105-395: HAD CCD is the name of a technology Sony implemented on some of their CCD image sensors. There are at least six models of HAD CCD sensors. (Diagonal) (typical value F5.6) (minimum value) 0.44 MP 1/2" G Mg 1.25 MP 1/3" 16.15 MP 1/2.3" 0.38 MP 1/2" 2800 mV (F8) 0.44 MP 1/2" 2800 mV (F8) 0.290 MP 1/4" G Mg This photography-related article is
210-576: A loudspeaker . The first wire recorder was the Telegraphone invented by Valdemar Poulsen in the late 1890s. Wire recorders for law and office dictation and telephone recording were made almost continuously by various companies (mainly the American Telegraphone Company) through the 1920s and 1930s. These devices were mostly sold as consumer technologies after World War II. Widespread use of wire recording occurred within
315-593: A stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sony Sony Group Corporation (formerly Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. and Sony Corporation ) is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo , Japan. The Sony Group comprises entities such as Sony Corporation , Sony Semiconductor Solutions , Sony Entertainment (including Sony Pictures and Sony Music Group ), Sony Interactive Entertainment , Sony Financial Group , and others. Sony
420-664: A 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010. Sony still develops magnetic tape storage technologies along with IBM , and are one of only two manufacturers of Linear Tape-Open (LTO) cartridges. In 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products, with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. Sony has made updates to
525-606: A Blattnerphone at Avenue House in September 1930 for tests, and used it to record King George V 's speech at the opening of the India Round Table Conference on 12 November 1930. Though not considered suitable for music the machine continued in use and was moved to Broadcasting House in March 1932, a second machine also being installed. In September 1932, a new model was installed, using 3 mm tape with
630-453: A Super Famicom with a built-in CD-ROM drive, named the "Play Station" (also known as SNES-CD ). However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology. The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between
735-783: A completely separate financial entity owned by Sony, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of the DVD ) In 2021, the WIPO 's annual review of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report ranked Sony's as ninth in the world for the number of patent applications published under the PCT System . 1,793 patent applications were published by Sony during 2020. This position
840-572: A department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo . The company started with a capital of ¥190,000 and a total of eight employees. On 7 May 1946, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo ( 東京通信工業 , Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō , Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) . The company built Japan's first tape recorder , called the Type-G. In 1958,
945-456: A fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck , which uses a cassette for storage. The use of magnetic tape for sound recording originated around 1930 in Germany as paper tape with oxide lacquered to it. Prior to
1050-457: A focus on reducing the major losses from the television business. In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $ 7.8 billion over a decade. Later that month, they announced that they would be closing 20 stores. In April,
1155-513: A format war with DVD-Audio . Still, neither gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs had been preferred by consumers because of the ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices until the early 2000s when the iPod and streaming services became available. In 2015, Sony introduced LDAC , a proprietary audio coding technology which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbit/s at 32 bit/96 kHz. Sony also contributed it as part of
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#17327764134781260-480: A name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval. According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open the U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid-1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel
1365-667: A part of any traditional keiretsu , Sony has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), which traces its roots to the Mitsui zaibatsu . This connection dates back to the 1950s when it was the only bank the company dealt with. Sony is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (in which it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Core30 indeces) with an additional listing in
1470-434: A patent application in 1931, Merle Duston, a Detroit radio engineer, created a tape recorder capable of recording both sounds and voice that used a low-cost chemically treated paper tape. During the recording process, the tape moved through a pair of electrodes which immediately imprinted the modulated sound signals as visible black stripes into the paper tape's surface. The audio signal could be immediately replayed from
1575-503: A patent for his invention in 1909. The celluloid film was inscribed and played back with a stylus, in a manner similar to the wax cylinders of Edison's gramophone. The patent description states that the machine could store six records on the same strip of film, side by side, and it was possible to switch between them. In 1912, a similar process was used for the Hiller talking clock . In 1932, after six years of developmental work, including
1680-588: A recording time of 32 minutes. In 1933, the Marconi Company purchased the rights to the Blattnerphone, and newly developed Marconi-Stille recorders were installed in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in March 1935. The quality and reliability were slightly improved, though it still tended to be obvious that one was listening to a recording. A reservoir system containing a loop of tape helped to stabilize
