Misplaced Pages

#229770

93-435: The Silicon Imaging (SI-2K) was a 2K digital video camera built on a single 16   mm sized CMOS sensor manufactured by Altasens. It was able to record direct to disk in the compressed CineForm RAW format, and was notable for its tiny detachable camera head, which can be positioned up to 100m from the recording unit through an ethernet cable . Danny Boyle and his director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle used

186-488: A constant bitrate (CBR). This CBR video is suitable for real-time, non-buffered, fixed bandwidth video streaming (e.g. in videoconferencing). Since not all frames can be compressed at the same level, because quality is more severely impacted for scenes of high complexity, some algorithms try to constantly adjust the BPP. They keep the BPP high while compressing complex scenes and low for less demanding scenes. This way, it provides

279-664: 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

372-439: A D2 VCR. This made it a perfect fit for the majority of television facilities at the time. D2 was a successful format in the television broadcast industry throughout the late '80s and the '90s. D2 was also widely used in that era as the master tape format for mastering laserdiscs . D1 & D2 would eventually be replaced by cheaper systems using video compression, most notably Sony's Digital Betacam , that were introduced into

465-740: A Nobel Prize for his work in physics. Following the commercialization of CCD sensors during the late 1970s to early 1980s, the entertainment industry slowly began transitioning to digital imaging and digital video from analog video over the next two decades. The CCD was followed by the CMOS active-pixel sensor ( CMOS sensor ), developed in the 1990s. Major films shot on digital video overtook those shot on film in 2013. Since 2016 over 90% of major films were shot on digital video. As of 2017 , 92% of films are shot on digital. Only 24 major films released in 2018 were shot on 35mm. Today, cameras from companies like Sony , Panasonic , JVC and Canon offer

558-453: 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

651-783: 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

744-624: 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,

837-457: 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,

930-513: 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

1023-399: A full frame. The second half contains only the even-numbered lines. These halves are referred to individually as fields . Two consecutive fields compose a full frame. If an interlaced video has a frame rate of 30 frames per second the field rate is 60 fields per second, though both part of interlaced video, frames per second and fields per second are separate numbers. By definition, bit rate

SECTION 10

#1732787511230

1116-527: A modified 1-inch type B videotape transport and recorded an early form of CCIR 601 digital video. Ampex's prototype digital video recorder used a modified 2-inch quadruplex videotape VTR (an Ampex AVR-3) fitted with custom digital video electronics and a special octaplex 8-head headwheel (regular analog 2" quad machines only used 4 heads). Like standard 2" quad, the audio on the Ampex prototype digital machine, nicknamed Annie by its developers, still recorded

1209-480: 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

1302-667: 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

1395-401: A series of digital images displayed in rapid succession. In the context of video, these images are called frames . The rate at which frames are displayed is known as the frame rate and is measured in frames per second . Every frame is a digital image and so comprises a formation of pixels . The color of a pixel is represented by a fixed number of bits of that color where the information of

1488-468: A single stereo CineForm RAW file. Combining two cameras into a single control, processing and recording platform enables shooting and instant playback like a traditional 2D camera with the added tools needed on-set to analyze and adjust the lighting, color, flip orientation and stereo depth effects. In post, a unified stereo file plus associated metadata can be immediately graded for dailies, edited, and viewed in either 2D or 3D. This film technology article

1581-731: 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

1674-448: A variety of choices for shooting high-definition video. At the high-end of the market, there has been an emergence of cameras aimed specifically at the digital cinema market. These cameras from Sony , Vision Research , Arri , Blackmagic Design , Panavision , Grass Valley and Red offer resolution and dynamic range that exceeds that of traditional video cameras, which are designed for the limited needs of broadcast television . In

1767-570: 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

1860-876: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Digital video Digital video was first introduced commercially in 1986 with the Sony D1 format, which recorded an uncompressed standard-definition component video signal in digital form. In addition to uncompressed formats , popular compressed digital video formats today include MPEG-2 , H.264 and AV1 . Modern interconnect standards used for playback of digital video include HDMI , DisplayPort , Digital Visual Interface (DVI) and serial digital interface (SDI). Digital video can be copied and reproduced with no degradation in quality. In contrast, when analog sources are copied, they experience generation loss . Digital video can be stored on digital media such as Blu-ray Disc , on computer data storage , or streamed over

