monitors, you probably won't
notice the difference !
The audio is a different story however..... What might seem surprising, is that listening in 2-channel stereo, laserdisc
audio always sounds richer and fuller than its much newer DVD counterpart. You would not imagining it.... the LaserDisc
DOES have much better audio than a modern DVD ! ...... The reason: DVD audio is highly compressed whereas laserdisc
audio is not compressed at all !
Each 12 inch disc can store 1 hour of analog video per side in CLV mode, or only 30 minutes (36 min for PAL) in CAV
mode. Audio is recorded as a stereo PCM digital audio track (or occasionally DTS), and in the case of NTSC discs,
include two additional mono analog audio tracks, though most producers never took advantage of them. There was no
Macrovision or region encoding of the Laserdiscs as is sadly the case in DVD's.
Discs came in two "flavors".... Those recorded in CLV mode where CLV is the mnemonic for Constant Linear Velocity.
The gist of CLV is that the angular velocity varies as you read from different parts of the disc, so that the data passes the
laser pickup at a constant rate. Thus the disc rpm changes to keep a constant bit rate in CLV mode. CAV (Constant
Angular Velocity) recorded discs by comparison, spin at a constant rpm , meaning the data on the outer edge of the disk
goes by the laser pickup detector faster than the data on the inner tracks. All but the very earliest Laserdisc players
supported both formats. CAV recorded disks allowed slo-motion as well as freeze frame and also offered slightly better
picture quality, though the improvement in image quality was barely noticeable over CLV discs.
The Legacy of the Laserdisc

The introduction of DVD has effectively destroyed the market for laserdiscs in the United States. This is a sad end to a
format that was technically many years ahead of it's time. The Laserdisc never achieved the market penetration it should
have, owing to the high cost of a movie (Typically $35 - - - and that was in 1980 dollars !) Part of the reason for the high
cost was the media itself. Laserdiscs are heavy ! Though higher manufacturing costs were partly to blame, most of the
high cost however was actually attributable to the short sightedness of the recording industry itself. The industry kept
the price artificially high to make up for their anticipated losses at the box office. In retrospect, they ended up shooting
themselves in the foot ..... (reminds me of the hilarious 60's rock tune "The Ballad of Irving" with the lyrics:
"He was sittin' there twirlin' his gun around,
And butterfingers Irving gunned himself down!"..... The hundred forty second fastest gun in the West !.....
Even so, laserdisc was the definitive collector's medium of choice for high resolution video. There are approximately
15,000 movie titles recorded on Laserdisc, and some of the finest archive editions of classic movies reside only on LD,
many of which may never be reproduced on DVD due to rights issues and limited potential market. Plus, unlike the
current region-blocked DVD players, any laserdisc player purchased in the United States will be compatible with NTSC
discs imported from Japan or Hong Kong, both of which also had very active laserdisc markets.

Think that clunky Laserdisc player & those old 12" laserdiscs you have kicking around collecting dust are obsolete and
best tossed in the local landfill ? ........... Well, think again !..... Though new titles are no longer being released on LD,
there is a growing group of Laserdisc enthusiasts and collectors who are keeping this wonderful old format alive..... it's
far from dead, and is actually making something of a re-birth !

Not bad for a commercial product released in 1977 !
Note: Many firms are boasting digital transfer of LaserDisc Video to DVD. It's nothing much more than marketing "hype",
or they simply have no clue as to how the video is actually recorded on a LaserDisc. Sounds great, but is completely
misleading, as the video on a LaserDisc is recorded solely as an analog signal !

1 inch Type C (1978) - 1" Type C

In 1978 the 1" Type C format was a crucial landmark in
broadcast video history. This was a high end broadcast format that evolved from 1" Type A, and ended up replacing 2"
Quadruplex.
Instead of 4 heads used for reading/writing in the Quad machines, only one head was used to read/write the video in one
full helical sweep. The design encompassed an Omega wrap, where the tape wrapped nearly around the head
drum...This made it possible to obtain smooth slow motion, picture shuttle and a viewable still frame, none of which
were possible in the Quadruplex systems.
1 inch Type C quickly became the de-facto standard in the broadcast and high end production markets. All network
feeds were soon coming off 1" type C, and all but the smallest TV stations had at least several. The ideal editing format
of its time; it would withstand multiple generations incurred in creating multi-layered effects.
Evolving technology plus high cost of its tape stock resulted in it's demise. (A 1 hr reel of Ampex tape cost approx.
$120 (and that was in 1980 dollars !). This format was widely used by the broadcast industry into the early 1990's
BetaCam ultimately replaced 1 inch type C due to its' low media costs and lightweight compact design, which made it
ideally suited for ENG and EFP applications.
To this day, 1" inch Type C by far, offered the highest image quality of all the analog formats.