1785-731: A slogan known as "make.believe" in 2009. Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late-2000s. In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined three major areas of focus for Sony's electronics business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as
1890-404: A subsidiary and, at the same time, a holding company for Sony's music businesses, along with SMEJ . Tape recorder An audio tape recorder , also known as a tape deck , tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder , is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records
1995-570: A wholly owned subsidiary through a takeover bid. On 1 April 2021, Sony Corporation was renamed Sony Group Corporation. On the same day, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. absorbed Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc. and changed its trade name to Sony Corporation. Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies, while its success in
2100-454: A year. ABC agreed to let him use transcription discs for the 1946–47 season, but listeners complained about the sound quality. Crosby realised that Mullin's tape recorder technology would enable him to pre-record his radio show with high sound quality and that these tapes could be replayed many times with no appreciable loss of quality. Mullin was asked to tape one show as a test and was subsequently hired as Crosby's chief engineer to pre-record
2205-505: Is largely offered in two forms, either chips embedded in smartphones or plastic cards with chips embedded in them. Sony plans to implement this technology in train systems across Asia. In 2019, Sony launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication ( LPWAN ) standard. Until 1991, Sony had little direct involvement with the video game industry. The company supplied components for other consoles, such as
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#17327764134782310-443: Is organized into the following business segments: Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music, Pictures, Electronics Products & Solutions (EP&S), Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS), Financial Services, and Others. Usually, each business segment has a handful of corresponding intermediate holding companies under which all the related businesses are folded into, such as Columbia Records being part of Sony Music Group ,
2415-573: Is up from their previous ranking as 13th in 2019 with 1,566 applications. Best known for its electronic products, Sony offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas. At its peak, it was dubbed as a "corporate octopus", for its sprawling ventures from private insurance to chemicals to cosmetics to home shopping to a Tokyo-based French food joint, in addition its core businesses such as electronics and entertainment. Even after it has unwound many business units including Sony Chemicals and Vaio PC, Sony still runs diverse businesses. As of 2020, Sony
2520-458: Is used for the capstan and one for driving the reels for playback, rewind, and fast forward. The storage of an analog signal on tape works well, but is not perfect. In particular, the granular nature of the magnetic material adds high-frequency noise to the signal, generally referred to as tape hiss . Also, the magnetic characteristics of tape are not linear . They exhibit a characteristic hysteresis curve, which causes unwanted distortion of
2625-465: Is usually called a tape recorder or – if it has no record functionality – a tape player , while one that requires external amplification for playback is usually called a tape deck (regardless of whether it can record). Multitrack technology enabled the development of modern art music and one such artist, Brian Eno , described the tape recorder as "an automatic musical collage device." Magnetic tape brought about sweeping changes in both radio and
2730-579: The ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 standard natively. In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD . Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. In addition to saving audio on
2835-824: The Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.0 " Oreo ", enabling every OEM to integrate this standard into their own Android devices freely. However the decoder library is proprietary , so receiving devices require licenses. On 17 September 2019, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) certified LDAC with their Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Currently the only codecs with the Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification are LDAC and LHDC , another competing standard. Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for
2940-635: The Crystal LED Display. Sony used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman , the world's first portable music player. Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette. Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under
3045-450: The TR-55 transistor radio , appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958. At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji . The move was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui , had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for
3150-535: The Video8 format . Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard. Sony held a patent for its proprietary Trinitron until 1996. Sony introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in
3255-474: The 1950s. Consumer wire recorders were marketed for home entertainment or as an inexpensive substitute for commercial office dictation recorders, but the development of consumer magnetic tape recorders starting in 1946, with the BK 401 Soundmirror, using paper-based tape, gradually drove wire recorders from the market, being "pretty much out of the picture" by 1952. In 1924 a German engineer, Kurt Stille, developed
