Video Recording Technology

Its Impact on Media and Home Entertainment

Aaron Foisi Nmungwun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136466045
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Video recording has recently become an important phenomenon. Although the majority of American homes have at least one video recording set, not much is known about video recording's past and about its continual effect on affiliated industries. This text documents the history of magnetic recording, stressing its importance in consumer as well as commercial applications from the advent of magnetism through the invention of such new technologies as Digital Audio Tape (DAT), High Definition Television (HDTV), and a multitude of sophisicated Digital Video Cassette Recorders.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Television has developed enormously since the days of the Nipkow disc. In the same manner, since its inception in 1956, the videotape recorder has also undergone considerable development, and it is now an essential element in the video environment.

The invention of the videotape recording process was made possible by both the prior knowledge of magnetic audio recording techniques, and the needs of television. The general concensual view of this history has magnetic recording inscribed as a post-World War II innovation that was pioneered in the Third Reich, whereas videotape recording is seen as its off shoot invented in the United States, and a little over a decade old. There is little validity in this.

The technique of audio magnetic recording has been understood ever since the late 1800s, and the essentials of the design problem was understood by the early 1900s. The technology underwent a lengthy developmental period. During the 1920s and 1930s, efforts were made not only to improve on the magnetic recording technique but, even more significantly, to find uses for it. Suggestions for uses included its utility as a stenographic machine; a message recorder; a medium for teaching in schools; and a means of improving sound on talking pictures. These potentials and the prototypes created to exploit them were practically unknown in the United States, with the result that the principles of magnetic recording attained an advanced stage in Europe especially in Germany by the early 1930s.

Television, on the other hand, was in a mechanical prototype stage in the mid 1920s, nevertheless, this period also saw the initial efforts to record television images. Shortly after John L. Baird introduced his mechanically scanning television, he began a series of experiments researching, among other subjects, stereoscopic, color, long-distance transmission, low light cameras, and “the act of recording television pictures,” which he called “phonovision.” He recorded a television signal on a phonograph disc using a “Phonoscope.” However he soon abandoned such electronic recording systems, although successive attempts at recording television images were made in Europe by others in the 1920s and early 1930s. Instead, film became the preferred medium, the first postwar film recordings of television images being made in 1946 at the Naval Air Station at Anacostia, DC.

Film allowed the emerging television networks in the United States to compensate for time differentials and, it also permitted stations not connected by radio relay or coaxial cable to utilize network services. Television personnel could attend to other duties when a film program was telecast or avoid working nights with considerable savings in labor costs. Recorded programs also provided a reserve program for emergency or contingency purposes, but film was itself costly and slow.

In April 1956, the first commercial videotape recorder was introduced, and with it came the contemporary system of recording the television image. The videotape recorder, a device that recorded, on a strip of magnetic tape, the electrical signals emerging from a television camera system, was very similar in principle to the audiotape recorder, which also recorded, on a narrow strip of magnetic tape, the electrical signal that emerged from a microphone system. But unlike the audiotape recorder, the videotape recorder recorded both sound and picture, with instant replay, but without visible deterioration.

Videotape's many advantages, including its immediate playback functions, elimination of development (chemical processing), and the capability of being re-used made it an invaluable asset to the television industry. This was in fact a new technology that cut costs by saving time or physical capital, and improved the quality of the product by making the results of the work more predictable. The increase in videotaped programs and advertising commercials were prompted by similar economic motivations as well as by the industry's awareness of videotape's quality. By the late 1950s, the physical attributes and economic gains that resulted from the videotape recorder were felt throughout television and affiliated industries.

The videotape recorder has reached into the home. The popularity of the videocassette recorder (VCR), at present, can only be compared to that of color television in the 1960s. As of the first quarter of 1988, almost 52 million VCRs have been sold in the United States accounting for 58% penetration in American homes with a thriving software business. Further more, the consumers’ interest in VCRs has been boosted at home by accessibility to such services as cable and pay television.

This book is centered on the technology of the videotape recorder, tracing its roots into the early 1900s and before. The eventual conjunction between audio magnetic recording and television that resulted in videotape recording is the central focus of this study, which utilizes both primary and secondary sources in recovering this history.

This chapter, an introduction that apart from providing an insight into topics discussed in the following chapters, includes a brief suggestion toward a theoretical model of technological change that this study could illustrate.

Chapter 2 examines attempts to reproduce sound in the prephonograph era. The evolution of magnetism and electricity leading to the development of the first authentic recording devices is recorded in chapter 2.

Chapter 3 examines the early development of magnetic recording through various scientific and trade debates over the theories and applications of the different aspects of magnetic recording technology through the late 1800s. This early history is critical in shaping the development of magnetic recording. (In fact, when Valdemar Poulsen of Sweden invented the “Telegraphone,” its main uses were for telephony and telegraphy purposes, contrary to the major uses of audiotape recorders today.) As advances were made in the field, Germany became the center for the magnetic recording industry, with a remarkable level of technical and commercial achievement in the 1920s and 1930s.

