Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnetic tape could with relative ease record and playback audio, visual, and binary computer data.
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) systems, which, in turn, were replaced by flat-panel displays of several types.
The VHS is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, invented in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan (JVC). It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period in the 1980s and 1990s.
DV is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic. It includes the recording or cassette formats DV, MiniDV, DVCAM, Digital8, HDV, DVCPro, DVCPro50 and DVCProHD. DV has been used primarily for video recording with camcorders in the amateur and professional sectors.
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a Compact Cassette, using 3.81 mm / 0.15" magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. The recording is digital rather than analog. DAT can record at sampling rates equal to, as well as higher and lower than a CD at 16 bits quantization. If a comparable digital source is copied without returning to the analogue domain, then the DAT will produce an exact clone, unlike other digital media such as Digital Compact Cassette or non-Hi-MD MiniDisc, both of which use a lossy data-reduction system.
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 the data produced by an electrocardiogram.
Composite video is an analog video format that typically carries a 525 or 625 line signal on a single channel, unlike the higher-quality S-Video and the even higher-quality component video.
S-VHS (スーパー・ヴィエイチエス), the common initialism for Super VHS, is an improved version of the VHS standard for consumer-level video recording. Victor Company of Japan introduced S-VHS in Japan in April 1987, with their JVC-branded HR-S7000 VCR, and in certain overseas markets soon afterward. By the end of 1987, the first S-VHS VCR models from other competitors included Hitachi VT-2700A, Mitsubishi HS-423UR, Panasonic PV-S4764, RCA VPT-695HF, and Toshiba SV-950. It has been standardized as IEC 60774-3 and IEC 60774-4.
Betamax 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.
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.
A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were used in television studios, serving as a replacement for motion picture film stock and making recording for television applications cheaper and quicker. Beginning in 1963, videotape machines made instant replay during televised sporting events possible. Improved formats, in which the tape was contained inside a videocassette, were introduced around 1969; the machines which play them are called videocassette recorders.
The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8, as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8. Their user base consisted mainly of amateur camcorder users, although they also saw important use in the professional television production field.
U-matic or 3⁄4-inch Type E Helical Scan or SMPTE E is an analogue recording videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various reel-to-reel or open-reel formats of the time. The videotape is 3⁄4 in (19 mm) wide, so the format is often known as "three-quarter-inch" or simply "three-quarter", compared to open reel videotape formats in use, such as 1 in (25 mm) type C videotape and 2 in (51 mm) quadruplex videotape.
HDCAM is a high-definition video digital recording videocassette version of Digital Betacam introduced in 1997 that uses an 8-bit discrete cosine transform (DCT) compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 1080i-compatible down-sampled resolution of 1440×1080, and adding 24p and 23.976 progressive segmented frame (PsF) modes to later models. The HDCAM codec uses rectangular pixels and as such the recorded 1440×1080 content is upsampled to 1920×1080 on playback. The recorded video bit rate is 144 Mbit/s. Audio is also similar, with four channels of AES3 20-bit, 48 kHz digital audio. Like Betacam, HDCAM tapes were produced in small and large cassette sizes; the small cassette uses the same form factor as the original Betamax. The main competitor to HDCAM was the DVCPRO HD format offered by Panasonic, which uses a similar compression scheme and bit rates ranging from 40 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s depending on frame rate.
M is the name of a professional analog videocassette format created around 1982 by Matsushita and RCA. Developed as a competitor to Sony's Betacam format, M used the same videocassette as VHS, much the same way that Betacam was designed to take advantage of cheap and readily available Betamax videocassettes,
VX was a consumer analog recording videocassette format developed by Matsushita launched in 1975 in Japan which was short-lived and unsuccessful. In the United States, it was sold using the Quasar brand and marketed under the name "The Great Time Machine" to exhibit its time-shifting capabilities, since VX machines had a companion electro-mechanical clock timer for timed recording of television programs. In Japan, the VX-100 model was launched in 1975, with the VX-2000 following in 1976. The first and only model sold in North America was the Quasar VR-1000, with the VT-100 timer.
V-Cord is an analog recording videocassette format developed and released by Sanyo. V-Cord was released in 1974, and could record 60 minutes on a cassette. V-Cord II, released in 1976, could record 120 minutes on a V-Cord II cassette.
Compact Video Cassette (CVC) was one of the first analog recording videocassette formats to use a tape smaller than its earlier predecessors of VHS and Betamax, and was developed by Funai Electronics of Japan for portable use. The first model of VCR for the format was the Model 212, introduced in 1980 by both Funai and Technicolor as they had created a joint venture to manufacture and introduce the format to the home movie market. The system, which included the VCR and a hand held video camera, was very small and lightweight for its time.
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other AV sources and can play back the recording after rewinding. The use of a VCR to record a television program to play back at a more convenient time is commonly referred to as time shifting. VCRs can also play back prerecorded tapes, which were widely available for purchase and rental starting in the 80s and 90s, most popularly in the VHS videocassette format. Blank tapes were sold to make recordings.
