Betacam is a family of half-inch professional videocassette products developed by Sony in 1982. In colloquial use, Betacam singly is often used to refer to a Betacam camcorder, a Betacam tape, a Betacam video recorder or the format itself.
124-679: Betamax (also known as Beta , as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video , commonly known as a video cassette recorder . It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, followed by the US in November of the same year. Betamax is widely considered to be obsolete, having lost the videotape format war which saw its closest rival, VHS , dominate most markets. Betamax tapes initially had higher quality images over VHS if recorded at
248-483: A 90-minute tape will record 108 minutes of video in PAL . Betacam SP is able to achieve its namesake "Superior Performance" over Betacam in the fact that it uses metal-formulated tape as opposed to Betacam's ferric oxide tape. Sony designed Betacam SP to be partially forward compatible with standard Betacam, with the capability that Betacam SP tapes recorded on Betacam SP decks can be played in oxide-era Betacam VTRs (such as
372-408: A Betacam SP tape with SX recording is inserted into a Betacam SP player, no picture or sound will appear. The helical scan head drum is 81 mm in diameter. The video tracks read by the video heads in the drum, are 32 microns wide, the drum rotates at 5400 RPM for NTSC video. The video heads have a 15.25 degree azimuth . Although Betacam SX machines have gone out of production since 2008, the format
496-459: A Betacam VCR or camcorder . Another common point between Betamax and Betacam is the placement of the stereo linear audio tracks. Also, some Betacam and Betamax portables share the same batteries. (Matsushita's rival "M" and "MII" formats took a similar approach in combining the cassette from a non-professional system- in this case, VHS - with a much higher-quality recording format. However, neither enjoyed Betacam's level of success). Betacam
620-456: A Betacam deck. However, in later years Sony discouraged this practice, suggesting that the internal tape transport of Betamax cassette was not well suited to the faster tape transport of Betacam. In particular, the guide rollers tend to be noisy. Although there is a superficial similarity between Betamax and Betacam in that they use the same tape cassette, they are really quite different formats. Betamax records relatively low-resolution video using
744-510: A Betamax player, which they do, but it is subsequently damaged beyond repair by Spike’s impatience with the old device. In the 2008 Pixar movie WALL-E , WALL-E watches some excerpts of the film Hello, Dolly! on an old Betamax tape. The Tagalog song "Betamax" by the Filipino band Sandwich from their fifth studio album in 2008 entitled <S> Marks the Spot talks about an era in
868-479: A Betamax recorder. The Sony PCM-F1 adaptor was sold with a companion Betamax VCR SL-2000 as a portable digital audio recording system. Many recording engineers used this system in the 1980s and 1990s to make their first digital master recordings. One other major consequence of the Betamax technology's introduction to the U.S. was the lawsuit Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (1984, the "Betamax case"), with
992-500: A VCR owner to begin time shifting their viewing of films and other television programs . This caused an enormous change in viewing practices, as one no longer had to wait for a repeat of a program that had been missed. The shift to home viewing also changed the movie industry's revenue streams, because home renting created an additional window of time in which a film could make money. In some cases, films that did only modestly in their theater releases went on to have strong performances in
1116-554: A VHS tape can be erased though degaussing , DVDs and other optical discs are not affected by magnetic fields. DVDs can still be damaged by scratches. DVDs are smaller and take less space to store. DVDs can support both standard 4x3 and widescreen 16x9 screen aspect ratios and DVDs can provide twice the video resolution of VHS. DVD supports random access while a VHS tape is restricted to sequential access and must be rewound. DVDs can have interactive menus, multiple language tracks, audio commentaries, closed captioning and subtitling (with
1240-482: A bitrate of 440 Mbit/s. The "SR" stands for "Superior Resolution". The increased bitrate (over HDCAM) allows HDCAM SR to capture much more of the full bandwidth of the HD-SDI signal (1920×1080). Some HDCAM SR VTRs can also use a 2× mode with an even higher bitrate of 880 Mbit/s, allowing for a 4:4:4 RGB stream at a lower compression. HDCAM SR uses the new MPEG-4 Part 2 Studio Profile for compression, and expands
1364-399: A bitrate of 90 Mbit/s plus four channels of uncompressed 48 kHz / 20 bit PCM -encoded digital audio . A fifth analog audio track is available for cueing, and a linear timecode track is also used on the tape. It was a popular digital video cassette format for broadcast television use. It uses a head drum 81 mm in diameter that rotates at 5400 RPM for NTSC video. The video heads in
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#17327725202511488-462: A decade, aside from some specialty models that could record digital audio . Until the introduction of the BVW-200 camera, the camera and recorder configuration was a docking system. The BVW-200 was an integrated camera recorder system. It sacrificed the flexibility of a docking camera in order to lose a substantial amount of weight. Eventually, non-docking camcorders became the most popular design by
1612-596: A different azimuth, positioned slightly ahead of the regular video heads, for this purpose. Sony was confident that VHS could not achieve the same audio performance feat as Beta Hi-Fi. However, to the chagrin of Sony, JVC did develop a VHS hi-fi system on the principle of depth multiplexing approximately a year after the first Beta Hi-Fi VCR, the SL-5200 was introduced by Sony. Despite initial praise as providing "CD sound quality", both Beta Hi-Fi and VHS HiFi suffered from "carrier buzz", where high-frequency information bled into
1736-478: A generation of hybrid recorder, allowing use of both tape and disk recording on the same deck, and high speed dubbing from one to another. This was intended to save wear on the video heads for television studio applications, as well to speed up online editing . Betacam SX also features a good shot mark (a method for qualitative decisions made in the camcorder to be utilized during the editing process ) feature that allows marking of each scene for fast scanning of
1860-490: A heterodyne color recording system and only two recording heads, while Betacam uses four heads to record in component format, at a much higher linear tape speed of 10.15 cm/s (3.99606 in./s) compared with Betamax's 1.87 cm/s (0.7362205 in./s), resulting in much higher video and audio quality. A typical L-750 length Betamax cassette that yielded about 3 hours of recording time on a Betamax VCR at its B-II Speed ( NTSC ), or on PAL , only provided 30 minutes' record time on
