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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 09.4
Dead medium: Dead Videotape Formats
From ianc_AT_islandnet.com (Ian Campbell)
Source: Video Review, April 1991, pp. 32, 34-35
"In 1963, the very first home videotape recorder appeared in the Nieman-Marcus
Christmas catalog. It was from Ampex; it was called the Signature V; it
cost $30,000 (...) It was the size of a coffin; it weighed more. (...)
"Sony, active in the industrial video arena for years, introduced its CV
series half-inch, black/white open-reel format in 1965. (...) 'CV' ostensibly
stood for 'consumer video,' and machines actually were sold to home users in such
big-ticket emporiums as Neiman-Marcus. The first CV machine (which weighed in
at a mere 70 pounds) even had a built in nine-inch monitor that popped up for
viewing. The format initially produced jittery, flickering images, but incorporated
some features that later became well loved, such as timer recording. Although
it didn't make much of a splash in the stores, CV made it into some school systems.
One (((Video Review))) editor remembers making his television debut on his grammar
school's closed circuit TV channel, which employed CV equipment. By the end of
the 60's, Sony went back to the drawing board.
"AKAI showed two different quarter-inch open reel systems around 1969:
one B/W, the other colour. Having led the open-reel audio business, AKAI mistakenly
figured success in one area guaranteed success in another. A couple years later,
AKAI introduced the half-inch B&W VT cassette system for shooting on the go. This
faded quite quickly.
"1972 saw the advent of Cartivision, which housed half-inch tape in a clunky
cassette roughly the size of a hardcover book. The cassette employed a coaxial
system wherein the two tape reels were stacked on top of each other. Like Sony's
CV system, this format only recorded every other video field, resulting in a soft
flickering picture == but at least it was in colour. The system made it to Sears,
and some stores even rented special cassettes that could be watched only once
because they were designed not to rewind in home machines.
"The format failed almost as soon as it appeared,
owing to a lack of software, mechanical unreliability and
massive consumer indifference.
"Just before Cartivision's last rites, Sony bounced back with its U-Matic
cassette system, which used three- quarter-inch tape and recorded colour signals
with good quality. It even had stereo sound. The format's high price and relative
complexity made it a dud in the marketplace, but a redesigned U-Matic was pitched
to the pro market and the format has had success there ever since.
"Famed long-playing microgroove record inventor Peter Goldmark of CBS labs came
up with EVR (Electron Video Recording), a film based colour-video cartridge
system that played back on TV sets. Limitations in playing time, lack of recording
ability and a big yawn from Hollywood caused CBS to kill the fledgling format
just before it was due to hit dealers' shelves in 1971.
"Meanwhile, RCA had not one but two different versions of Selectavision
in the early 70's. The first and most advanced was Selectavision Holotape, an
experimental system that embossed 3-D images onto rolls of film. The second was
Selectavision Magtape, which used three- quarter-inch tapes similar to Sony's
U-Matic format. It also featured an in-cartridge scanning scheme that actually
shoved the video head drum partially into the cassette.
"Neither ever made it to market, but RCA's too-hip
'Selectavision' trade name later cropped up in the
company's VHS tape and CED discplayer lines.
"The cartridge of Panasonic's mid-70's Omnivision I system housed only
a single reel of tape. This system sucked the tape out of the cartridge and wound
it on a take up reel inside the transport. This meant you could never remove a
cassette in the middle of a program.
"As VHS was catching fire, Dutch electronics giant Philips unveiled its VCR
format (they could only register the trademark in Europe). It was created for
the European PAL standard, so when the US market adopted it, it could record only
50 minutes in standard mode. Thinner 60-minute tapes and a half-speed mode were
added, but it was a case of too little, too late.
"Philips and Germany's Grundig teamed up on a perfected version of VCR called
Video 2000. It used an extraordinarily sophisticated two-sided half-inch
cassette that could be flipped over for eight hours of recording time.
"Sanyo's V-Cord (B&W) and V-Cord II (Colour) used cartridges vaguely
reminiscent of 8-track tapes. The first format was limited to 20 minutes of recording
time, while V-Cord II had bigger aspirations. This was the first video format
to offer two speeds ((('quality' and 'economy'))) as well as freeze-frame and
slow-motion. The V-Cords (((failed))) because of mechanical unreliability and
lack of interest from other manufacturers.
"Matsushita's VX format was marketed here by Quasar as 'The Great Time
Machine.' The half-inch system featured a coaxial cartridge (like Cartivision)
and in- cartridge scanning (like RCA's Magtape). In 1976, it one-upped Betamax
by offering a two hour recording time.
"Clunky cassettes and a deck that was a mechanical
nightmare, compared to relatively streamlined models in
the beta format, made this one easy for Sony to beat.
"Japan's Funai joined forces with Technicolor (...) to create the Compact Video
Cassette (CVC) system. This was the lightest and most portable recording system
of its time. Widely known as the 'Technicolor Format,' it used quarter-inch cassettes
that were generally only available in a 30-minute length == a factor that contributed
to the format's downfall.
"In the late 80's, a few desperate retailers stuck
with large inventories of unsold CVC units tried to unload
them as 8mm VCR's."
DEAD VIDEO TAPE FORMATS
Ampex Signature I (1963)
Sony CV B/W (1965)
Akai 1/4 inch B/W & Colour (1969)
Cartivision/Sears (1972)
Sony UOMatic (197?)
Sony-Matic 1/2" B/W (197?)
EIAJ-1 1/2" (197?)
RCA Selectavision Magtape (1973)
Akai VT-100 1/4 inch portable (1974)
Panasonic Omnivision I (1975)
Philips "VCR" (197?)
Sanyo V-Cord, V-Cord II (197?)
Akai VT-120 (1976)
Matsushita/Quasar VX (1976)
Philips & Grundig Video 2000 (1979)
Funai/Technicolor CVC (1984)
Sony Betamax (???)
(((The dates given here are rough "death" dates, which
often correspond fairly closely to their "birth"
dates...)))
(((Thanks to... kaboom_AT_usit.net, pkstveng_AT_aol.com))
Ian Campbell ianc_AT_islandnet.com
http://www.islandnet.com/~ianc/dm/dm.html
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