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3360-634: The Brush Development Company in the United States, where work continued but attracted little attention until the late 1940s when the company released the very first consumer tape recorder in 1946: the Soundmirror BK 401. Several other models were quickly released in the following years. Tapes were initially made of paper coated with magnetite powder . In 1947/48 Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company ( 3M ) replaced
3465-525: The EMI TR90 and a Philips machine which was lightweight but very easy and quick to use. Bush House used several Leevers-Rich models. The Studer range of machines had become pretty well the studio recording industry standard by the 1970s, and gradually these replaced the aging BTR2s in recording rooms and studios. By the mid-2000s tape was pretty well out of use and had been replaced by digital playout systems. The typical professional audio tape recorder of
3570-523: The Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro . The company has also released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line. Sony introduced FeliCa , a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment , as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) with Philips. The standard
3675-519: The Poulsen wire recorder as a dictating machine. The following year a fellow German, Louis Blattner , working in Britain, licensed Stille's device and started work on a machine which would instead record on a magnetic steel tape, which he called the Blattnerphone. The tape was 6 mm wide and 0.08 mm thick, traveling at 5 feet per second; the recording time was 20 minutes. The BBC installed
3780-639: The ability to pre-record their broadcasts with the high quality of tape, and the recording ban was lifted. Crosby invested $ 50,000 of his own money into the Californian electronics company Ampex , and the six-man concern (headed by Alexander M. Poniatoff , whose initials became part of the company name) soon became the world leader in the development of tape recording, with its Model 200 tape deck, released in 1948 and developed from Mullin's modified Magnetophons. The BBC acquired some Magnetophon machines in 1946 on an experimental basis, and they were used in
3885-412: The board. Eventually, Sony President Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo. Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives, Kutaragi and his team had to be shifted from Sony's headquarters to Sony Music ,
3990-522: The brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word " sonus ", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was " sonny ", a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy. In 1950s Japan, "sonny boys" was a loan word in Japanese, which connoted smart and presentable young men, which Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka considered themselves to be. The first Sony-branded product,
4095-508: The broadcasts had to be transcriptions, but their audio quality was indistinguishable from that of a live broadcast and their duration was far longer than was possible even with 16 rpm transcription discs. In the final stages of the war in Europe, the Allies' capture of a number of German Magnetophon recorders from Radio Luxembourg aroused great interest. These recorders incorporated all
4200-426: The coils of the tape head creates a fluctuating magnetic field. This causes the magnetic material on the tape, which is moving past and in contact with the head, to align in a manner proportional to the original signal. The signal can be reproduced by running the tape back across the tape head, where the reverse process occurs – the magnetic imprint on the tape induces a small current in the read head which approximates
4305-572: The company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in Square Enix (roughly 8.2 percent of the game company's total shares) in a deal worth approximately $ 48 million. In May 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to manufacture and market Sony's PlayStation game consoles and associated software in China. In 2015, Sony purchased Toshiba's image sensor business. It
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4410-430: The company changed its name to "Sony". Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo founders Morita and Ibuka realized that to achieve success and grow, their business had to expand to the global market, which required labeling their products with a short and easy brand name. While looking for a romanized name, they at first strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko
4515-425: The company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as Spider-Man while cutting 9,000 jobs. He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics. Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units, which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another. In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced
4620-610: The decades spanning from 1940 until 1960, following the development of inexpensive designs licensed internationally by the Brush Development Company of Cleveland, Ohio and the Armour Research Foundation of the Armour Institute of Technology (later Illinois Institute of Technology ). These two organizations licensed dozens of manufacturers in the U.S., Japan, and Europe. Wire was also used as a recording medium in black box voice recorders for aviation in
4725-476: The development of magnetic tape, magnetic wire recorders had successfully demonstrated the concept of magnetic recording , but they never offered audio quality comparable to the other recording and broadcast standards of the time. This German invention was the start of a long string of innovations that have led to present-day magnetic tape recordings. Magnetic tape revolutionized both the radio broadcast and music recording industries. It gave artists and producers
4830-469: The discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos. In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at