The fourth chapter examines the German advances in magnetic recording in the immediate prewar and World War II period as two industrial giants—Allgemeine Electricitaets Gesellschaft (AEG) or General Electric Company, and IG Farben, a chemical conglomerate—introduced magnetic tape recording technology to German radio and other users. A series of postwar studies organized by the victorious Allies in Germany and some private initiatives were instrumental in transferring this expertise from Germany to the United States and elsewhere as the basis for present-day audio magnetic recording industry worldwide. This chapter thus examines the introduction of magnetic tape recording via these means into the United States. Ampex Corporation became the first successful company to produce a commercially viable audio magnetic tape recorder in the United States in 1947. A general hostility to broadcasting of any “canned” materials existed within the American broadcasting industry before the introduction of magnetic tape in 1947; therefore, the development of magnetic tape recording as well as Ampex Corporation's ultimate success and public acceptance of the medium are emphasized.

The fifth chapter surveys the various nonmagnetic method of television recording in use before the introduction of videotape recording technology. Particular emphasis is placed on the kinescope, which was the primary system that sustained television recording until the advent of videotape recorders and beyond.

In chapter 6 the “marriage” between audio magnetic recorder and television, which leads to videotape recording techniques, is examined. Videotape recording is compared with audio magnetic and efforts made by the Crosby Enterprises are analyzed. The breakthrough by Ampex Corporation heralding the advent of videotape recorder paved the way for the participation of other companies interested in the field. Ampex's technological advances in both black-and-white and color videotape recorders, in the mid-1950s is also discussed. RCA's contribution to videotape recording technology is also surveyed. RCA's research efforts in the early 1950s resulted in the demonstration of a videotape recorder as early as 1953. Although the technology did not effectively compete with Ampex's at the time, its contribution was not unnoticed. RCA's reappearance in the videotape recording market after the development of the first commercial recorder encouraged competition, which contributed to the growth of the industry. The BBC's development of vision electronic recording apparatus (VERA) is also discussed.

Chapter 7 explores the developments from industrial videotape recording equipment to home video. This history is traced from its start in Helical-scan experiments of Toshiba and Ampex, through the introduction of the U-matic by Sony, to the expansion of videorecording technology into the consumer market. The competing consumer systems such as electronic video recording (EVR) and Telcan, which failed in the marketplace, are also described. Latest amateur portables (camcorders) are also discussed.

Chapter 8 analyzes the current VCR market situation, chronologically comparing the present VCR market growth with those of cable, and broadcast television. Penetration in various markets is also examined.

The ninth chapter examines videodisc technology. The early history of videodiscs is traced, and some early models are discussed. The presence of the videodisc as a consumer product in the mid- to late 1970s is the focus of chapter 9. Corporations such as RCA, North American Philips, MCA, and Pioneer, whose contributions to videodisc technology were instrumental, are examined.

Miniaturization has been a significant factor in all of these developments and therefore portability in the industry and home is examined in chapter 10. Early portable equipment, manufactured by Sony, Ampex, and Machtronics, and the development of electronic news gathering (ENG) are examined.

The significance of all these technologies is described in chapter 11, which examines the impact of magnetic wire recording on the telephone and phonograph in the 1900s, and the impacts of videocassette recording on television, pay cable, and Hollywood. Regulation (or lack of it) is examined. Attention is given to the Supreme Court decision on The Motion Picture of America Association versus Sony Betamax (January 17, 1984).

Finally, an epilogue which reviews the consumer electronic industry from its inception and establishes the importance of video technology in the industry. Concern for advancement in the industry led to several research efforts that are now in progress. This progress is destined to integrate various aspects of the communication industry.

The continued process that has occurred in the magnetic recording industry beginning in the late 1800s until the present, has been overwhelming. Technological change is not brought about by a single compelling factor; rather it is necessitated by a combination of factors that interact to make such changes possible. A survey of any particular technology's development would necessitate a parallel explanation of significant economic factors involved in such ventures. In videotape recording for example, economic demand does promote the actual technology, but the technology form as well as its economic foundation are conditioned by an encompassing ideological demand: quality, to reproduce the world “as it is,” and to produce (“the effect of reality”).