Sony Mavica - Mavipak (1981)
Though not in the strictest sense a video camera, the Mavica with it's own unique format, was the first camera to
employ a CCD. It was dubbed the MVC (Magnetic Video Camera). It represented the very first commercially successful
CCD (Charge Coupled Device) camera to break away from traditional film cameras.
The first generation Mavica's recorded off to a 2 inch floppy disc (not a standard 3" common today) to record the
images... This was well before the days of flash memory, so images were recorded on a built in floppy drive... This 2
inch floppy disc later came to be known as the Video Floppy - (VF).
Although the first generation Mavica's had a CCD sensor, they were not entirely digital. In fact; other than the CCD
sensor, there was nothing "digital" about them ! The output of the CCD was immediately converted to an analog signal,
or more accurately; a composite video signal. The saved pictures were viewed on a television screen. There was
nothing digital about the way the images were stored on the floppy disc either. In that sense, the early Mavica's were
something unique and were more similar to a single frame video camera than what one consider to be a digital picture
camera of today... Thus, it's mention here as a part of video history.
The Mavica was quite the rage. No waiting for the film to be processed nor expensive Polaroid film to purchase !
Course the resolution paled in comparison to any film camera of the day, but the Mavica was "cutting edge stuff" and a
must have to any technoid...
A single VF Mavipak 2 inch disc could hold up to 50 images. Each image was recorded on it's own dedicated concentric
track on the floppy drive as an analog composite video signal. Resolution of the CCD was 570x490 pixels. Shutter speed
was fixed at 1/60th of a second.
The next generation increased the pixel resolution to 720,000 pixels; up from 280,000 pixels in the first models... The new
floppy format was known as Hi-VF... It was also backwards compatible with the original VF discs
For whatever reason, Sony clung to the Mavica name for many years even although future generations of the Mavica
went completely digital and did not resemble the first generation Mavica's in the least...
(Picture forthcoming)

M Format (1982)
The M format introduced by RCA and Panasonic, was the first
true component system and RCA responsible for much of it's design won an Emmy Award for technical achievement.
Despite that, the M format later dubbed the MI format, never caught on... The timing was just plain bad as RCA decided
just after to product was released to get out of the broadcast business. In the meantime, Panasonic made little effort to
market it...

The M format later dubbed the MI format, used standard VHS cassettes, but unlike a T-120 VHS cassette that would
record for 2 hrs in SP mode on a VHS deck, the MI format only recorded for 20 minutes using that same tape. It really
moved tape at 8 inches per second !
Though of the same quality as that of BetaCam and less expensive, the format never caught on and is considered quite
rare and on the verge of extinction.
The M format tapes looks at first appearance as a standard VHS tape (that's because it is !) and much footage was lost
by trying to play them in a VHS machine. Naturally, the tape wouldn't play and was sadly discarded in the mistaken belief
it was a bad tape.
The AU-100 pictured here on the left, is a camera dockable VCR. It was record only... Playback required an AU-300 or
the RCA HR-2 editing machine..
Pictured to the right is the RCA HR-2 player/editing deck. It was designed and
manufactured by RCA. Panasonic also re-branded the HR-2 and sold it under their name as the AU-300. Other than the
logo, that was the only difference.. All machines came off RCA manufacturing line.
By 1985, dramatic improvements were made to the format including the use of metal particle tape. The improvements
resulted in the introduction of MII (M-2) which was far more successful than MI. But even that's not saying much, as MII
was never all that successful either !
Today the MI format is extremely rare..


BetaCam (1982)
A professional format widely adopted by the broadcast industry. It's claim to fame so to speak was it's true component
video recording technique that offered substantial improvement in bandwidth, signal to noise ratios and the virtual
elimination of "chroma crawl" found in the earlier "color under" heterodyne formats such as 3/4-U.
It quickly became the standard news gathering format of choice among professionals.
The BetaCam format led to the demise of One Inch Type C.