4935-1166: The early 1950s used 1 ⁄ 4 in (6 mm) wide tape on 10 + 1 ⁄ 2 in (27 cm) reels, with a capacity of 2,400 ft (730 m). Typical speeds were initially 15 in/s (38.1 cm/s) yielding 30 minutes' recording time on a 2,400 ft (730 m) reel. Early professional machines used single-sided reels but double-sided reels soon became popular, particularly for domestic use. Tape reels were made from metal or transparent plastic. Standard tape speeds varied by factors of two: 15 and 30 in/s were used for professional audio recording; 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 in/s (19.1 cm/s) for home audiophile prerecorded tapes; 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 and 3 + 3 ⁄ 4 in/s (19.1 and 9.5 cm/s) for audiophile and consumer recordings (typically on 7 in (18 cm) reels). 1 + 7 ⁄ 8 in/s (4.8 cm/s) and occasionally even 15 ⁄ 16 in/s (2.4 cm/s) were used for voice, dictation, and applications where very long recording times were needed, such as logging police and fire department calls. The 8-track tape standard, developed by Bill Lear in
5040-488: The early stages of the new Third Programme to record and play back performances of operas from Germany. Delivery of tape was preferred as live relays over landlines were unreliable in the immediate post-war period. These machines were used until 1952, though most of the work continued to be done using the established media. In 1948, a new British model became available from EMI: the BTR1. Though in many ways clumsy, its quality
5145-487: The early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Digital Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips , with which Sony went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas. Sony (either alone or with partners) has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.5-inch floppy disk , compact disc and Blu-ray disc. Sony introduced U-matic ,
5250-471: The film studio. According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017). In 2017, Sony sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing . In 2019, Sony merged its mobile, TV and camera businesses. On 1 April 2020, Sony Electronics Corporation
5355-401: The first decade of the 21st century, analog magnetic tape has been largely replaced by digital recording technologies. The earliest known audio tape recorder was a non-magnetic , non-electric version invented by Alexander Graham Bell 's Volta Laboratory and patented in 1886 ( U.S. patent 341,214 ). It employed a 3 ⁄ 16 -inch-wide (4.8 mm) strip of wax-covered paper that
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#17327764134785460-612: The fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968. Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960. In the process, he was struck by the mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time. When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony. The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do
5565-425: The flutter the more noise that can be heard causing the quality of the recording to be worse. Higher tape speeds used in professional recorders are prone to cause head bumps , which are fluctuations in low-frequency response. There is a wide variety of tape recorders in existence, from small hand-held devices to large multitrack machines. A machine with built-in speakers and audio power amplification to drive them
5670-619: The form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange (traded since 1961, making it one of the oldest Japanese company to be listed on an American exchange), and was ranked 88th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list. In 2023, the company was ranked 57th in the Forbes Global 2000 . Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya,
5775-399: The home video game console PlayStation in 1994, which was the first of the eponymous brand . In Japan, Sony expanded into the financial sector. In 2021, Sony transformed into a holding company, handing over the name Sony Corporation to its subsidiary as the electronics company. Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors,
5880-527: The innovative pop music studio-as-an-instrument recordings of artists such as Frank Zappa , the Beatles , and the Beach Boys . Philips advertised their reel-to-reel recorders as an audial family album and pushed families to purchase these recorders to capture and relive memories forever. But the use for recording music slowly but steadily rose as the main function for the tape recorder. Tape enabled
5985-577: The introduction of the first commercial tape recorder, the Ampex 200 model, launched in 1948, the invention of the first multitrack tape recorder , brought about another technical revolution in the recording industry. Tape made possible the first sound recordings totally created by electronic means, opening the way for the bold sonic experiments of the Musique Concrète school and avant-garde composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen , which in turn led to
6090-538: The key technological features of modern analog magnetic recording and were the basis for future developments in the field. Development of magnetic tape recorders in the late 1940s and early 1950s is associated with the Brush Development Company and its licensee, Ampex . The equally important development of the magnetic tape medium itself was led by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) corporation. In 1938, S.J. Begun left Germany and joined
6195-455: The major radio networks didn't permit the use of disc recording in many programs because of their comparatively poor sound quality. Crosby disliked the regimentation of live broadcasts 39 weeks a year, preferring the recording studio's relaxed atmosphere and ability to retain the best parts of a performance. He asked NBC to let him pre-record his 1944–45 series on transcription discs , but the network refused, so Crosby withdrew from live radio for
