Recording video in the 1950s

[Yellowtriumph]

 ... I should note that all of these were open reel formats. Cassettes are whole other story.

The ACR25 was a cassette based quadruplex  VTR. It was made to play out commercials. I've never seen one and I doubt if any survive in the UK .  http://www.digitrakcom.com/literature/ACR25.pdf   ...

For my sins I spent time working on the ACR25. Very clever machine but perhaps not as entirely reliable as the Ampex 'blurb' would have you believe. We would not use it on the main ITV channel for commercials and a whole days worth of commercial breaks would be compiled in advance or overnight and transmitted from a 'conventional' open reel VTR machine. It would be used to transmit 'live' commercials on the C4 channel (in the days when C4 was distributed via a local ITV station specifically to have commercials added to the feed) as the powers that be must have considered the risk of a cock up being not worth the cost of compiling commercial breaks in advance. I have an Ampex MkXX headwheel panel from an ACR in my study where I use it as a doorstop. I think I gave another one to GoldenAge tv?

But having said that it was a very well respected machine. RCA beat Ampex to it with their TCR 100 spot playout machine - it was much more mechanical in implementation but we found it to be generally just as reliable as the Ampex machines. 

ACR = Ampex Cassette Recorder
TCR = Television Cartridge Recorder

The difference? A matter of patented nomenclature so I was told!

I think you mentioned earlier the Sony Hi-Band format. The IBA did not really consider this to be broadcast format and only permitted its use for News and Current Affairs acquisition - some companies stretched that definition to the limit. From memory I think Channel TV in the Channel Islands were allowed to use it for day to day programming because they couldn't afford to operate Quadruplex machines.