Funai - Technicolor CVC (1984)

Funai introduced the Compact Video Cassette (CVC) format in 1984. The small cassette size enabled a compact portable
deck design. The format however was initially limited to a 30 minute recording time and used V30 CVC cassettes which
was adequate for field recording but somewhat limited for situations not requiring portability. The cassettes used 1/4"
tape, which was more prone to dropouts than wider tape formats. Lower head writing speeds owing to a smaller head
drum, resulted in lower signal to noise ratios. Even so, picture quality was similar to that of early VHS machines .
The tape cassettes for the day were wonderfully small: measuring about 4.124" x 2.625" x .5" high - or roughly the same
size as a standard day compact audio cassette. Thus at first glance, the cassettes are sometimes confused with
standard audio compact cassettes as they are of similar size and appearance.
All CVC machines were manufactured by Funai. Many models were re-badged and sold under the Technicolor label.
Specs:
Twin Rotary Head Helical Scan

Tape speed: 1.26 ips (32.1 mm/sec)
Video S/N: 43 dB (Y channel)
Resolution: 240 lines
Audio S/N: 40 dB
Audio Freq Response: 100Hz to 8 kHz

8mm also known as Video8 (1984)


Sony introduced this format in 1984. It was a low bandwidth consumer format having 240 lines of resolution - the same
as VHS.
The big advantage of this format was it's compact size - only 2 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches - less than half the size of a standard
VHS cassette. This made possible the development of highly compact camcorders.
Sony apparently also decided to capitalize on the name recognition of 8mm which sounded much like the much older
8mm movie film familiar to consumers. Unfortunately, this led to mass confusion in the marketplace that lingers to this
day. 8mm film and 8mm video are two completely different animals...
Development of this compact format paved the way for the small lightweight camcorders soon to follow.
Unlike VHS or Beta, the 8mm analog format had no separate linear control track. Instead, there is a low frequency
Tracking Pilot signal interleaved on the video tracks.
The plus side of this, is that the Control Pilot is integrally locked to the video tracks and thus no tracking control is
provided or necessary. (as long as the tape hasn't been deformed).
The downside to this scheme is that should the tape have sustained damaged for example in a mis-aligned deck, then
the Pilot Tracking reference relative to the actual position on tape is lost, and proper tracking can never again be realized
without specialized recovery techniques.
Video8 laid the groundwork for later to come, the much improved Hi8 format.

SuperBeta (1985)
Sony introduced SuperBeta at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show with the "new high-end SL-HF900". It offered a
marginal increase in resolution to 285 lines, but at the time was superior to anything else in the low end consumer
marketplace.
Interesting to note that the SL-HF900 was the very first consumer VCR with a jog/shuttle knob !

M-II (1985)
This format was introduced in 1985 by Panasonic Broadcast Systems to go head to head with Sony in the professional
broadcast marketplace.
The M-II format was an enhancement to the M format, by using 1/2 inch metal particle tape - the same size as today's VHS
cassettes. In fact, the cassettes themselves had the identical dimensions to that of standard VHS, though the similarities
ended there.
It was used extensively at NBC but never garnered wide acceptance due to fierce competition from Sony with their
established and highly successful BetaCam line.
Sony had pulled off a marketing coup by instilling the idea into prospective buyers (the post-production houses) that if
you didn't have BetaCam, that somehow you were not a professional. It was pure unadulterated marketing BS... but it
worked !
Identical to BetaCam in many ways, since it also was a professional analog component format... Ironically, image quality
specs were actually slightly superior to that of BetaCam SP. An excellent quality broadcast format that simply came
along a little too late and was never properly marketed to gain wide market share.
Once most of the production houses went with BetaCam, that was the final nail in the coffin for MII.
Sad in a way.... Panasonic never lost the battle because of poor price/performance reasons... in fact; they actually
excelled using that metric...
Bottom line is that they were simply out marketed... (seems to be a recurring theme....)

BetaCam-SP (1986)
An enhancement to the original BetaCam format, It offered increased bandwidth and the ability to record on metal
particle tape compared to the oxide tape used by the standard BetaCam format. The format was used in virtually all TV
stations and was popular right up to the end of the 90's when digital formats were introduced. SP machines were
backwards compatible with standard BetaCam. Ampex also marketed BetaCam-SP machines with the CVR designation.
They were actually re-badged Sony machines.
Today's digital formats - DVCAM for example, offers better quality at a much reduced price. Even so, well used (read: half
dead) BetaCam SP machines are commanding nothing short of outrageous prices even on eBay. From a technical as
well as cost - benefit standpoint, It almost defies logic....
Several factors account for the format successfully clinging on ....