1984-573: A legacy of Betacam and Betacam SP tapes. Some Betacam SX decks, such as the DNW-A75 or DNW-A50, can natively play and work from the analog tapes interchangeably, because they contain both analog and digital playback heads. Betacam SX uses MPEG-2 4:2:2P@ML compression, compliant with CCIR 601, in comparison with other similar systems that use 4:1:1 or 4:2:0 chroma subsampling for coding. It gives better chroma resolution and allows certain postproduction processes such as Chroma-key . This format compresses
2108-691: A medium for storing high-definition video . In 1997, Sony supplemented its Betacam family with the HD-capable HDCAM standard and its higher-end cousin HDCAM SR in 2003. Panasonic's competing HD format for its camcorders was based on DVCPRO and called DVCPRO HD . For VTR and archive use, Panasonic expanded the D-5 specification to store compressed HD streams and called it D-5 HD . The first consumer videocassette recorders (VCRs) used Sony U-matic technology and were launched in 1971. Philips entered
2232-464: A nearly identical copy of live television. However, the chroma resolution still remained relatively poor, limited to just under 0.4 MHz or approximately 30 lines resolution, whereas live broadcast chrominance resolution was over 100 lines. The heads were also narrowed to 29 μm to reduce crosstalk, with a narrower head gap to play back the higher carrier frequency at 5.6 MHz. Later, some models would feature further improvement, in
2356-425: A new format. The cassettes are available in two sizes: S (short or small) and L (long or large). The Betacam camcorder can only load S magnetic tapes , while television studio sized video tape recorders (VTR) designed for video editing can play both S and L tapes. The cassette shell and case for each Betacam cassette is colored differently depending on the format, allowing for easy visual identification. There
2480-436: A pair of FM carriers between the chroma (C) and luminance (Y) carriers, a process known as frequency multiplexing. Each head had a specific pair of carriers; in total, four individual channels were employed. Head A recorded its hi-fi carriers at 1.38(L) and 1.68(R) MHz, and the B head employed 1.53 and 1.83 MHz. The result was audio with an 80 dB dynamic range , with less than 0.005% wow and flutter . Prior to
2604-459: A prerecorded song sequence by Dorothy Collins in color was included in the otherwise live television program. In 1953, Norikazu Sawazaki developed a prototype helical scan video tape recorder. BCE demonstrated a color system in February 1955 using a longitudinal recording on half-inch (1.27 cm) tape. CBS , RCA's competitor, was about to order BCE machines when Ampex introduced
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#17327725202512728-863: A problem in ED Beta VCRs, since the ED Beta format uses metal-formulated tape as well. The new Betacam SP studio decks were the players: The BVW-60 and BVW-65 (the BVW-65 features Dynamic Tracking); and the Edit Recorders: the BVW-70, and the Dynamic Tracking model, the BVW-75. The BVV-5 was the Betacam SP dockable camera back, which could play back in color if its companion playback adapter
2852-430: A similar tape format was developed, called 1 inch Type B videotape . Type B machines use the same 1" tape as Type C but they lacked C's shuttle and slow-motion options. The picture quality is slightly better, though. Type B was the broadcast norm in continental Europe for most of the 1980s. A videocassette is a cartridge containing videotape. In 1969, Sony introduced a prototype for the first widespread video cassette,
2976-718: A single coaxial cable, while e-VTR technology extends this by allowing the same data to be transported over IP by way of an Ethernet interface on the VTR itself. All IMX VTRs can natively playback Betacam SX tapes, and some, such as the MSW-M2000P/1 are capable of playing back Digital Betacam cassettes as well as analog Betacam and Betacam SP cassettes, but they can only record to their native IMX cassettes. S tapes are available with up to 60 minutes capacity, and L tapes hold up to 184 minutes. These values are for 525/60 decks, but will extend in 625/50. A 184-minute tape will record for, as
3100-463: A tape could reliably be played back using only the same set of hand-made tape heads, which wore out very quickly. Despite these problems, Quad is capable of producing excellent images. Subsequent videotape systems have used helical scan, where the video heads record diagonal tracks (of complete fields) onto the tape. Many early videotape recordings were not preserved . While much less expensive (if repeatedly recycled) and more convenient than kinescope,
3224-651: A transverse (scanning the tape across its width) four-head system on a two-inch (5.08 cm) tape and stationary heads for the soundtrack. CBS Television first used the Ampex VRX-1000 Mark IV at its Television City studios in Hollywood on November 30, 1956, to play a delayed broadcast of Douglas Edwards and the News from New York City to the Pacific Time Zone . On January 22, 1957,
3348-573: A worn motion picture." Overall the picture quality was still considered inferior to the best kinescope recordings on film. Bing Crosby Enterprises hoped to have a commercial version available in 1954 but none came forth. The BBC experimented from 1952 to 1958 with a high-speed linear videotape system called Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus (VERA), but this was ultimately dropped in favor of quadruplex videotape . VERA used half-inch metallized (1.27 cm) tape on 20-inch reels traveling at 200 inches per second (5.1 m/s). RCA demonstrated
3472-440: Is "lines per picture height". When picture height is kept the same, the same 720 pixels are spread to a wider area in 16:9, hence lower horizontal resolution per picture height. Both NTSC and PAL/SECAM Betamax cassettes are physically identical (although the signals recorded on the tape are incompatible). However, as tape speeds differ between NTSC and PAL/SECAM, the playing time for any given cassette will vary accordingly between
3596-533: Is a 2000 development of the Digital Betacam format. Digital video compression uses H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 encoding at a higher bitrate than Betacam SX: 30 Mbit/s (6:1 compression), 40 Mbit/s (4:1 compression) or 50 Mbit/s (3.3:1 compression). Unlike most other MPEG-2 implementations, IMX uses intraframe compression. Additionally, IMX ensures that each frame has the same exact size in bytes to simplify recording onto video tape. Video recorded in
3720-459: Is a digital version of Betacam SP introduced in 1996, positioned as a cheaper alternative to Digital Betacam. It stores video using MPEG-2 4:2:2 Profile@ML compression , along with four channels of 48 kHz 16 bit PCM audio. All Betacam SX equipment is compatible with Betacam SP tapes. S tapes have a recording time up to 62 minutes, and L tapes up to 194 minutes. The Betacam SX system was very successful with newsgathering operations, which had
3844-448: Is a downsized version of VHS, using the same recording method and the same tape, but in a smaller cassette. It is possible to play VHS-C tapes in a regular VHS tape recorder by using an adapter. After the introduction of S-VHS , a corresponding compact version, S-VHS-C, was released as well. Video8 is an indirect descendant of Betamax, using narrower tape and a smaller cassette. Because of its narrower tape and other technical differences, it
