Videotapes

Video Tapes

The first video tape was actually a modified audiotape, developed in 1951 by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson for Bing Crosby Entertainment. Before that, all films and TV shows were either recorded onto 35-milimeter film stock or broadcast live and recorded through a process called Kinescoping. In Kinescoping, a film camera was pointed at a TV monitor and synchronized to match its scanning rate, giving the impression that the show had been filmed. Both of these methods consumed a great deal of space, and in the case of the latter, were shockingly inconvenient and very low-quality. They also used optical tape, which was sensitive to light, and did not age well. However, video tapes offered a more convenient and portable system, that also used much longer-lasting magnetic tape. NBC’s The Jonathan Winters Show, from 1956, was the first TV program to broadcast videotape footage. The U-Matic, the first true videotape cassettes were produced in 1969, with the U-Matic player following in 1971, although they didn’t become popular until the mid 1970’s, when the competing Betamax and VHS formats were introduced. The format remained popular until 1997, when DVDs were introduced.

S-VHS Video Tapes

The S-VHS or Super VHS was invented in 1987 as a successor to the VHS format. The tapes used a new kind of recording frequency which produced a 60% increase in picture detail, making it even sharper and clearer than live broadcast television. Unfortunately, the new format failed to address problems of noise or color resolution and did nothing to improve the audio quality. Because of these and other factors, S-VHS failed to make any kind of noticeable impact on the home video market. Consumers were unwilling to buy entirely new VCRs in order to only get a partial increase in resolution, and S-VHS cassettes quickly dropped off the market. However, the S-VHS camcorder did become popular, especially among lower-budget TV productions. Like regular videotapes, however, they’ve been almost completely edged out by digital media.

8mm Video Tape Players

8-milimeter film was very common with camcorder users in the mid-eighties, when Sony introduced the HandyCam, a smaller, more affordable model of camcorder than any VHS or Betamax model. 8mm video tapes can either be played on a separate tape player designed for the smaller tapes or played in a regular VCR by putting them in a plastic case designed to fit in a VHS-size slot.