Many post production houses are locked in to the BetaCam SP format and can't afford to take the expensive plunge of
going all digital all at once.
Ad agencies (who "butter the production house's bread") have historically been slow as molasses to adopt and accept
any new technology - especially (and ironically) even if it is less expensive. Agencies tend to judge quality by it's price
tag and "snob appeal" rather than by any measure of technical merit. Agencies resisted the switch from quad to the
superior 1 inch Type C format for as long as possible - and equally so, with the transition from 1" Type C to BetaCam.
Today, nothing much has changed.... They are still digging in their heels - kicking , screaming and bemoaning the new
vastly superior DV formats. They're a nervous lot, and quite unwilling to tamper with anything that's worked well in the
past. I have little doubt that some are still lamenting the downfall of the vacuum tube....
Also, Sony has no intention of killing off it's highly lucrative "cash cow" - and who could blame them ! BetaCam SP has
a huge installed base plus "snob appeal" - a winning combination and a marketing department's dream come true. Even
so, Sony sees the ensuing inevitable. To keep BetaCam alive, Sony introduced Digital BetaCam also called DigiBeta)
which (despite the name) isn't a variation of BetaCam at all, but rather a new compressed digital format. In reality, the
new format is much closer and akin to DVCAM or DVCPRO than it is to BetaCam, but anything that has a BetaCam badge
will command a much higher price due solely to the "snob appeal" factor.
Video companies being themselves deeply involved in the "Image Business", are acutely sensitive to having the most
recognized name in professional hardware (sometimes at the expense of not embracing superior technology).
The writing is on the wall however. With advances in technology already resulting in vastly superior performance and
price considerations, it's merely a matter of time before BetaCam SP goes the way of 1 inch Type C.
Don't read this wrong however: BetaCam-SP was in my opinion, (and rightfully so).... Sony's most successful
professional broadcast format to date.

3/4 U-matic SP (1986)
Sony in 1986 introduced the SP (Superior Performance) enhancements to the 3/4" U-matic format in an attempt to keep
the highly successful, long running format alive.
Resolution was increased by extending the FM carrier and using a higher energy tape that resulted in 330 lines as
opposed to the original 240 lines. Though S-Vhs had greater resolution (400 lines) the 3/4-U format was technically the
superior format, having a greater s/n ratio particularly in the chroma channel.
3/4-U-SP became the format of choice for the professional Industrial user.
Though not anywhere's near high end broadcast standards, the 3/4-Umatic format was perhaps the most successful
format of all time, considering the relatively narrow video market in that period... When video was first starting to
"explode", 3/4" U-matic owing to it's relatively low cost / high performance ratio, became the most coveted of formats
other than broadcast Quad or the later 1" Type C... No other format considering the potential market, ever garnered
such a deep penetration.
U-Matic captured nearly 100% of the industrial market and initially a solid 70% of the broadcast ENG market for News
acquisition. It even made it's way down to the high end consumer market who preferred something better than VHS.
Though VHS far surpassed 3/4 U-matic in terms of raw numbers sold, 3/4 U-Matic remains the undisputed champ in
terms of penetration of its' potential market !
S-VHS was soon to follow.. But S-VHS though offering superior resolution, could not compete with 3/4-Umatic's superior
signal to noise ratios - especially in the chroma channel. In simple terms: 3rd generation 3/4 U-matic, simply held up
better & looked cleaner than 3rd generation S-VHS. (There's more to video specs to be considered, than just raw
resolution). Despite 3/4-Umatic initially being 2 to 3 times the price of S-VHS, the technical savvy broadcast and
industrial users "voted with their wallets " and stayed with 3/4-U until BetaCam came along.

S-VHS (1987)
As an enhancement to the VHS format, JVC introduced the S-VHS format in 1987. It offered increased bandwidth both by
expanding the FM carrier frequency and thru the use of metal particle tape.
Though "hyped" by overzealous marketing types as a true component system, it was in fact only a "quasi" component
format. The video signal was was separated into only two components: Y (luminance) and C (chrominance). BetaCam &
MII by comparison, were true component recording systems. Signals in both those truly professional component
formats, were separated & recorded as Y, R-Y and B-Y.
Though resolution was increased to 400 lines, the signal to noise ratio, especially in the chroma channel was deplorable
by professional standards. Thus, it was marketed and forever relegated to being a high end consumer format. Though S-
VHS editing systems came along, they were never accepted by the professional community, due to the poor signal to
noise ratios with resulting high multi-generation losses.
Nevertheless, S-VHS editors were downright inexpensive compared to 3/4" (3/4" tape stock alone was $34/hr by
comparison - and that being in 1977 dollars) and S-VHS found it's niche in the low end industrial and home based
business markets. It was very popular for wedding videographers.
Later, it went on to become a popular consumer format for those that desired something better than standard VHS.
The development of the consumer digital formats such as Digital8 and MiniDV spelled it's slow demise. But like all 1/2"
analog formats, it is quite robust..... far more so than it's newer digital counterparts. Most S-VHS tapes like it's VHS
"brothers", survived even the ravages of "Katrina".
Amazingly, we are still able to recover most VHS & S-VHS even today - more than a year later...... Most MiniDV and
Digital8 Katrina damaged tapes are now unrecoverable. To say that VHS/S-VHS is a robust format, is perhaps a gross
understatement...