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3968-473: Is also a mechanical key that allows a video tape recorder to identify which format has been inserted. The format supplanted the three-quarter-inch U-Matic format, which Sony had introduced in 1971. In addition to improvements in video quality, the Betacam configuration of an integrated professional video camera /recorder led to its rapid adoption by electronic news gathering (ENG) organizations. DigiBeta,
4092-501: Is an analog component video format, storing the luminance, "Y", in one track and the chrominance , on another as alternating segments of the R-Y and B-Y components performing Compressed Time Division Multiplex , or CTDM. This splitting of channels allows true broadcast quality recording with 300 lines of horizontal luminance resolution and 120 lines chrominance resolution versus 688 kHz chroma bandwidth for domestic Betamax and
4216-538: Is not possible to develop an adapter from Video8 to Betamax. Video8 was later developed into Hi8 , which provides better resolution similar to S-VHS. The first consumer-level and lower-end professional ( prosumer ) digital video recording format, introduced in 1995, used a smaller Digital Video Cassette (DVC). The format was later renamed MiniDV to reflect the DV encoding scheme, but the tapes are still marked DVC . Some later formats like DVC Pro from Panasonic reflect
4340-674: Is still used by many newsgathering operations, including Canada's CTV , Atlanta's WSB-TV , San Diego's KFMB-TV and NBC 's operations in the San Francisco Bay Area at KNTV and KSTS . Many news archives still contain SX tapes. In August 2011, Betacam SX tapes were found in Muammar Gaddafi 's underground studio in Tripoli. CNN reporter Sara Sidner commented on-air that CNN still used the same type of tapes. MPEG IMX
4464-554: Is still used extensively with filmmakers and television networks because of its longevity, low cost, and reliability. Master copies of visual content are often stored on tape for these reasons, particularly by users who cannot afford to move to tapeless machines. During the mid- to late 2000s, professional users such as broadcast television were still using tape heavily but tapeless formats like P2 , XDCAM and AVCHD were gaining broader acceptance. While live recording has migrated to solid state, optical disc (Sony's XDCAM) and hard disks,
4588-463: The NBC Television game show Truth or Consequences , produced in Hollywood, became the first program to be broadcast in all time zones from a prerecorded videotape. Ampex introduced a color videotape recorder in 1958 in a cross-licensing agreement with RCA, whose engineers had developed it from an Ampex black-and-white recorder. NBC's special, An Evening With Fred Astaire (1958), is
4712-574: The Philippines before the advent of the Internet , MP3s , and DVDs , and the only widespread video format was Betamax. Also in the Philippines, Betamax refers to the popular cubed street food made of chicken or pork's blood served in skewers which bear a crude resemblance to Betamax cartridges. In 2019, episode 3, season 1 of Good Omens (Amazon Prime series), a prophecy is mentioned from
4836-535: The Tenth Doctor beats the episode’s main enemy and entraps her for all eternity in a videotape he created thirty years too early as the episode is set in 1953. He shrugs off the effect it will have on the timelines as he calls it “just Betamax”. In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Speak Like a Child", Jet and Spike receive a Beta tape in the mail intended for Faye. Jet and Spike visit a shop in hopes of finding
4960-1025: The U-Matic deal, with Sony dominating. By 1980, JVC's VHS format controlled 60% of the North American market. The large economy of scale allowed VHS units to be introduced to the European market at a far lower cost than the rarer Betamax units. In the United Kingdom, Betamax held a 25% market share in 1981, but by 1986, it was down to 7.5% and continued to decline further. By 1984, 40 companies made VHS format equipment in comparison with Beta's 12. Sony finally conceded defeat in 1988 when it, too, began producing VHS recorders (early models were made by Hitachi ), though it still continued to produce Betamax recorders until 2002. In Japan, Betamax had more success and eventually evolved into Extended Definition Betamax, with 500+ lines of resolution. The heads on
5084-775: The U.S. Supreme Court determining home videotaping to be legal in the United States, wherein home videotape cassette recorders were a legal technology since they had substantial noninfringing uses. This precedent was later invoked in MGM v. Grokster (2005), where the high court agreed that the same "substantial noninfringing uses" standard applies to authors and vendors of peer-to-peer file sharing software (notably excepting those who "actively induce" copyright infringement through "purposeful, culpable expression and conduct"). In June 1983, Sony introduced high fidelity audio to videotape as Beta Hi-Fi. For NTSC , Beta HiFi worked by placing
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5208-514: The Video8 format. Their hope was that Video8 could replace both Beta and VHS for all uses. SuperBeta and industrial Betamovie camcorders would also be sold by Sony. On November 10, 2015, Sony announced that it would no longer be producing Betamax video cassettes. Production and sales ended March 2016 after almost 41 years of continuous production. Third-party manufacturers continue to make new cassettes. While these cassettes are designed for use with
5332-534: The BVV-1A), to form the BVW-1 (BVW-1A) integrated camcorder. Those decks were record-only. The only transport controls on the deck were eject and rewind. The docked camera's VTR button started and paused the tape recorder. Later the Betacam SP docking decks had full transport controls (except a record button) but tapes could not be played back except in the camera's viewfinder in black-and-white only. Sony then came out with
5456-536: The BVW-10 could not deliver. The BVW-40 enabled for the first time editing to a Betacam master, and if set up and wired correctly, true component video editing. It was also possible to do machine-to-machine editing between a BVW-10/15 and BVW-40 without an edit controller—a single serial cable between the units was all that was required to control the player from the recorder in performing simple assemble and insert editing. Additionally, there were two field models introduced,
5580-453: The BVW-15 and BVW-40 mentioned earlier), but for playback only. Betacam SP-branded tapes cannot be used for recording in consumer Betamax VCRs like oxide Betacam tapes, due to Betacam SP's metal-formulation tape causing the video heads in a Betamax deck to wear prematurely, which are made of a softer material than the heads in a standard Betacam deck. However, Betacam SP tapes can be used without
5704-524: The BVW-22, a much less expensive desktop model that could be used for viewing and logging 90-minute cassettes of both Betacam SP and oxide types, but could not be configured into an edit system and offered only composite video output. Sony followed up the SP field recorder BVW-50 that could record and play the large-size 90 minute cassettes. After this, the deck line was relatively stagnant and incredibly popular for