Various phases of the development and implementation of magnetic audio and video recording could be explained in terms of the interplay between economics and ideology. However, economics and ideology cannot explain the various developmental phases of magnetic recording between 1900 and 1930, but jointly they can explain the process’ lack of development during the period. Magnetic recording, with its initial primary objective of recording various telephone conversations was simply a technology with little purpose, given the ways in which the telephone was being used at the turn of the century. The primary use of magnetic recording was found in a shift to sound and music recording; but magnetic recording with its sound quality inferior to that of the phonograph at the time, was a step away from the basic ideological aim of increased audio realism. Nevertheless, sufficient economic demand for magnetic recording encouraged some organizations to produce and market the recording device both in Europe and in the United States. A similar interplay is seen in the limited application of magnetic techniques in the film sound recording. By the mid-1930s, magnetic recording was superior to optical systems, the industry norms. Both the technological determinist and the ideological determinist would be at a loss to explain why the magnetic system did not then supercede the optical. For the technological determinist, the superior technology should have been enough, for the ideological determinist, the greatest “realism” should have been sufficient to compel acceptance. Obviously these drives were balanced and checked by economic factors.

In the magnetic recording industry, as elsewhere, the technological changes that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s could best be explained by the serious interplay of economic and ideological demands. LG. Farben (BASF) and AEG's arrival on the magnetic recording scene was solely for economic reasons. Traditional German chemical industry approaches seem to offer an opportunity for a unique product. Their management acumen coupled with strong financial investment set the stage for latter improvements in the industry. However, although not yet a commercial music product, in Germany as well as all Europe, music lovers who were exposed to the equipment were dissatisfied with the poor quality of sound as produced by the early D.C. biasing recorders. This led to a quest for superior sound quality, which resulted in the creation of the “realistic” sound quality in the A.C. biasing Magnetophon machine produced by these firms—the first effective standard tape recorder. Nationalism and other necessities, including the military, played parts in this development.

Similarly, Ampex became involved in the magnetic recording market when it was evident that the end of World War II meant the expiration of the Navy contracts, which was the firm's raison d'etre. There was a dire need for new product development. The pay off that resulted from Ampex's efforts in the production of magnetic audio and videorecording equipment was outstanding. As discussed in chapter 4, the appropriation by American and British industries of what was essentially a German technology is an important economic determinant in technical and commercial development of magnetic recording for Ampex and others in the United States and United Kingdom. Historically, such an outstanding technological transfer could have been handled through international licensing agreements, trade cartels, or similar channels, which in effect guarantees a regulated, orderly assimilation of particular technology, as well as a fair share of profit maximization for the original developers of that technology. However, this was not the case here: Refined German magnetic recording techniques were quickly diffused in the American industry, disseminated for little or no cost by the federal government. Small companies like Ampex, as well as larger corporations such as Western Electric and RCA, benefited from this mass confiscation of German technology. This economic base is complimented by ideological determining factors; for instance the on-going attitude of the American broadcasting industry up to 1947 when the first magnetic tape recording equipment was demonstrated. American radio stations would not utilize any recorded “canned” materials on air because of poor quality. A brief encounter with the German magnetic tape recorder demonstrated by AEG at Schenectady before World War II was far from convincing the Americans. It took several days of demonstrations by John Mullin to convince Bing Crosby, his technicians, and subsequently the broadcast industry to accept the magnetic recording equipment as their main recording medium.

This same interplay of economic as well as ideological factors were responsible for the videotape recorder that was introduced in 1956. Due to the series of problems encountered from the 3-hour differential between the East and West coast, the numerous operational problems caused by kinescope (film recordings) and the costs involved, videotape recording was made popular in the television industry. The current technological changes that have resulted in the development and expansion of the videocassette recording industry has been extensive. About 44 corporations are involved in the manufacturing of videocassette recorders, whereas about 23 manufacture the blank tapes used in this hardware. A variety of organizations are also involved in the production of prerecorded cassettes. All these organizations supply the economic “backbone” of this young industry. For consumers, there is an increased variety of programs, the ability to record any program at will, either on network, independent, or cable television, to play back at a convenient time (time-shifting) and to record when absent.

The sequence of development in each of these cases, audio recording, broadcast standard videotape recording, and home videotape recording can only be understood in terms of an interplay between economics, ideology (including social factors), and technology.

Chapter 2

Reproducing the Sound of the Living World

Communication in modern day society has been greatly enhanced by mans ability to reproduce sound. The advancement in today's broadcasting exemplifies the deep-rooted antecedent established by the ability to simulate sounds in general, and that of the human voice in particular. Inventions such as telegraph, telephone, phonograph, gramophone, radio, and later, television have benefited from the basic concept of reproduction and preservation of the human voice. The act of recording therefore is best comprehended within the context of broadcasting, telecommunication, and entertainment.

Although the medium of recording has undergone drastic changes over the past century as a result of technological advancement, it has continued to rely on two components that have been the very essence of the recording technology—magnetism and electricity. Whereas tape filament replaced the once popular copper or steel wire, and digitization rendered the century old mechanical technique an anachronism, elements of magnetism and electricity still do...