Video Tape Formats

There are countless different video tape formats. Luckily over the years they have greatly improved in quality and dependability. In the beginning video tape started as large heavy reels of magnetic tape. Recording video was very similar to recording audio. But, with so much more information the tape had to pass through the recorders so much faster. This didn't work out well because the tape wouldn't hold up to the stress and the recorders had to work so hard. Ampex decided to hire Charles Ginsburg out of college to lead a team to develop a more effective video recorder. Charles came up with the idea to use a spinning recording head to get the speeds he needed to get a quality recording. Before that the video heads were stationary and the tape would have to move faster than it could. The recorder was called the Quadruplex, it used a 2 inch reel and debuted in 1956. This system was actually in use for 20 years. This seems pretty unheard of today. There is always something better right around the corner. In 1976 the One inch Type-C was introduced. The One inch was actually developed by a collaboration with Sony and Ampex. The Type-C provided variable speed playback and the ability to have still frames. The machines used less power and were a lot easier to maintain.

• Sony introduced the first video tape to actually be built into a cassette. A prototype of the U-matic aka 3/4 inch was shown in 1969 and then released in 1971. It was much smaller than the reels and was perfect for news gathering. It was also used by filmmakers to make dailies before VHS came along. It was pretty durable and held up well to editing.
• In 1975 the Betamax was released by Sony. The Betamax had a 1/2 inch tape. And had a two year head start even though it eventually lost to a lesser format know as VHS. In 1975 Sony's competitor JVC released the VHS tape. Despite having lower quality in picture and manufacturing the VHS tape could record for a longer time. The VHS camcorder was bigger but, also allowed both recording and playback while Betamax camcorders could only record. But, what really seemed to do Betamax in was that VHS had a much better selection in the movie rental business.
• In 1982 Betacam was developed to replace 3/4 inch. The Betacam was a 1/2 tape and recorded an analog component signal. Betacam became the industry standard for video professionals.
• In 1982 VHS-C was released to make for smaller camcorders. These used the same videotape format as regular VHS tape. But, would require an adapter to be played in a VCR. It also could only fit 40 minutes of video because of its size.
• In 1985 Sony created the Video8 camcorder to compete with VHS-C. Video-8 also know as 8mm was smaller than VHS-C and could record more on the tape. 8mm could typically record 2 hours by using the longer tapes. Soon after Sony made Hi8 which was basically the same with a little better resolution.
• In 1986 Betacam SP was an improvement over Betacam. The SP used a higher quality metal formulated tape coating and had a higher resolution.
• In 1993 the Digital Betacam was released. This was a far superior format to the previous formats.
• in 1997 HDCam was introduced. HDCam was a HD version of Digital Betacam. It also can record surround sound.
• Mini-DV was released in 1998. It became favored by indie filmmakers for its cheap price and high quality picture. It was also easy to bring the footage into a computer with firewire for editing.
• In 1999 Digital 8 was released. It looked the same physically but, it actually recorded a completely digital signal with far superior quality. It could only fit 1 hour of footage on the tapes because the tape moved faster to record more information. It tried to compete with Mini-dv but, it was a little bigger and most camcorders lacked firewire which made it difficult to edit.
• In 2003 HDV was designed for consumers to be able to afford High Definition cameras. Depending on the quality some footage is accepted on TV depending on the sutuation. Shows like Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern and Arte Wolfe's series Travels to the Edge.
• In 2003 HDCam SR was introduced. HDCam SR actually uses a higher density tape and trippled the amount of data being recorded by regualr HDCam.
• Today more and more footage is being recorded to hard drives, compact flash cards, P2 cards and XDCam. These formats can be convenient by being smaller. They can be more dependable by having less moving parts by not dealing with videocassettes. But, the current high standard for High Def TV is typically HDCam SR.