Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use

Julie Dobrow, Julie Dobrow, Julia R. Dobrow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136466885
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Studi sulla comunicazione

First Published in 1990. Although commercially available in the United States for more than a decade, videocassette recorder (VCR) sales continue to rise. This volume contains some of writing about video. Although several of the chapters continue to address the very important questions raised in the previous two generations of VCR research, the authors here have sought to explore how the VCR fits into a larger social and cultural framework.

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The Relationship of VCRs to Other Media Industries: Competition, Cooperation, and Confusion

1

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VCRs and Viewer Control Over Programming: An Historical Perspective

Eugene Secunda

Baruch College

Groups of American television executives crowded into a small Chicago hotel room on April 21, 1956 to witness the public introduction of the Ampex videotape recorder. As they watched the demonstration, there was no indication that they had any idea of the enormous impact this new media technology would ultimately have throughout the world. To most of the professional broadcasters in attendance, it was just a brilliant solution to a myriad of production and scheduling problems. At the time, it was impossible for these industry leaders to envision the transition of this technology from broadcast studio to living room some 20 years later when Sony Corporation would introduce the Betamax videocassette recorder to America.

In 1956, television was emerging lustily from its infancy. With TV sets in almost 72% of all U.S. households (“Trends in television,” 1987), the medium had already established itself as a dominant cultural influence in this country. However, since its birth as a commercial medium following World War II, the industry struggled to deal with the constraints of having to do live telecasts (Barnouw, 1975).

Before the Ampex system was introduced, the television networks had to broadcast virtually all of their programming live. The exception was feature-length movies, previously produced for theatrical exhibition.

Almost every important television show originated from New York City in the mid-1950s. That meant TV audiences on the U.S. west coast were at a disadvantage because of the time difference. They received the shows (produced in the evening on the east coast) 3 hours earlier—in mid-afternoon, when most of viewers were still at work. Scheduling problems were further compounded because daylight savings time was not yet in effect uniformly throughout the United States (“Birth of a new,” 1956).

The professional adoption of the Ampex videotape recorder transformed the entire television industry. It meant that programs (with the exception of sports events) could be prerecorded at the convenience of the producers, transmitted to affiliated stations via coaxial cable, then telecast locally at the same “clock time” throughout the country. Two decades later, this “time-shifting” concept was embraced by millions of Americans who then had the capability to videotape TV programs in their own homes and play them back at their own convenience. In essence, it permitted every VCR owner to become a television programmer (Brown, 1979).

The professional introduction of the videotape recorder (a technology that permits the recording of television signals on magnetic tape for later replay) augered the end of television watching as a video version of what Ong (1982, p. 74) described as an “oral culture.” Before the advent of the videotape recorder, both the presenter and the listener had to be in attendance at the time a program was telecast. Ong said that television and other related electronic technologies ushered in the age of “secondary orality,” bearing significant similarities to the era before literacy was generalized, “in its participatory mystique, its fostering of a communal sense, its concentration on the present moment….” (p. 136).

The spontaneity and tension usually associated with live performances were sacrificed as scenes were endlessly re-taped in an effort to achieve a sense of perfection. It is possible that this new taped TV era laid the groundwork for public acceptance, some 20 years later, of the home videotaping of television programming as a surrogate for watching live action.

The videotaping technology that allowed millions to gain control of the medium actually originated in Denmark in 1898. Valdemer Poulsen, a physicist, proposed a theory he called “telegraphon” that involved the use of magnetic recording to capture sound on wire. Poulsen's hypothesis was extended and patented in England by Boris Rtcheouloff in 1927. He specifically suggested that this idea could be adapted to record television signals on magnetized substances (Abramson, 1955).

The German industrial firm, I.G. Farben, is credited with being the first to actually produce technology based on Poulsen's theory. The company began manufacturing audio recorders, labeled magnetophons, in 1931 (Schubin, 1986). These recorders captured and replayed sound with significantly less noise interference than other existing recording devices of the time. They were used by Nazi Germany during World War II. Impressed with their superior recording and playback capability, U.S. Army electronics technician, John T. Mullin, brought several of the units home from Europe with him in 1945.

Two years later, famed singer and network radio star Bing Crosby heard about these machines and invited Mullin to tape his shows magnetically for later broadcast on the ABC radio network. These broadcasts, in 1947, marked the first time that magnetic tape had been used professionally in the United States to time-shift programming. The success of this experiment inspired Crosby to commission the Ampex Electric Corporation to develop improved tape recorders. Thus, a new electronics industry was launched in this country, positioning America as a leader in magnetic tape recorder technology for the next several decades (Mullin, 1976).

Ampex, previously an aircraft engine producer, became the dominant force in this new field. The entire radio industry embraced the new technology, liberating itself from the stringent limitations of live broadcasting. At the same time, Ampex engineers were beginning to transfer the knowledge they accumulated during the development of the audio recorder to the burgeoning area of video. The California company demonstrated its first working magnetic tape video recorder and playback mechanism in 1951 (Winston, 1986).