5828-645: The Betacam format, the cassettes are interchangeable with traditional Betamax systems. Despite the sharp decline in sales of Betamax recorders in the late 1980s and subsequent halt in production of new recorders by Sony in 2002, Betamax, SuperBetamax and ED-Beta are still being used by a small number of people. Even though Sony stopped making new cassettes in 2016, new old stocks of Betamax cassettes are still available for purchase at online shops and used recorders (as well as cassettes) are often found at flea markets , thrift stores or on Internet auction sites. Early format Betacam cassettes—which are physically based on
5952-548: The Betamax cassette—continue to be available for use in the professional media. It is still used by few broadcasters, as it was succeeded by Betacam SP, its digital modifications and more recently by tapeless recording. The VHS format's defeat of the Betamax format became a classic marketing case study. Sony's attempt to dictate an industry standard backfired when JVC made the tactical decision to forgo Sony's offer of Betamax in favor of developing its own technology. JVC felt that accepting Sony's offer would yield results similar to
6076-536: The EDC-55 "ED CAM" camcorder, the major complaint concerned its low light sensitivity due to the use of two CCDs instead of the typical single-CCD imaging device. ED-Beta machines only recorded in βII and βIII modes, with the ability to play back βI and βIs. Two-piece portable video systems (those featuring a portable VCR such as Sony's "BetaPak") and a separate camera) soon became available for amateur and low-end video production. To better compete with Super 8 film there
6200-646: The HFP-200 was capable of multi-channel TV sound, with the word "stereocast" printed after the Beta Hi-Fi logo. This was possible because unlike a VHS Hi-Fi deck, an NTSC Betamax did not need an extra pair of heads. The HFP-x00 would generate the needed carriers which would be recorded by the attached deck, and during playback, the AFM carriers would be passed to the HFP-x00. They also had a small "fine tracking" control on
6324-591: The IMX format is compliant with CCIR 601 specification, with eight channels of audio and timecode track. It lacks an analog audio (cue) track as the Digital Betacam, but will read it as channel 7 if used for playback. This format has been standardized in SMPTE 365M and SMPTE 356M as "MPEG D10 Streaming". With its IMX VTRs, Sony introduced some new technologies including SDTI and e-VTR. SDTI allows for audio, video, timecode, and remote control functions to be transported by
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#17327725202516448-877: The M-Load transports used by VHS machines made copying these trick modes impossible. BetaSkipScan (Peep Search) is now available on miniature M-load formats, but even Sony was unable to fully replicate this on VHS. BetaScan was originally called "Videola" until the company that made the Moviola threatened legal action. Sanyo marketed its own Betamax-compatible recorders under the Betacord brand (also casually referred to as "Beta"). In addition to Sony and Sanyo, Beta-format video recorders were manufactured and sold by Toshiba , Pioneer , Murphy , Aiwa , and NEC . Zenith Electronics and WEGA contracted with Sony to produce VCRs for their product lines. The department stores Sears (in
6572-575: The UVW-1800, a very popular editing VTR (and companion UVW-1600 edit VTP), and the non-editing UVW-1400 VTR, and UVW-1200 VTP. The UVW-100 (and later 100B) one-piece camcorder rounded out the UVW series. Betacam and Betacam SP tape cassette shells varied in color depending on the manufacturer. Many companies sold Betacam tapes, sometimes of their own manufacture, sometimes re-branded. Fuji , Maxell , Ampex / Quantegy , BASF / EMTEC and 3M were just some of
6696-575: The United States and Canada) and Quelle (in Germany) sold Beta-format VCRs under their house brands, as did the RadioShack chain of electronic stores. Sony also offered a range of industrial Betamax products, a Beta I-only format for industrial and institutional users. These were aimed at the same market as U-Matic equipment, but were cheaper and smaller. The arrival of Betacam reduced the demand for both industrial Beta and U-Matic equipment. For
6820-530: The United States by RCA in August 1977), Betamax has no guard band and uses azimuth recording to reduce crosstalk . According to Sony's history webpages, the name had a double meaning: beta is the Japanese word used to describe the way in which signals are recorded on the tape; and the shape of the lowercase Greek letter beta (β) resembles the course of the tape through the transport. The suffix -max , from
6944-522: The United States was the LV-1901 model, which included a 19-inch (48 cm) Trinitron television, and appeared in stores in early November 1975. The cassettes contain 0.50-inch-wide (12.7 mm) videotape in a design similar to that of the earlier, professional 0.75-inch-wide (19 mm), U-matic format. Like the rival videotape format VHS (introduced in Japan by JVC in September 1976 and in
7068-424: The audio carriers, creating momentary "buzzing" and other audio flaws. Both systems also used companding noise-reduction systems, which could create "pumping" artifacts under some conditions. Both formats also suffered from interchange problems, where tapes made on one machine did not always play back well on other machines. When this happened and if the artifacts became too distracting, users were forced to revert to
7192-581: The ballet The Nutcracker (first telecast in 1977). The next format to gain widespread usage was 1 inch (2.54 cm) Type C videotape introduced in 1976. This format introduced features such as shuttling, various-speed playback (including slow-motion), and still framing. Although 1" Type C's quality was still quite high, the sound and picture reproduction attainable on the format were of slightly lower quality than Quad. However, compared to Quad, 1" Type C machines required much less maintenance, took up less space, and consumed much less electrical power. In Europe,
7316-688: The base β1 speed (However, the speed was rarely offered on Beta VCRs manufactured after 1979, as the recording time of β1 on a standard Betamax tape was only 1 hour. Sony removed the β1 speed in favor of the slower speeds to closer compete with VHS’s base 2 hour record time. Because of this, the image quality advantage of Betamax over VHS was essentially removed throughout most of the format war). Despite this, Betamax recorders continued to be manufactured and sold until August 2002, when Sony announced that they were discontinuing production of all remaining Betamax models. Sony continued to sell blank Betamax cassettes until March 2016. The first Betamax VCR introduced in
7440-524: The book of Agnes Nutter book of prophecies saying: "Do not buy Betamax," and referring to the year 1972. Videocassette#Cassette formats Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal . Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders . Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as
7564-483: The camcorder itself is record-only, and cannot be used to review or play back footage. (This also effectively restricted Betamovie to those who also owned or had access to the Beta VCRs needed to view recordings). VHS manufacturers found a different solution to drum miniaturization using standard video signals instead, permitting footage to be reviewed on the camcorder itself, and output to another VCR for editing. This
