Recording video in the 1950s

[DrStrangelove]

Jack went to Ampex near the end of the year and came back with the news that it was over, Ampex had a better recorder.

Bing sent another $50,000 check to Ampex for the first of their video recorders.

It was delivered to his TV station in Washington State.

Ampex demonstrated their rotary head machine on 14 April 1956; CBS cancelled their order with BCE and bought the Ampex recorder. The Mark III recorders were then converted to wide band instrumentation recorders and sold.

Yup, looks like Bing bought a VR1000 (or more likely a Mark IV).

[LENINGRAD T2]

By 1959, Ampex was everywhere

   

[LENINGRAD T2]

In Europe, Philips made a major contribution to the development of video recording. The EL3400 /1964/ is considered the first commercial home VTR and the N1500 /1971/ the first VCR. A few years ago both devices worked.

   
   

[ppppenguin]

The EL3400 is a very rare machine. It was used in industry and education but I can't imagine many were used in homes.

The 1500 really was the first true domestic VTR.

[LENINGRAD T2]

EL3400 weighs approximately 50 kg. This greatly discourages any activity with this device. But now I'm starting to look favorably at this giant. The Peto Scott company produced a clone - with the 405 line standard?.

[Mike Watterson]

I remember repairing / servicing some N1500s in late 1970s. Like a Meccano kit inside. Never seen an EL3400. All the N1500s & N1700s and Umatics we saw were all Education, Government, Hospitals (recording of operations for training) or Corporate (like Insurance co. training). The reel to reel all EIAJ 1/2" mono with cameras, either industrial or military users, though some had option slots or locations for "Colour under" kits. But by the time single tube colour cameras were affordable it was N1500, N1700 or U-Matic and then Betamax & VHS.

Didn't U-Matic predate N1500 by a year?

The oldest single tube colour I saw was mounted on the hospital theatre lamp arm and had a 19" form factor control box. Regular call outs to get the blood colour correct! Usually I had to work on it during an operation as that theatre was so busy. I carefully counted my tools. :D

Betamax and VHS were the first we saw with private owners.

[DrStrangelove]

I spent 3 years servicing N1500s in the 3M cassette tape QA test section.

Could never get the dropout tests to correlate properly for some reason.

At the time my weekly salary would have bought two VC60 cassettes.

For some reason there's an N1500, an N1502, and an N1700 upstairs.

[Mike Watterson]

Yes, at release the N1500 was cheaper than a U-Matic, but still as much as a small car! About £600 in 1972 is maybe close to ten thousand now.

[LENINGRAD T2]

Regular call outs to get the blood colour correct! Usually I had to work on it during an operation as that theatre was so busy. I carefully counted my tools. :D

Has the number of tools always been correct?

Everything indicates that both devices need to be turned on. I see strong support on this forum, so success will be guaranteed. There is another Philips in the queue, but it will be a TV. Comparing the prices of various devices to the price of a car is very accurate. Pre-war televisions were also compared to cars of the time.

[ppppenguin]

Almost any 625 helical scan VTR could record 405. There was almost nothing in them that knew about line rate. Main exception was the drop out compensatory if there was one.