1953-402: Is a measurement of the rate of information content from the digital video stream. In the case of uncompressed video, bit rate corresponds directly to the quality of the video because bit rate is proportional to every property that affects the video quality . Bit rate is an important property when transmitting video because the transmission link must be capable of supporting that bit rate. Bit rate

SECTION 20

#1732787511230

2046-615: Is also carried using UDP - IP over Ethernet . Two approaches exist for this: Other methods of carrying video over IP 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

2139-424: Is also important when dealing with the storage of video because, as shown above, the video size is proportional to the bit rate and the duration. Video compression is used to greatly reduce the bit rate while having little effect on quality. Bits per pixel (BPP) is a measure of the efficiency of compression. A true-color video with no compression at all may have a BPP of 24 bits/pixel. Chroma subsampling can reduce

2232-438: Is determined by the frame size, color depth and frame rate. Each pixel consumes a number of bits determined by the color depth. The data required to represent a frame of data is determined by multiplying by the number of pixels in the image. The bandwidth is determined by multiplying the storage requirement for a frame by the frame rate. The overall storage requirements for a program can then be determined by multiplying bandwidth by

2325-478: Is increasingly common in schools, with students and teachers taking an interest in learning how to use it in relevant ways. Digital video also has healthcare applications, allowing doctors to track infant heart rates and oxygen levels. In addition, the switch from analog to digital video impacted media in various ways, such as in how businesses use cameras for surveillance. Closed circuit television (CCTV) switched to using digital video recorders (DVR), presenting

2418-505: 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

2511-443: 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 ,

2604-573: 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

2697-467: Is used due to its reduction of data consumption by factors of 20 to 200. Note that it is not necessary that all frames are equally compressed by the same percentage. Instead, consider the average factor of compression for all the frames taken together. Purpose-built digital video interfaces General-purpose interfaces use to carry digital video The following interface has been designed for carrying MPEG -Transport compressed video: Compressed video

2790-579: 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

2883-824: 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

Silicon Imaging - Misplaced Pages Continue

2976-635: 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

3069-509: The Internet to end users who watch content on a personal computer or mobile device screen or a digital smart TV . Today, digital video content such as TV shows and movies also includes a digital audio soundtrack. The basis for digital video cameras is metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) image sensors . The first practical semiconductor image sensor was the charge-coupled device (CCD), invented in 1969 by Willard S. Boyle, who won

3162-450: 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

3255-535: 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

3348-707: The bandwidth needed for a high-definition video signal (with HDV and AVCHD , as well as several professional formats such as XDCAM , all using less bandwidth than a standard definition analog signal). These savings have increased the number of channels available on cable television and direct broadcast satellite systems, created opportunities for spectrum reallocation of terrestrial television broadcast frequencies, and made tapeless camcorders based on flash memory possible, among other innovations and efficiencies. Culturally, digital video has allowed video and film to become widely available and popular, beneficial to entertainment, education, and research. Digital video

3441-453: The 1970s, pulse-code modulation (PCM) induced the birth of digital video coding , demanding high bit rates of 45-140 Mbit/s for standard-definition (SD) content. By the 1980s, the discrete cosine transform (DCT) became the standard for digital video compression . The first digital video coding standard was H.120 , created by the (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee) or CCITT (now ITU-T) in 1984. H.120

3534-442: The BPP to 16 or 12 bits/pixel. Applying JPEG compression on every frame can reduce the BPP to 8 or even 1 bits/pixel. Applying video compression algorithms like MPEG1 , MPEG2 or MPEG4 allows for fractional BPP values to exist. BPP represents the average bits per pixel. There are compression algorithms that keep the BPP almost constant throughout the entire duration of the video. In this case, we also get video output with

3627-523: 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

3720-531: The audio in analog as linear tracks on the tape. None of these machines from these manufacturers were ever marketed commercially. Digital video was first introduced commercially in 1986 with the Sony D1 format, which recorded an uncompressed standard definition component video signal in digital form. Component video connections required 3 cables, but most television facilities were wired for composite NTSC or PAL video using one cable. Due to this incompatibility

3813-460: The availability of inexpensive, high-performance computers . It was not until the 1990s that digital TV became a real possibility. Digital television was previously not practically feasible due to the impractically high bandwidth requirements of uncompressed video , requiring around 200   Mbit/s for a standard-definition television (SDTV) signal, and over 1   Gbit/s for high-definition television (HDTV). Digital video comprises