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#17327725202517688-583: The color even more. The chroma delay could be disabled on higher end VCRs by turning on EDIT mode to "reduce editing faults" when dubbing a tape. Sony introduced two ED decks and a camcorder in the late 1980s. The top end EDV-9500 (EDV-9300 in Canada) deck was a very capable editing deck, rivaling much more expensive U-Matic set-ups for its accuracy and features, but did not have commercial success due to lack of timecode and other pro features. Sony did market ED-Beta to "semiprofessional" users, or " prosumers ". As for
7812-536: The color tape was remarkably good. Some classic television programs recorded on studio videotape have been made available on DVD – among them NBC's Peter Pan (first telecast in 1960) with Mary Martin as Peter, several episodes of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (late 1950s/early 60s), the final Howdy Doody Show (1960), the television version of Hal Holbrook 's one-man show Mark Twain Tonight (first telecast in 1967), and Mikhail Baryshnikov 's classic production of
7936-417: The common name for Digital Betacam, went on to become the single most successful professional broadcast digital recording video tape format in history, but now although Betacam remains popular in the field and for archiving, new tapeless digital products have led to a phasing out of Betacam products in television studio environments since 2006. The original Betacam format was launched on August 7, 1982. It
8060-521: The current market leader. There are two primary advantages: First, copying a tape recording onto a computer or other video machine occurs in real time (e.g. a ten-minute video would take ten minutes to copy); since tapeless camcorders record video as computer-ready data files, the files can copied onto a computer significantly faster than real time. Second, tapeless camcorders, and those using solid-state memory in particular, are far simpler mechanically and so are more reliable. Despite these conveniences, tape
8184-411: The data produced by an electrocardiogram . Because video signals have a very high bandwidth , and stationary heads would require extremely high tape speeds, in most cases, a helical-scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions. Tape is a linear method of storing information and thus imposes delays to access a portion of the tape that is not already against
8308-444: The device gave what were described as "blurred and indistinct" images using a modified Ampex 200 tape recorder and standard quarter-inch (0.635 cm) audio tape moving at 360 inches (9.1 m) per second. A year later, an improved version using one-inch (2.54 cm) magnetic tape was shown to the press, who reportedly expressed amazement at the quality of the images although they had a "persistent grainy quality that looked like
8432-631: The domestic market the following year with the N1500 . Sony's Betamax (1975) and JVC's VHS (1976) created a mass-market for VCRs and the two competing systems battled the videotape format war , which VHS ultimately won. In Europe, Philips had developed the Video 2000 format, which did not find favor with the TV rental companies in the UK and lost out to VHS. At first VCRs and videocassettes were very expensive, but by
8556-436: The drum of a Betamax VCR move across the tape producing a writing speed of 6.9 or 5.832 metres per second with the drum rotating at 1800 rpm (NTSC, 60 Hz) or 1500 rpm (PAL, 50 Hz), theoretically giving Betamax a higher bandwidth of 3.2 MHz, thus better video quality than VHS. The tape moves at 2 cm/sec (βII, 60 Hz), 1.33 cm/sec (βIII, 60 Hz) or 1.873 cm/sec (50 Hz). The original βI speed
8680-494: The drum read helical tracks 24 microns wide. Audio is also recorded on the helical tracks. The compression algorithm used by Digital Betacam is proprietary. Another key element which aided adoption was Sony's implementation of the SDI coaxial digital connection on Digital Betacam decks. Facilities could begin using digital signals on their existing coaxial wiring without having to commit to an expensive re-installation. Betacam SX
8804-431: The envelope with ED-Beta, or "Extended Definition" Betamax, capable of up to 500 lines of luma resolution, comparable to then-future DVD quality. In order to store the ~6.5 MHz-wide luma signal, with the peak frequency at 9.3 MHz, Sony used a metal formulation tape borrowed from the Betacam SP format (branded "ED-Metal") and incorporated some improvements to the transport to reduce mechanically induced aberrations in
8928-503: The far less expensive UVW series debuted. These machines were considerably simpler, somewhat lower quality, and were designed primarily to be used as companions to computer systems, for industrial video, and other low-cost, yet high-quality, uses. The UVW decks possessed very limited front panel controls, no jog and shuttle (except by use of a DSRM-10 cable remote control); and with time base corrector (TBC) control available only with an optional remote TBC controller. These were represented by
9052-471: The field recorder BVW-25, and the BVW-21 play only portable field deck. At its introduction, many insisted that Betacam remained inferior to the bulkier one-inch type C and B videotapes, the standard broadcast production formats of the late 1970s to mid-1990s. Additionally, the maximum record time for both the cameras and studio recorders was only half an hour, a severe limitation in television production. There
9176-455: The first, 100% uncompressed D1 format, although in practice, they continued to coexist for practical and economical reasons. S tapes are available with up to 40 minutes running time, and L tapes with up to 124 minutes. The Digital Betacam format records 2.34:1 DCT - compressed digital component video signal at 10-bit YUV 4:2:2 sampling in NTSC (720×486) or PAL (720×576) resolutions at
9300-566: The form of Beta-Is, a high band version of the Beta-I recording mode. There were some incompatibilities between the older Beta decks and SuperBeta, but most could play back a high band tape without major problems. SuperBeta decks had a switch to disable the SuperBeta mode for compatibility purposes. (SuperBeta was only marginally supported outside of Sony, as many licensees had already discontinued their Betamax line.) In 1988, Sony would again push
9424-583: The heads. The early 2000s saw the introduction and rise to prominence of high-quality random-access video recording media such as hard disks and flash memory . Since then, videotape has been increasingly relegated to archival and similar uses. The electronics division of entertainer Bing Crosby 's production company, Bing Crosby Enterprises (BCE), gave the world's first demonstration of a videotape recording in Los Angeles on November 11, 1951. In development by John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson since 1950,
9548-652: The high cost of 3M Scotch 179 and other early videotapes ($ 300 per one-hour reel) meant that most broadcasters erased and reused them, and (in the United States) regarded videotape as simply a better and more cost-effective means of time-delaying broadcasts than kinescopes. It was the four time zones of the continental United States which had made the system very desirable in the first place. Some early broadcast videotapes have survived, including The Edsel Show , broadcast live on October 13, 1957 and An Evening With Fred Astaire which aired on October 18, 1958 and