6300-520: The marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs. Betamax is, for all practical purposes, an obsolete format. Sony's professional-oriented component video format called Betacam , which was derived from Betamax, was used until 2016 when Sony announced it was stopping production of all remaining 1/2-inch video tape recorders and players, including the Digital Betacam format. In 1985, Sony launched their Handycam products and
6405-448: The mid-1960s, popularized consumer audio playback in automobiles in the USA. Eventually, this standard was replaced by the smaller and more reliable Compact Cassette , which was launched earlier in 1963. Philips 's development of the Compact Cassette in 1963 and Sony 's development of the Walkman in 1979 led to widespread consumer use of magnetic audio tape. In 1990, the Compact Cassette
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#17327764134786510-498: The original signal and is then amplified for playback. Many tape recorders are capable of recording and playing back simultaneously by means of separate record and playback heads. Modern professional recorders usually use a three-motor scheme. One motor with a constant rotational speed drives the capstan . Usually combined with a rubber pinch roller, it ensures that the tape speed does not fluctuate. The other two motors, which are called torque motors, apply equal and opposite torques to
6615-406: The paper backing with cellulose acetate or polyester , and coated it first with black oxide, and later, to improve signal-to-noise ratio and improve overall superior quality, with red oxide ( gamma ferric oxide ). American audio engineer John T. Mullin and entertainer Bing Crosby were key players in the commercial development of magnetic tape. Mullin served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and
6720-417: The position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began a life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices. Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony", one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it." Around that time, Norio Ohga took up
6825-452: The power to record and re-record audio with minimal loss in quality as well as edit and rearrange recordings with ease. The alternative recording technologies of the era, transcription discs and wire recorders , could not provide anywhere near this level of quality and functionality. Since some early refinements improved the fidelity of the reproduced sound, magnetic tape has been the highest quality analog recording medium available. As of
6930-465: The radio industry for the first time to pre-record many sections of program content such as advertising, which formerly had to be presented live, and it also enabled the creation and duplication of complex, high-fidelity, long-duration recordings of entire programs. It also, for the first time, allowed broadcasters, regulators and other interested parties to undertake comprehensive logging of radio broadcasts for legislative and commercial purposes, leading to
7035-411: The recording industry. Sound could be recorded, erased and re-recorded on the same tape many times, sounds could be duplicated from tape to tape with only minor loss of quality, and recordings could now be very precisely edited by physically cutting the tape and rejoining it. In August 1948, Los Angeles-based Capitol Records became the first recording company to use the new process. Within a few years of
7140-509: The rest of the series. Crosby's season premier on 1 October 1947 was the first magnetic tape broadcast in America. He became the first major American music star to use tape to pre-record radio broadcasts, and the first to master commercial recordings on tape. The taped Crosby radio shows were painstakingly edited through tape-splicing to give them a pace and flow that was wholly unprecedented in radio. Soon other radio performers were demanding
7245-552: The role of president. He encouraged the development of the compact disc (CD) in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989. Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses. Part of its motivation for doing so
7350-583: The same 3 ⁄ 16 -inch-wide (4.8 mm) strip. While the machine was never developed commercially, it somewhat resembled the modern magnetic tape recorder in its design. The tapes and machine created by Bell's associates, examined at one of the Smithsonian Institution 's museums, became brittle, and the heavy paper reels warped. The machine's playback head was also missing. Otherwise, with some reconditioning, they could be placed into working condition. The waxed tape recording medium
7455-513: The same recorder unit, which also contained photoelectric sensors, somewhat similar to the various sound-on-film technologies of the era. Magnetic recording was conceived as early as 1878 by the American engineer Oberlin Smith and demonstrated in practice in 1898 by Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen . Analog magnetic wire recording , and its successor, magnetic tape recording, involve
7560-525: The same. Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as a powerful exporter during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, supplying the U.S. Military with bomb parts used in the Vietnam War . It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products. Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices. In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed
7665-410: The second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for a television of at least 55 inches (140 centimeters) with a price higher than $ 2,500 as well as second largest TV brand by market share and, as of 2020, the third largest television manufacturer in the world by annual sales figures. Although not being
7770-521: The signal. Some of this distortion is overcome by using inaudible high-frequency AC bias when recording. The amount of bias needs careful adjustment for best results as different tape material requires differing amounts of bias. Most recorders have a switch to select this. Additionally, systems such as Dolby noise reduction systems have been devised to ameliorate some noise and distortion problems. Variations in tape speed cause wow and flutter . Flutter can be reduced by using dual capstans. The higher