By that time, television was in nearly 25% of all U.S. homes (“Trends in television,” 1987). RCA, both a manufacturer of consumer electronics products and a major participant in the rapidly expanding network TV industry, also began the pursuit of videotape recorder research. RCA produced a working prototype of its system in 1953, but it was proven impractical and was never sufficiently re-developed to reach the marketplace. Meanwhile, Ampex successfully demonstrated its videotape recorder in 1956 and it was quickly embraced as the TV industry's standard, thereby neutralizing competitors’ efforts (Adams, 1956).

The Ampex system, based on the use of large open reels containing 2-inch wide magnetic tape was the standard videotape recorder design for the next 14 years. The concept utilized a transverse scanning system that recorded electronic signals in a zig-zag pattern across the surface of magnetic tape (Lardner, 1987). The American company was soon established worldwide as the primary supplier of videotape recording equipment for professional markets. But it essentially ignored the technology's potential for home use.

Whereas Ampex concentrated on producing and selling professional equipment, other electronics companies in the United States, Europe, and Japan began to pursue videotape recording for the consumer market. In the early 1950s, The Sony Corporation, led by chairman Akio Morita, established a goal of producing and marketing home video recorders. Sony and other Japanese manufacturers were directly supported in this endeavor when the Japanese government organized an industry-wide approach to further research and development in the field. By 1959, Sony, Matsushita Electric Corporation (Sony's chief rival), and other Japanese companies had developed working prototypes of home videotape recorders using a different method than that established by Ampex. Called the helical scanning system, this method rejected Ampex's 2-inch wide standard and allowed more information to be recorded on the tape. Continuous improvements have been made in videotape recording since that time. However, the helical scanning system, developed in Japan during the 1950s, remains the conceptual basis for virtually all videocassette recorders currently being produced (Lardner, 1987).

Sony began marketing its helical scanning VTRs to Americans in the early 1960s. One of its first customers was American Airlines; they used the Japanese equipment to screen Hollywood movies for passengers flying between the U.S. east and west coasts (“Airline TV,” 1964). The field was soon crowded with scores of competitors who sensed the home video market's potential and were determined to exploit it.

Wesgrove Electrics and Telcan from Britain, Philips from the Netherlands and Loewe-Opta from West Germany all created prototype home video recorders and announced plans for the introduction of their products to the American consumer market. In the United States, the ITT Research Center, Par Ltd., and Fairchild Camera and Instrument produced early entries in the still untested product category. In 1963, Ampex belatedly realized the possibilities in the consumer market, but its first videotape recorder for home use was priced at a substantial

30,000 (Lardner, 1987). Two years later, Ampex returned to the marketplace with a more realistically priced unit for the home (

1,095 retail), however, its bulk and limited playing time did not garner significant buyer response (“Video recorder becomes,” 1965).

As increasing numbers of Japanese and European consumer electronics companies began exploring the prospects of the untapped American home video market, many major U.S. companies also began taking notice. Instead of responding with aggressive research and development programs (as the Japanese were doing) to create patented home video technology, companies like General Electric and Concord Electronics Corp. began positioning themselves primarily as marketers of video recorders manufactured for them by their Japanese competitors (“Two more VTRs,” 1966). This trend, established in the 1960s, would ultimately cause the United States to lose its position as the dominant force in consumer electronics technical development. Today, in the largest and richest consumer market in the world, U.S. consumer electronics companies function almost exclusively as promoters and distributors of Japanese and Korean products bearing such familiar brand names as RCA, Zenith, and General Electric (“Home VTRs under,” 1977). However, knowledgeable shoppers for videocassette recorders and other consumer electronics products are increasingly interested in knowing which non-U.S. companies actually manufactured the products bearing the famous American names.

In 1969 a final American effort was made to retain control of videocassette recorder manufacture and marketing. Cartridge TV, Inc., an amalgam of Playtape and Avco Industries, was formed to offer the American public a 1/4-inch videotape cassette system called “Cartrivision.” The product was manufactured for Cartridge TV, Inc. by several different American television set manufacturers, and sold throughout the country by Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward department store chains. It was withdrawn from the market in 1973 after the company experienced a variety of production, marketing, and financial difficulties (“Cartridge TV halts,” 1973). Ironically, the ability to record television shows was a primary promotional point when the unit was offered to consumers in the early 1970s. This appeal failed to produce significant sales (DeLuca, 1980). A few years later, Sony's advertisements for the Betamax VCR used the same sales approach, and that product was an immediate success in the U.S. market.

As American consumer electronics manufacturers surrendered the industry initiative to the Japanese in the late 1960s and early 1970s, three leading Japanese manufacturers (Sony, Matsushita, and JVC) started collaborating on videocassette recorder research (Nayak & Ketteringham, 1986). Representatives of the three companies signed an agreement to share all future technological innovations in the VCR field. Such an agreement would have been impossible among U.S. competitors because of the rigid legal restraints against monopolies established by our government. The cooperation of these Japanese companies helped them accelerate the progress of each one's VCR resear...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• I The Relationship of VCRs to Other Media Industries: Competition, Cooperation, and Confusion
• II The Relationship of VCRs to Theoretical Frameworks: Testing, Extending, or Maintaining Existing Media Theories
• III The Relationship of VCRs to Individual Expression, Collective Identity, and Social Patterns
• Author Index
• Subject Index