9672-448: The high cost of solid state and the limited shelf life of hard-disk drives make them less desirable for archival use, for which tape is still used. Betacam All Betacam variants from (plain) analog recording Betacam to Betacam SP and digital recording Digital Betacam (and additionally, HDCAM and HDCAM SR), use the same shape videocassettes, meaning vaults and other storage facilities do not have to be changed when upgrading to
9796-537: The higher-end format DVCPRO50 being a direct descendant. JVC developed the competing D9/Digital-S format, which compresses video data in a way similar to DVCPRO but uses a cassette similar to S-VHS media. Many helical scan cassette formats such as VHS and Betacam use a head drum with heads that use azimuth recording , in which the heads in the head drum have a gap that is tilted at an angle, and opposing heads have their gaps tilted so as to oppose each other. The introduction of HDTV video production necessitated
9920-448: The introduction of Beta Hi-Fi, Sony shifted the Y carrier up by 400 kHz to make room for the four FM carriers that would be needed for Beta Hi-Fi. All Beta machines incorporated this change, plus the ability to hunt for a lower frequency pre-AFM Y carrier. Sony incorporated an "antihunt" circuit, to stop the machine hunting for a Y carrier that was not there. Some Sony NTSC models were marketed as "Hi-Fi Ready" (with an SL-HFR prefix to
10044-489: The label itself specifies, 220 minutes. IMX machines feature the same good shot mark function of the Betacam SX. MPEG IMX cassettes are a muted green. This format uses a helical scan head drum 80 mm in diameter. The video tracks read by the video heads in the drum, are 22 microns wide. The video heads have a 15.25 degree azimuth. 4:2:2 Chroma subsampling is used, and the drum rotates at 5400 RPM for NTSC video. Due to
10168-433: The late 1980s the price had come down enough to make them affordable to a mainstream audience. Videocassettes finally made it possible for consumers to buy or rent a complete film and watch it at home whenever they wished, rather than going to a movie theater or having to wait until it was telecast. It gave birth to video rental stores, Blockbuster the largest chain, which lasted from 1985 to 2005. It also made it possible for
10292-416: The late 1990s. Despite the format's age and its discontinuation in 2001, Betacam SP remained a common standard for standard-definition video post-production into the 2010s. The recording time is the same as for Betacam, 30 and 90 minutes for S and L, respectively. Tape speed is slightly slower in machines working in the 625/50 format, increasing tape duration by one minute for every five minutes of run time. So,
10416-409: The late 2000s, MiniDV and its high-definition cousin, HDV , were the two most popular consumer or prosumer tape-based formats. The formats use different encoding methods, but the same cassette type. With advances in technology, videotape has moved past its original uses (original recording, editing, and broadcast playback) and is now primarily an archival medium. The death of tape for video recording
10540-801: The magnetic tape recording of both black-and-white and color television programs at its Princeton laboratories on December 1, 1953. The high-speed longitudinal tape system, called Simplex, in development since 1951, could record and play back only a few minutes of a television program . The color system used half-inch (1.27 cm) tape on 10½ inch reels to record five tracks, one each for red, blue, green, synchronization, and audio. The black-and-white system used quarter-inch (0.635 cm) tape also on 10½ inch reels with two tracks, one for video and one for audio. Both systems ran at 360 inches per second (9.1 m/s) with 2,500 feet (760 m) per reel yielding an 83-second capacity. RCA-owned NBC first used it on The Jonathan Winters Show on October 23, 1956, when
10664-704: The major brands to do so. Ampex , Thomson SA , BTS each sold OEM versions of some of the Sony VTRs and camcorders at various times in the 1980s and 1990s. Other than nameplates, these models were identical to the Sony models. Internal components still bore the Sony name. Digital Betacam (commonly referred to as DigiBeta , D-Beta , DBC or simply Digi ) was introduced at 18th International Television Symposium in Montreux on June 10, 1993. It supersedes both Betacam and Betacam SP, while costing significantly less than
10788-571: The mid-1990s. The final Betacam SP camcorder was the BVW-D600, which paired a digital professional video camera front section, very similar to the one on the DigiBeta DVW-700, with an integrated Betacam SP recorder. Like every other Betacam camera system, and unlike the DigiBeta DVW-700, the camera could not play back in color without the use of an outboard adapter. In 1991, the less-expensive, "Professional", PV line of Betacam SP decks
10912-486: The model's number instead of the usual SL or SL-HF). These Betamax decks looked like a regular Betamax model, except for a special 28-pin connector on the rear. If the user desired a Beta Hi-Fi model but lacked the funds at the time, he could purchase an "SL-HFRxx" and at a later date purchase the separate Hi-Fi Processor. Sony offered two outboard Beta Hi-Fi processors, the HFP-100 and HFP-200. They were identical except that
11036-549: The number of audio channels up to 12 at 48 kHz/24 bit. HDCAM SR was used commonly for HDTV television production. Some HDCAM VTRs play back older Betacam variants, for example, the Sony SRW-5500 HDCAM SR recorder, plays back and records HDCAM and HDCAM SR tapes and with optional hardware also plays and upconverts Digital Betacam tapes to HD format. Tape lengths are the same as for Digital Betacam, up to 40 minutes for S and 124 minutes for L tapes. In 24p mode
11160-418: The old linear soundtrack. In early 1985, Sony would introduce a new feature, Hi-Band or SuperBeta, by again shifting the Y carrier—this time by 800 kHz. This improved the bandwidth available to the Y sideband and increased the horizontal resolution from 240 to 290 lines on a regular-grade Betamax cassette. Since over-the-antenna and cable signals were only 300–330 lines resolution, SuperBeta could make
11284-619: The oldest surviving television network color videotape, and has been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive . On December 7, 1963, instant replay , originally a videotape-based system, was used for the first time during the live transmission of the Army–Navy Game by its inventor, director Tony Verna . Although Quad became the industry standard for approximately thirty years, it has drawbacks such as an inability to freeze pictures, and no picture search. Also, in early machines,
11408-439: The option of turning the subtitles on or off, or selecting subtitles in several languages). Moreover, a DVD can be played on a computer. Due to these advantages, by the mid-2000s, DVDs were the dominant form of prerecorded video movies. Through the late 1990s and early 2000s consumers continued to use VCRs to record over-the-air TV shows, because consumers could not make home recordings onto DVDs. This last barrier to DVD domination
