14-11-2023, 11:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 14-11-2023, 11:25 AM by ppppenguin.)
Time for a quick summary.
The story of recording video starts with Baird in the 1920s and 30s. The 30 line signal could be recorded on 78rpm discs. Don McLean's excellent book "Restoring Baird's Image" tells the story. Well worth reading if you can get a copy.
In the first high definition era from 1936, the only way to record video was on cine film. This was widely done but it was expensive, not very satisfactory and there was no possibility of immediate playback. There were various attempts to record video on magnetic tape but none was commercially successful. In 1956 Ampex devised the quadruplex system. The trick here, as on almost all subsequent VTRs, was to spin the heads to give a high head-to-tape speed.
After quadruplex, professional and domestic VTRs all used helical scan** until the end of the tape era in the 2000s. Gradually computer disks and then solid state memory replaced tape which is now only of interest to archivists and vintage enthusiasts.
Recording pictures has gone from almost impossible to utterly trivial.
**Barring a few minor outliers mentioned in the thread which used linear recording.
The story of recording video starts with Baird in the 1920s and 30s. The 30 line signal could be recorded on 78rpm discs. Don McLean's excellent book "Restoring Baird's Image" tells the story. Well worth reading if you can get a copy.
In the first high definition era from 1936, the only way to record video was on cine film. This was widely done but it was expensive, not very satisfactory and there was no possibility of immediate playback. There were various attempts to record video on magnetic tape but none was commercially successful. In 1956 Ampex devised the quadruplex system. The trick here, as on almost all subsequent VTRs, was to spin the heads to give a high head-to-tape speed.
After quadruplex, professional and domestic VTRs all used helical scan** until the end of the tape era in the 2000s. Gradually computer disks and then solid state memory replaced tape which is now only of interest to archivists and vintage enthusiasts.
Recording pictures has gone from almost impossible to utterly trivial.
**Barring a few minor outliers mentioned in the thread which used linear recording.
www.borinsky.co.uk Jeffrey Borinsky www.becg.tv