Silicon Imaging - Misplaced Pages Continue

3906-562: The best quality at the smallest average bit rate (and the smallest file size, accordingly). This method produces a variable bitrate because it tracks the variations of the BPP. Standard film stocks typically record at 24 frames per second. For video, there are two frame rate standards: NTSC , at 30/1.001 (about 29.97) frames per second (about 59.94 fields per second), and PAL , 25 frames per second (50 fields per second). Digital video cameras come in two different image capture formats: interlaced and progressive scan . Interlaced cameras record

3999-412: 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 ,

4092-522: 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,

4185-555: The camera on the films Slumdog Millionaire ( Academy Award for Best Cinematography ) and 127 Hours . The head and the recording unit together cost (c.a. 2011) $ 23,000. The head by itself costs $ 13,750, and could be used to record to a laptop that had appropriate specifications and software. At NAB 2009 Silicon Imaging unveiled the very first integrated 3D cinema camera and stereo visualization system, based on two SI-2K camera heads. The so-called SI-3D shoots uncompressed raw imagery from two synchronized cameras and encodes directly to

4278-403: The color is stored within the image. For example, 8-bit captures 256 levels per channel, and 10-bit captures 1,024 levels per channel. The more bits, the more subtle variations of colors can be reproduced. This is called the color depth , or bit depth, of the video. In interlaced video each frame is composed of two halves of an image. The first half contains only the odd-numbered lines of

4371-572: 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

4464-430: 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

4557-425: 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

4650-637: The cost of the recorder, D1 was used primarily by large television networks and other component-video capable video studios. In 1988, Sony and Ampex co-developed and released the D2 digital videocassette format, which recorded video digitally without compression in ITU-601 format, much like D1. In comparison, D2 had the major difference of encoding the video in composite form to the NTSC standard, thereby only requiring single-cable composite video connections to and from

4743-469: 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

SECTION 50

#1732787511230

4836-436: The duration of the program. These calculations are accurate for uncompressed video, but due to the relatively high bit rate of uncompressed video, video compression is extensively used. In the case of compressed video, each frame requires only a small percentage of the original bits. This reduces the data or bandwidth consumption by a factor of 5 to 12 times when using lossless compression , but more commonly, lossy compression

4929-414: The early 1980s, video production equipment that was digital in its internal workings was introduced. These included time base correctors (TBC) and digital video effects (DVE) units. They operated by taking a standard analog composite video input and digitizing it internally. This made it easier to either correct or enhance the video signal, as in the case of a TBC, or to manipulate and add effects to

5022-487: 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 ,

5115-569: The expensive and time-consuming chemical processing required by film. Network transfer of digital video makes physical deliveries of tapes and film reels unnecessary. Digital television (including higher quality HDTV ) was introduced in most developed countries in early 2000s. Today, digital video is used in modern mobile phones and video conferencing systems. Digital video is used for Internet distribution of media, including streaming video and peer-to-peer movie distribution. Many types of video compression exist for serving digital video over

5208-523: 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

5301-612: 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

5394-619: 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,

5487-399: 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,

5580-425: The image in alternating sets of lines: the odd-numbered lines are scanned, and then the even-numbered lines are scanned, then the odd-numbered lines are scanned again, and so on. One set of odd or even lines is referred to as a field , and a consecutive pairing of two fields of opposite parity is called a frame . Progressive scan cameras record all lines in each frame as a single unit. Thus, interlaced video captures

5673-694: The internet and on optical disks. The file sizes of digital video used for professional editing are generally not practical for these purposes, and the video requires further compression with codecs to be used for recreational purposes. As of 2017 , the highest image resolution demonstrated for digital video generation is 132.7 megapixels (15360 x 8640 pixels). The highest speed is attained in industrial and scientific high-speed cameras that are capable of filming 1024x1024 video at up to 1 million frames per second for brief periods of recording. Live digital video consumes bandwidth. Recorded digital video consumes data storage. The amount of bandwidth or storage required

SECTION 60

#1732787511230

5766-498: The introduction of the DV tape format allowing recordings in the format to be transferred directly to digital video files using a FireWire port on an editing computer. This simplified the process, allowing non-linear editing systems (NLE) to be deployed cheaply and widely on desktop computers with no external playback or recording equipment needed. The widespread adoption of digital video and accompanying compression formats has reduced