ED-Beta (1988)
Sony demonstrated it's new ED (Extended definition) Beta format in a last ditch effort to salvage the original "Betamax"
format.
It was a half hearted attempt however (at least from a marketing perspective), as should it have been too successful, the
sales could potentially bite into their professional markets.. (the format was that good !)
This format was years if not a full decade ahead of it's time - offering 520 lines of video resolution using metal particle
tape. In the video history timeline, NOTHING from that period could even come close ! Though named ED-Beta, the ED
format however, is not compatible with Beta or SuperBeta. In reality, it's so different than Betamax, that It really should
be considered a different format. ED Beta was targeted at the high end of the consumer/semi-pro format markets,
though just as easily could have been targeted at the broadcast ENG marketplace. Though no longer in use, it offered
superb quality. The format never made wide in-roads into the marketplace and is considered relatively rare today.
So far advanced was the format, that it took another 7 years until the introduction of MiniDV before anything better in the
consumer marketplace came along to technically surpass it.
The only weakness (if it could be called that) to the ED Beta System was not the format itself, but rather for the first time,
the resolution capability of the recorder, surpassed the resolution of the consumer video cameras of the day ! The
weakest link was the quality that could be output from the video camera used !
It's failure was due to in large part to Sony's not wanting it to compete with it's lucrative broadcast ENG acquisition
formats, all the while being positioned out of the price range of the general consumer.
My personal opinion is that it could have easily become the S-VHS "Dragon Slayer" - not only of S-VHS, but also Sony's
later 8mm and even Hi8 formats . Alas, Sony management apparently decided it was far more important to protect it's
own lucrative "turf" , than to widely promote or price position ED Beta .

Perhaps a general commentary, but history has shown that consumers will always opt for smaller size and "wiz-bang"
useless features over image quality.

Or as H L Menckin ( a world renowned economist) always stated: " No one has EVER gone broke by underestimating the
taste of the American public"

In light of today's infomercials and advertising in general, I have little doubt to suspect the validity of his
observation.........

Hi8 (1989)
1989 marked the year in history that Sony introduced the Hi8 format.
Compared to it's 8mm predecessor, the Hi8 format achieved 400 lines of resolution. Hi8 machines were backwards
compatible with the 8mm format and had slightly better image quality than S-VHS which soon led to the development of
Hi8 editing systems.
The Hi8 Metal Particle cassettes were almost 1/2 the size of VHS, measuring a paltry 2.5 by 3.75 inches and even smaller
than the VHS-C cassettes. This paved the way for high quality yet extremely compact and light weight camcorders,
where the attributes of small size and light weight, far outweighed
Though not the quality of today's DV or Digital8, the quality is perfectly acceptable for all but the most discriminating
home video consumer. Sony subsequently manufactured a long list of quality Hi8 camcorders that are still common
today.
The Hi8 Format is very similar to standard 8. The main difference being that the FM deviation was increased in the Hi8
format in order that more resolution could be realized in the luminance channel.




DV (1995)

Also known as the DVC format, this was the first widely accepted digital format to make in-roads into the home market.
The format uses 1/4" tape and records video at a standard 5:1 compression ratio. This technology formed the basis for
the MiniDV, DVCAM and DVCPRO formats used by both consumers & professionals.
It boasts 500 lines of resolution with true digital image quality.
The term "DV", merely identifies the form structure of the data stream....... In fact: MiniDV and DVCAM have identical
video data steams. How they are laid out on tape however, are quite different.

MiniDV (1995)
MiniDV uses the same exact DV format, but simply records on a smaller cassette using a smaller 10 micron track pitch
(in essence: the distance between tracks) when recorded in standard SP mode.
In fact; there is little difference between the consumer MiniDV format and the professional DVCAM format. In fact; the
video data streams themselves, are identical !
Read more on the DVCAM format below......