11532-489: The original name. The DVC or MiniDV format provides broadcast-quality video and sophisticated nonlinear editing capability on consumer and some professional equipment and has been used on feature films, including Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002, shot on a Canon XL1) and David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006, shot on a Sony DSR-PD150). In 1999 Sony backported the DV recording scheme to 8-mm systems, creating Digital8 . By using
11656-409: The picture. ED-Beta also featured a luminance carrier deviation of 2.5 MHz, as opposed to the 1.2 MHz used in SuperBeta, improving contrast with reduced luminance noise. Chroma resolution remained unchanged, which made artifacts like color fringing more pronounced. To cancel chroma signal crosstalk, the chroma portion of the signal was delayed by one or two scan lines during playback, smearing
11780-486: The playback adapter, the VA-500, a separate portable unit that connected via a multi-pin cable and had a composite video out jack for color playback. At first color playback required the studio source deck, the BVW-10, which could not record, only play back. It was primarily designed as a feeder deck for A/B roll edit systems, usually for editing to a one-inch Type C or three-quarter-inch U-matic cassette edit master tape. There
11904-406: The professional U-Matic formats (~30 lines resolution left-to-right) on a relatively inexpensive cassette based format. The original Betacam cassettes, loaded with ferric-oxide tape, were identical in overall design and size (15.1 × 9.5 × 2.5 cm) to consumer-grade Betamax , introduced by Sony in 1975. Betacam cassettes could be used in a Betamax VCR; likewise, a blank Betamax tape would work on
12028-457: The professional and broadcast video industry, Sony derived Betacam from Betamax. Released in 1982, Betacam became the most widely used videotape format in ENG (electronic news gathering), replacing the .75 in (19 mm) wide U-matic tape format. Betacam and Betamax are similar in some ways- early versions of Betacam used the same video cassette shape, used the same oxide tape formulation with
12152-468: The rear panel for difficult tapes. For PAL , however, the bandwidth between the chroma and luminance carriers was not sufficient to allow additional FM carriers, so depth multiplexing was employed, wherein the audio track would be recorded in the same way that the video track was. The lower-frequency audio track was written first by a dedicated head, and the video track recorded on top by the video head. The head disk had an extra pair of audio-only heads with
12276-446: The recorded 1440×1080 content is upsampled to 1920×1080 on playback. The recorded video bitrate is 144 Mbit/s. There are four channels of AES/EBU 20-bit/48 kHz digital audio. It was used for some of Sony's cinema-targeted CineAlta range of products (newer CineAlta devices use flash storage). HDCAM SR , introduced in 2003, uses a higher particle density tape and is capable of recording in 10 bits 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 RGB with
12400-435: The rental market (e.g., cult films ). VHS became the leading consumer tape format for home movies after the videotape format war , though its follow-ups S-VHS , W-VHS and D-VHS never caught up in popularity. In the early 2000s in the prerecorded video market, VHS began to be displaced by DVD . The DVD format has several advantages over VHS tape. A DVD is much better able to take repeated viewings than VHS tape. Whereas
12524-408: The same coercivity , and recorded linear audio tracks in the same location of the tape. However, in the key area of video recording, Betacam and Betamax use completely different on-tape formats. Betamax also had a significant part to play in the music recording industry, when Sony introduced its PCM ( pulse-code modulation ) digital recording system as an encoding box/ PCM adaptor that connected to
12648-544: The same cassettes as Hi8, many Digital8 camcorders were able to play analog Video8 or Hi8 recordings, preserving compatibility with already recorded analog video tapes. Sony introduced another camcorder cassette format called MicroMV in 2001. Sony was the only electronics manufacturer to sell MicroMV cameras. In 2006, Sony stopped offering new MicroMV camcorder models. In November 2015, Sony announced that shipment of MicroMV cassettes would be discontinued in March 2016. In
12772-579: The superior Quadruplex system . BCE was acquired by 3M Company in 1956. In 1959, Toshiba released the first commercial helical scan video tape recorder. The first commercial professional broadcast quality videotape machines capable of replacing kinescopes were the two-inch quadruplex videotape (Quad) machines introduced by Ampex on April 14, 1956, at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Chicago . Quad employed
12896-446: The systems. Other unusual lengths were produced from time to time, such as L-410. In the 1983 David Cronenberg film Videodrome , the character of Max Renn grows an opening in his stomach that accepts Betamax videocassettes. The Betamax format was chosen because the cassettes were slightly smaller than VHS cassettes, and thus made the prosthetics easier to construct. In the 2006 episode of Doctor Who entitled The Idiot’s Lantern ,
13020-518: The tape, looking at recorded marks on each single cassette, and showing the markers to the operator. The cameras themselves are generally considered by most sound recordists to be quite noisy in operation, possibly because the amount of computer processing power, and subsequent generated heat leads to cooling fans being used to keep the camera at a reasonable temperature. Betacam SX tape shells are bright yellow, but SX recordings may also be found recorded on analogue Betacam SP cassettes. Of course if such
13144-551: The use of an MPEG format, video is recorded with 8-bit samples (8-bit color). The XDCAM format, unveiled in 2003, allows recording of MPEG IMX video in MXF container onto Professional Disc . HDCAM , introduced in 1997, was the first HD format available in Betacam form-factor, using an 8-bit DCT compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 1080i -compatible downsampled resolution of 1440×1080, and adding 24p and 23.976 PsF modes to later models. The HDCAM codec uses non-square pixels and as such
13268-412: The video signal from approximately 180 Mbit/s to only 18 Mbit/s. This means a compression ratio of around 10:1, which is achieved by the use of mild temporal compression, where alternate frames are stored as MPEG I-frames and B-frames, giving rise to an IBIB sequence on tape. Due to the low bitrate this format was not standardized by any standards body. Together with Betacam SX, Sony introduced
13392-572: The word "maximum", was added to suggest greatness. In 1977, Sony issued the first long-play Betamax VCR, the SL-8200. This VCR had two recording speeds: normal, and the newer half speed. This provided two hours of recording on the L-500 Beta videocassette. The SL-8200 was to compete against the VHS VCRs, which allowed up to 4, and later 6 and 8, hours of recording on one cassette. Initially, Sony