5859-509: The issue of how to store recordings for evidence collection. Today, digital video is able to be compressed in order to save storage space. Digital television (DTV) is the production and transmission of digital video from networks to consumers. This technique uses digital encoding instead of analog signals used prior to the 1950s. As compared to analog methods, DTV is faster and provides more capabilities and options for data to be transmitted and shared. Digital television's roots are tied to

5952-416: The majority of patents belonging to Samsung Electronics , GE , NTT and JVC Kenwood . It is currently being challenged by the aiming-to-be-freely-licensed AV1 format. As of 2019 , AVC is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression and distribution of video content, used by 91% of video developers, followed by HEVC which is used by 43% of developers. Starting in the late 1970s to

6045-520: 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

6138-436: The network's television studios . Other examples of digital video formats utilizing compression were Ampex's DCT (the first to employ such when introduced in 1992), the industry-standard DV and MiniDV and its professional variations, Sony's DVCAM and Panasonic's DVCPRO , and Betacam SX , a lower-cost variant of Digital Betacam using MPEG-2 compression. One of the first digital video products to run on personal computers

6231-417: 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

6324-552: 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

6417-525: 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

6510-410: The scene motion twice as often as progressive video does for the same frame rate. Progressive scan generally produces a slightly sharper image, however, motion may not be as smooth as interlaced video. Digital video can be copied with no generation loss; which degrades quality in analog systems. However, a change in parameters like frame size, or a change of the digital format can decrease the quality of

6603-410: 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

6696-662: 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

6789-598: 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

6882-572: 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

6975-505: 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

7068-515: 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

7161-491: 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

7254-436: The video due to image scaling and transcoding losses. Digital video can be manipulated and edited on non-linear editing systems. Digital video has a significantly lower cost than 35 mm film. In comparison to the high cost of film stock , the digital media used for digital video recording, such as flash memory or hard disk drive is very inexpensive. Digital video also allows footage to be viewed on location without

7347-406: The video, in the case of a DVE unit. The digitized and processed video information was then converted back to standard analog video for output. Later on in the 1970s, manufacturers of professional video broadcast equipment, such as Bosch (through their Fernseh division) and Ampex developed prototype digital videotape recorders (VTR) in their research and development labs. Bosch's machine used

7440-455: 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

7533-518: 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

7626-546: Was PACo: The PICS Animation Compiler from The Company of Science & Art in Providence, RI. It was developed starting in 1990 and first shipped in May 1991. PACo could stream unlimited-length video with synchronized sound from a single file (with the .CAV file extension ) on CD-ROM. Creation required a Mac, and playback was possible on Macs, PCs, and Sun SPARCstations . QuickTime , Apple Computer 's multimedia framework,

7719-525: 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

7812-541: Was developed based on DCT compression, becoming first practical video coding standard. Since H.261, DCT compression has been adopted by all the major video coding standards that followed. MPEG-1 , developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), followed in 1991, and it was designed to compress VHS -quality video. It was succeeded in 1994 by MPEG-2 / H.262 , which became the standard video format for DVD and SD digital television . It

7905-477: 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

7998-442: 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

8091-497: 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

8184-418: Was followed by MPEG-4 in 1999, and then in 2003 it was followed by H.264/MPEG-4 AVC , which has become the most widely used video coding standard. The current-generation video coding format is HEVC (H.265), introduced in 2013. While AVC uses the integer DCT with 4x4 and 8x8 block sizes, HEVC uses integer DCT and DST transforms with varied block sizes between 4x4 and 32x32. HEVC is heavily patented, with

8277-474: 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

8370-481: Was not practical due to weak performance. H.120 was based on differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM), a compression algorithm that was inefficient for video coding. During the late 1980s, a number of companies began experimenting with DCT, a much more efficient form of compression for video coding. The CCITT received 14 proposals for DCT-based video compression formats, in contrast to a single proposal based on vector quantization (VQ) compression. The H.261 standard

8463-445: Was released in June 1991. Audio Video Interleave from Microsoft followed in 1992. Initial consumer-level content creation tools were crude, requiring an analog video source to be digitized to a computer-readable format. While low-quality at first, consumer digital video increased rapidly in quality, first with the introduction of playback standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 (adopted for use in television transmission and DVD media), and

8556-483: 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

8649-492: 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

#229770