DVCAM (1996)
The professional user required slightly better specs and a more reliable format than did the consumer using the DV or
MiniDV format. To better handle the rigors of editing, track width was increased to 15 microns as compared to MiniDV's
10 microns, resulting in more precise editing.
Unlike DV genre to which MiniDV belongs, MiniDV supports only audio unlock mode, DVCAM instead, employs lock
mode audio sampling where the the audio sampling frequency is synchronized or "locked" to the video sampling clock.
Lock mode maintains high compatibility with the higher formats and yields smoother transitions during audio editing.
(Click here to learn more about Lock Mode).... Most DVCAM decks are backwards compatible with MiniDV but only
in the SP mode.
This format is marketed and regarded as a true professional format.
DVCAM machines are backward compatible with MiniDV SP tapes, but not those recorded in LP (Long Play) mode. Note
however, that there are some critical differences between MiniDV and DVCAM. Click Here to read more.....


Digital8 (1999)
This format records the same data stream as MiniDV and DVCAM, and for practical purposes the video DataStream is
technically the same as the DV or MiniDV formats.
The only real difference is that Sony does this on less expensive 8mm tape. A 120 min 8mm cassette will hold up to 1
hour of Digital8 video.
A major benefit to selecting the Digital8 format, is that in addition to offering identical quality to that of MiniDV, most
Digital8 camcorders or decks offer full backwards playback compatibility with the earlier Video8 (8mm) or Hi8 formats.
One machine will playback all three 8mm formats !
(Quite versatile ! - & apparently Sony learned an important lesson after it's Betamax debacle).


Digital VHS D-VHS (2001)
JVC (the company that developed the original VHS format) introduced Digital VHS (D-VHS). Unlike many other digital
formats, D-VHS is totally uncompressed - yielding superb High Definition images twice the resolution of DVD. Being
uncompressed, motion artifacts and mosaic banding will be things of the past. File sizes aren't small however.... A 60
minute program will eat up 150 Gigabytes of hard drive space. The huge file sizes will make "movie swapping" over the
net impractical - even with high bandwidth connections (at least here in the US).
To thwart machine to machine copies being made, a new Macrovision copy protection scheme known as High Definition
Copy Protection (HDCP) system was developed by JVC, which is similar in function to the Content Scrambling System
(CSS) on a DVD.
As a side benefit, D-VHS machines will also be backwards compatible with standard VHS decks, so you'll still be able to
play your old VHS tapes (at least til they eventually disintegrate).
Like any other tape based format, magnetic tape is not an archival format. However, perfect digital copies can be made
every 5 years or so onto new media.
D-VHS may give the reigning DVD and even emerging Blue Ray DVD technology a run for its' money, as pure
uncompressed High Definition Digital Video has to be seen to be fully appreciated. The battle lines are drawn !
However, until High Definition TV's become the "norm", D-VHS might be a late comer in the bloody format wars.
Since originally writing this, D-VHS has clearly lost out to the likes of Blue-Ray. D-VHS is far the superior format in terms
of image quality, but as usual, that was not enough to make it a winner in the eyes of the consumer. Part of the problem
in my opinion was the VHS name that carried with it the connotation of it being old technology. It really was a modern
digital format on par with the latest DV formats, and using half inch video tape made it a very robust format. Close to the
quality and robustness of DigiBeta, but for much - much less....

Image Updates - behind the scenes
Here it is towards the end of June, 2003 and we're finally "getting around" to updating some of our equipment images.
The wildflowers here in Maine are in full swing (along with the black flies) and what better "studio" to serve as a
backdrop - black flies notwithstanding.....
All the hard drives were loaded with video and everything is now tied up for the day doing DVD burns. Alas, an
unexpected "free" day to get it all done.
So, got out the garden tractor - hooked up the cart and drove off to the back pasture with equipment riding in tow
behind. Haying begins in another 3 weeks up here, so it's either do it now or wait til early next summer again..... (and
I've been putting this off for too long already).
So got done what we could get done in the one day allotted, but still have more to get. Naturally, everything seems to
take much longer than planned.
If anyone is expecting images of the Quads, VPR-1 and VPR-2B 1" machines against a wildflower backdrop, then you'll
have to do it yourself ! I am NOT dragging those back there !


A vast wealth of priceless video resides especially on the old historical formats.
The history of video continues to evolve now with Blu- Ray, Hard Disk Drive & Solid State
Camcorders
I suppose this page will always be a work in progress..
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Last Modified: June 27, 2011

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