13516-604: The ¾ʺ (1.905 cm) composite U-matic system, which Sony introduced commercially in September 1971 after working out industry standards with other manufacturers. Sony later refined it to Broadcast Video U-matic (BVU). Sony continued its hold on the professional market with its ever-expanding ½ʺ (1.27 cm) component video Betacam family introduced in 1982. This tape form factor would go on to be used for leading professional digital video formats. Panasonic had some limited success with its MII system, but never could compare to Betacam in terms of market share. The next step
13640-570: Was 4 cm/sec. Below is a list of modern, digital-style resolutions (and traditional analog "TV lines per picture height" measurements) for various media. The list only includes popular formats. Listed resolution applies to luminance only, with chroma resolution usually halved in each dimension for digital formats, and significantly lower for analog formats. Equivalent pixel resolutions are calculated from analog line resolution numbers: The somewhat unintuitive analog resolution loss for 16:9 DVD compared to 4:3 DVD arises because analog resolution unit
13764-428: Was a huge advantage, as even owners of Beta VCRs could use a VHS camcorder to copy and edit footage to their Beta deck- something not possible with Betamovie. VHS gained another advantage with VHS-C , which used a miniaturized cassette to make a camcorder smaller and lighter than any Betamovie. Sony could not duplicate the functionality of VHS-C camcorders, and seeing the rapid loss of market share, eventually introduced
13888-513: Was able to tout several Betamax-only features, such as BetaScan—a high-speed picture search in either direction—and BetaSkipScan, a technique that allowed the operator to see where they were on the tape by pressing the FF key (or REW, if in that mode): the transport would switch into the BetaScan mode until the key was released. This feature is discussed in more detail on Peep Search . Sony believed that
14012-610: Was also the BVW-20 field playback deck, which was a portable unit with DC power and a handle, that was used to verify color playback of tapes in the field. Unlike the BVW-10, it did not have a built in time base corrector (TBC). With the popular success of the Betacam system as a news acquisition format, the line was soon extended to include the BVW-15 studio player, and the BVW-40 studio edit recorder. The BVW-15 added dynamic tracking, which enabled clear still frame and jog playback, something
14136-435: Was also the limitation that high-quality recording was only possible if the original component signals were available, as they were in a Betacam camcorder. If the recording started as composite video , re-converting them to components for recording and then eventually back to composite for broadcast caused a drop in quality compared to recording component video directly. In 1987, Betacam SP (commonly referred to as Beta SP )
14260-418: Was broken in the late 2000s with the advent of inexpensive DVD recorders and digital video recorders (DVRs). In July 2016, the last known manufacturer of VCRs, Funai , announced that it was ceasing VCR production. Early consumer camcorders used full-size VHS or Betamax cassettes. Later models switched to more compact formats, designed explicitly for smaller camcorder use, like VHS-C and Video8 . VHS-C
14384-617: Was initially introduced as a camera line along with a video cassette player. The first cameras were the BVP-3, which utilized three Saticon tubes, the BVP-30, which utilized three Plumbicon tubes, and the BVP-1, which used a single tri-stripe SMF (Saticon Mixed Field) Trinicon tube. These three cameras could be operated standalone, or with their docking companion VTR, the BVV-1 (quickly superseded by
14508-502: Was introduced. The PV line consisted of only four models: the full-sized PVW-2600 (VTP), PVW-2650 (VTP with Dynamic tracking allowing up to fwd x3, whereas the BVW line only offered x2 DT playback) and PVW-2800 (VTR) editing decks, and the PVV-3 camera-dockable VTR. These high quality machines were similar to the original BV series machines, but lacked the third and fourth audio channels. In 1993,
14632-623: Was predicted as early as 1995 when the Avid nonlinear editing system was demonstrated storing video clips on hard disks. Yet videotape was still used extensively, especially by consumers, up until about 2004, when DVD-based camcorders became affordable and domestic computers had large enough hard drives to store an acceptable amount of video. Consumer camcorders have switched from being tape-based to tapeless machines that record video as computer files. Small hard disks and writable optical discs have been used, with solid-state memory such as SD cards being
14756-514: Was released. It increased horizontal resolution to 340 lines. While the quality improvement of the format itself was minor, the improvement to the VTRs was enormous, particularly in quality and features. In addition to the existing cassette a larger cassette (25.3 × 14.4 × 2.5 cm) was introduced with 90 minutes of recording time. Betacam SP (for "Superior Performance") became the industry standard for most TV stations and high-end production houses until
14880-488: Was the digital revolution. Sony's D-1 was introduced in 1986 and featured uncompressed digital component recording. Because D-1 was extremely expensive, the composite D-2 (Sony, 1988) and D-3 (Panasonic, 1991) were introduced soon after. Ampex introduced the first compressed component recording with its DCT series in 1992. Panasonic's D-5 format was introduced in 1994. Like D-1, it is uncompressed, but much more affordable. The DV standard, which debuted in 1995, and
15004-405: Was the need for a less cumbersome all-in-one solution, and Sony's was " Betamovie ", the first consumer camcorder. Betamovie used standard-size Betamax cassettes. However, the changes required to miniaturise the mechanism forced the use of non-standard record signal timing. As a result, while the final on-tape recording is – by design – in standard Betamax format and playable on a regular Beta deck,
15128-733: Was the oldest color videotape of an entertainment program known to exist until the discovery of the October 8, 1958 episode of the Kraft Music Hall hosted by Milton Berle . The oldest color videotape known to survive is the May 1958 dedication of the WRC-TV studios in Washington, D.C. ). In 1976, NBC 's 50th-anniversary special included an excerpt from a 1957 color special starring Donald O'Connor ; despite some obvious technical problems,
15252-456: Was used. A new SP field recorder, the BVW-35, possessed the added benefit of a standard RS422 serial control port that enabled it to be used as an edit feeder deck. Though the four new studio decks could utilize the full 90-minute Betacam SP cassettes, the BVW-35 remained limited to the original Betacam small 30-minute cassette shells. Answering a need for a basic office player, Sony also introduced
15376-425: Was widely used both in its native form as MiniDV and in more robust professional variants. In digital camcorders, Sony adapted the Betacam system with its Digital Betacam format in 1993, and in 1996 following it up with the cheaper Betacam SX and the 2000 MPEG IMX format, The semiprofessional DV-based DVCAM system was introduced in 1996. Panasonic used its DV variant DVCPRO for all professional cameras, with
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