7875-662: The sound chip for the Super Famicom from Nintendo , and operated a video game studio, Sony Imagesoft . As part of a joint project between Nintendo and Sony that began as early as 1988, the two companies worked to create a CD-ROM version of the Super Famicom, though Nintendo denied the existence of the Sony deal as late as March 1991. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony revealed
7980-598: The specific use of archival data storage, in 1986 and 1988 respectively. In the early 1990s, two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification. The unified disc format
8085-511: The speed of the recording. Despite these drawbacks, the ability to make replayable recordings proved useful, and even with subsequent methods coming into use (direct-cut discs and Philips-Miller optical film the Marconi-Stilles remained in use until the late 1940s. Magnetic tape recording as we know it today was developed in Germany during the 1930s at BASF (then part of the chemical giant IG Farben ) and AEG in cooperation with
8190-404: The speed. The tape was 3 mm wide and traveled at 1.5 meters/second. They were not easy to handle. The reels were heavy and expensive and the steel tape has been described as being like a traveling razor blade. The tape was liable to snap, particularly at joints, which at 1.5 meters/second could rapidly cover the floor with loops of the sharp-edged tape. Rewinding was done at twice
8295-498: The standard in recording rooms for many years and was in use until the end of the 1960s. In 1963, the Beatles were allowed to enhance their recordings at the BBC by overdubbing. The BBC didn't have any multi-track equipment; Overdubbing was accomplished by copying onto another tape. The tape speed was eventually standardized at 15 ips for almost all work at Broadcasting House, and at 15 ips for music and 7½ ips for speech at Bush House. Broadcasting House also used
8400-536: The state radio RRG . This was based on Fritz Pfleumer 's 1928 invention of paper tape with oxide powder lacquered onto it. The first practical tape recorder from AEG was the Magnetophon K1 , demonstrated in Berlin, Germany in 1935. Eduard Schüller [ de ] of AEG built the recorders and developed a ring-shaped recording and playback head. It replaced the needle-shaped head which tended to shred
8505-572: The storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard. In 1983, the two company jointly announced the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players. Sony began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format. It launched write-once optical discs (WO) and magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for
8610-516: The supply and take-up reels during recording and playback functions and maintain the tape's tension. During fast winding operations, the pinch roller is disengaged and the take-up reel motor produces more torque than the supply motor. The cheapest models use a single motor for all required functions; the motor drives the capstan directly and the supply and take-up reels are loosely coupled to the capstan motor with slipping belts, gears, or clutches. There are also variants with two motors, in which one motor
8715-710: The tape. Friedrich Matthias of IG Farben/BASF developed the recording tape, including the oxide, the binder, and the backing material. Walter Weber, working for Hans Joachim von Braunmühl [ de ] at the RRG, discovered the AC biasing technique, which radically improved sound quality. During World War II , the Allies noticed that certain German officials were making radio broadcasts from multiple time zones almost simultaneously. Analysts such as Richard H. Ranger believed that
8820-505: The technologies developed for the company's optical disc products. In 1983, Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes, better known as 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disks , which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks, and many variations from different companies, to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant. 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. Sony held more than
8925-515: The time. Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS ( Digital Theatre System ) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS. Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format ( S/PDIF ) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD . The latter became entrenched in
9030-491: The two companies. The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga , who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo. At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a "non-gaming role" regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was swiftly rejected by Kutaragi who
9135-416: The use of a magnetizable medium which moves with a constant speed past a recording head. An electrical signal, which is analogous to the sound that is to be recorded, is fed to the recording head, inducing a pattern of magnetization similar to the signal. A playback head can then pick up the changes in magnetic field from the tape and convert it into an electrical signal to be amplified and played back through
9240-455: The world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions. It was widely used in other Sony's products as well, including computer monitors, laptops, and smartphones. In 2013, Sony released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system. It was the first commercial use of quantum dots. In 2012, the company revealed a prototype of an ultrafine RGB LED display, which it calls
9345-518: The world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price. The company subsequently launched the Betamax format in 1975. Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC . In the end, VHS gained critical mass in
