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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 comprised of the formats we currently support. As time allows, more will be added. Thus it'll always be perhaps, a work in progress !
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
| 2 inch quadruplex | Skip Field CV | Pilot Tone A | EIAJ | Betamax |
| VHS | VHS-C | 3/4 U-matic | Sony EV | 1 inch Type A |
| 1 inch Type C | M Format | Betacam | 8mm Video8 | Superbeta |
| M-II | Betacam SP | 3/4 U-matic SP | S-VHS | ED Beta |
| Hi8 | DV | Quasar VX Cartridge | MiniDV | DVcam |
| IVC 600 - 900 | AKAI 1/4" | VCord I & II | Digital8 | Reel to Reel |
| Funai Technicolor | Shibaden - Apeco | Concord 12 ips | LaserDisc | Philips LDL-1000 |
Orange Background - Not currently supported
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 !
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 !
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 !
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.
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.
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.
- Sony CV FormatSony 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. 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.
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....
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.
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 !
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 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 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 format 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 released this machine as a significant improvement over the skip field format machines sold by Sony. Part of the better quality 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 available 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 forthcoming 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 like EIAJ, Skip Field, & Shibaden, all used the very same 1/2 inch tape stock.
Shibaden 1/2 " Helical (1967) - (Also re-badged as Apeco and Bell & Howell)
Shibaden released this format in 1967. The format 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 in the format, was the diameter of the 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 he video tracks, the Shibaden format, though 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.
(Picture of the Shibaden/Apeco will be added this spring on the next image update)
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.
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 !
- 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 just before the EIAJ-2 color standard was agreed upon.
Sony apparently thought this machine would be the adopted basis for the new EIAJ-2 standard, but marketing "jumped the gun" 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 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 compatible with the former. Though both machines are rare, the AV-5000 is becoming very difficult to find.
Though both VTR's were EIAJ-1 compatible for monochrome, neither model was EIAJ-2 color compatible. Both machines are similar in appearance to the Sony AV-8600. We support the AV-5000A but not the earlier model.
The only difference between EIAJ-2 and Pilot Tone, is the way the color information is processed. In fact Pilot Tone tapes will play back on EIAJ equipment fine. It will just be in black & white monochrome.
Introduced
in 1969 but not widely adopted until the following year, EIAJ (
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.
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 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.
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 |
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.
- VR-1000 The Quasar Great Time MachineIntroduced 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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"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 !
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. 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.
The M format introduced by Panasonic, used a ½" component system recording method similar to BetaCam, but processed the signal somewhat differently.
Though of the same quality as that of BetaCam and less expensive, the format never caught on and is considered quite rare.
The M format tapes looks at first appearance as a standard VHS tape (that's because it originally was !) 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.
By 1985, dramatic improvements were made to the format including the use of metal particle tape. The improvements resulted in the introduction of MII
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.
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
Sony introduced this format in 1984. It was a low bandwidth consumer format having 240 lines of resolution. 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. 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.
The downside to this scheme is :
should the tape have sustained damaged via playback in a mis-aligned deck for example, then the Pilot Tracking reference is lost and proper tracking can never again be realized without specialized recovery techniques.
Though ED Beta was a far superior format in terms of image quality, Video8 offered the development capability of near shirt pocket sized camcorders. Small size in lieu of image quality became the mantra of the times.
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 consumer marketplace.
Interesting to note that the SL-HF900 was the very first consumer VCR with a jog/shuttle knob !
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.
Image quality was actually slightly superior to that of BetaCam SP. An excellent quality broadcast format that simply came along a little too late to gain wide market share.
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 BetaCam SX (also known as 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.
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.
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...
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 .
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.