9450-402: Was Bing Crosby's technical director, Murdo Mackenzie. He arranged for Mullin to meet Crosby and in June 1947 he gave Crosby a private demonstration of his magnetic tape recorders. Bing Crosby , a top movie and singing star, was stunned by the amazing sound quality and instantly saw the huge commercial potential of the new machines. Live music was the standard for American radio at the time and
9555-401: Was a chance visit to a studio at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt while investigating radio beam rumors, that yielded the real prize. Mullin was given two suitcase-sized AEG 'Magnetophon' high-fidelity recorders and fifty reels of recording tape. He had them shipped home and over the next two years he worked on the machines constantly, modifying them and improving their performance. His major aim
9660-525: Was called DVD and was introduced in 1997. Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. The format emerged as the standard for HD media over the competing format, Toshiba's HD DVD , after a two-year-long high-definition optical disc format war . Sony's laser communication devices for small satellites rely on
9765-553: Was coated by dipping it in a solution of beeswax and paraffin and then had one side scraped clean, with the other side allowed to harden. The machine was of sturdy wood and metal construction and hand-powered by means of a knob fastened to a flywheel . The wax strip passed from one eight-inch reel around the periphery of a pulley (with guide flanges) mounted above the V-pulleys on the main vertical shaft, where it came in contact with either its recording or playback stylus . The tape
9870-477: Was established as an intermediate holding company to own and oversee its electronics and IT solutions businesses. On 19 May 2020, the company announced that it would change its name to Sony Group Corporation as of 1 April 2021. Subsequently, Sony Electronics Corporation would be renamed to Sony Corporation. On the same day the company announced that it would turn Sony Financial Holdings (currently Sony Financial Group), of which Sony already owns 65.06% of shares, to
9975-442: Was established in 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita . This electronics company, known for creating products such as the transistor radio TR-55 , the home video tape recorder CV-2000 , the portable audio player Walkman , and the compact disc player CDP-101 , embarked on diverse business ventures. In 1988, Sony acquired CBS Records , and in 1989, it acquired Columbia Pictures . The company also introduced
10080-546: Was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. Negotiations officially ended in May 1992 and in order to decide the fate of the PlayStation project, a meeting was held in June 1992, consisting of Sony President Ohga, PlayStation Head Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to
10185-490: Was good, and as it wasn't possible to obtain any more Magnetophons it was an obvious choice. In the early 1950s, the EMI BTR 2 became available; a much-improved machine and generally liked. The machines were responsive, could run up to speed quite quickly, had light-touch operating buttons, forward-facing heads (The BTR 1s had rear-facing heads which made editing difficult), and were quick and easy to do fine editing. It became
10290-411: Was known as TTK. The company occasionally used the syllabic acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name. The name "Sony" was chosen for
10395-495: Was later refined by Edison's wax cylinder , and became the first widespread sound recording technology, used for both entertainment and office dictation. However, recordings on wax cylinders were unable to be easily duplicated, making them both costly and time consuming for large scale production. Wax cylinders were also unable to record more than 2 minutes of audio, a problem solved by gramophone discs . Franklin C. Goodale adapted movie film for analog audio recording. He received
10500-476: Was posted to Paris in the final months of WWII. His unit was assigned to find out everything they could about German radio and electronics, including the investigation of claims that the Germans had been experimenting with high-energy directed radio beams as a means of disabling the electrical systems of aircraft. Mullin's unit soon amassed a collection of hundreds of low-quality magnetic dictating machines, but it
10605-483: Was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House would not have taken over day-to-day operations of
10710-465: Was the dominant format in mass-market recorded music. The development of Dolby noise reduction technology in the 1960s brought audiophile-quality recording to the Compact Cassette also contributing to its popularity. Since their first introduction, analog tape recorders have experienced a long series of progressive developments resulting in increased sound quality, convenience, and versatility. Due to electromagnetism , electric current flowing in
10815-492: Was the pursuit of "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics via the Internet. This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable, threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products as well as its brand name. In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate
10920-434: Was then taken up on the other reel. The sharp recording stylus, actuated by a vibrating mica diaphragm, cut the wax from the strip. In playback mode, a dull, loosely mounted stylus, attached to a rubber diaphragm, carried the reproduced sounds through an ear tube to its listener. Both recording and playback styluses, mounted alternately on the same two posts, could be adjusted vertically so that several recordings could be cut on
11025-467: Was to interest Hollywood studios in using magnetic tape for movie soundtrack recording. Mullin gave two public demonstrations of his machines, and they caused a sensation among American audio professionals; many listeners literally could not believe that what they heard was not a live performance. By luck, Mullin's second demonstration was held at MGM Studios in Hollywood and in the audience that day
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