CLarification. Domestic Video

[simonwells61]

Hi there,
Just so I, and presumably others, can ascertain what constitutes the birth of home video, does anyone have the date(s) of when they became available to the general public?

I clearly remember someone in our village with heaps of cash boasting about owning one in early 1974. However, I do know that there were other, more clunky machine around in the mid-1960's which certain celebrities (John Lennon included) owned. I presume they were hugely expensive.

Be nice to know.
Thanks in advance,

Simon Wells

[RWels]

It depends what you really call home video. In the sixties there were some machines that would do the job with acceptable quality, as long as you could afford it. Philips and Sony made reel to reel video recorders.

But there were a lot of ideas and systems that never got far. Some interesting machines can be seen here:
www.rewindmuseum.com/home.htm
www.totalrewind.org/mainhall.htm

[Gary Critcher]

We certainly had an open reel video machine at my junior school on which we used to watch recorded programmes. That would have been 1968 or 1969.

[Peter Stirling]

Arguably the machine that kick started the interest in storing TV programmes at home. Is the now well and truly forgotten

"VKR500 Teletaper " In 1964.

Which used quarter inch tape and was so far ahead of its time, that the rest of the world pretended it was not there.. until they come up with their own models of course.

PetoScott/Philips in 1965 and Sony in 1966.

[RWels]

But was it actually working in any quality?

There were many experimental video recorders in the early sixties in Japan, Germany, England, USA, and the Netherlands (Philips). Most never got very far!

[Peter Stirling]

Jul 4, 2009 18:22:40 GMT RWels said:

But was it actually working in any quality?

There were many experimental video recorders in the early sixties in Japan, Germany, England, USA, and the Netherlands (Philips). Most never got very far!

Well surely then that is what is made this different?

If you zoom into the TVTimes cover with Patrick Mcgoohan on the front from 1965. it is being offered as a first prize

homepage.mac.com/nickgilbert/TVTimes/PhotoAlbum25.html

Obviously expense and reliability ensured most electronic items of that era only lasted a couple of years .
A 405/625line colour TV bought in 1967 would have cost as much as the Mini van that delivered it , and while the mini van would have probably soldiered on for 8 years or more , the TV would have had a faded tube and reliability problems by the time it was 3 or 4 years old.

So maybe the defining home VTR was the Philips N1500 in 1972 as this was the first machine anywhere to allow you to time shift recordings with its cooker timer.

[RWels]

Yes, but I never heard from anyone that the VKR 500 was actually working. Was it the first VCR in theory or has anyone ever used one or seen one? Would a recording still be any good today?

[Deleted]

There have been a lot of video formats right back. Many more than the most well known ones including a machine that took cartridges from the late '60s (i've seen one myself). As said above, it depends on what you define as home video. Reel to reel machines that were capable of being used in homes have been around since 1964 or 65, for instance, there was also U-matic, which also came about in 1972.

[Peter Stirling]

Jul 4, 2009 21:43:31 GMT RWels said:

Yes, but I never heard from anyone that the VKR 500 was actually working. Was it the first VCR in theory or has anyone ever used one or seen one? Would a recording still be any good today?

The main difference between the VKR 500 and what followed from Philips and Sony etc is the fact it would record direct from the TV. if you wanted to record with an early Sony or Philips you would have a camera pointed at the TV. The big manufacturers really only envisaged their machines as home movie makers for the rich or for security purposes. This is why the VKR was revolutionary becuase it showed these big companies that there was a market for keeping TV programmes.

Not saying it did happen but I should imagine the story is much the same of any small company.

1 good idea but no money to develop it properly or market it.
2. big manufacture looks at it ,takes it apart and says thats a good idea but we can build it better withi expensive tools.
3. big manufacturer launches own model, with its marketing might.
4. reliability problems hit original model,now has bad reputation
5. small company goes bust.

but we could go around and around with this, with everybody arguing the toss, so its best to do your own research and come to your own conclusions

[RWels]

Possibly. But I am just trying not to do too much wishful thinking.
I still haven't heard anyone testify about this machine actually working. If something like this never got off the ground because it was too soon for people (and companies) to believe in it, then it doesn't matter if it was technically brilliant.
Kind of like the ancient steam engine in Alexandria: if it's too far ahead then it won't make an impact.

[Peter Stirling]

Jul 5, 2009 21:25:56 GMT RWels said:

Possibly. But I am just trying not to do too much wishful thinking.
I still haven't heard anyone testify about this machine actually working. If something like this never got off the ground because it was too soon for people (and companies) to believe in it, then it doesn't matter if it was technically brilliant.
Kind of like the ancient steam engine in Alexandria: if it's too far ahead then it won't make an impact.

The point I was making was that it made an impact on other companies . The originator of the thread wanted some sort of defining moment for home taping of TV programmes. The internet is your friend but I for one cannot find anything earlier being offered from any of the major compnaies RCA, Sony , National
or Philips etc that offered you the ability to tape your own programmes direct from the telly.
They might of had home VTRs of some sort , but these were used
for school lectures, security and home movies type of thing.

I also showed you in the link that it was being offered as a prize,
infact over several weeks. So it was obviously in production and something credible for the reputation of the TV Times to offer?

As I mentioned in an earlier thread it was/is very difficult for a small company to survive or indeed make it at a cheap cost, so its lifespan was probably very limited especially in world that had to get use to the idea in the first place?

I mentioned the Philips N1500 which if you want to pooh pooh the rest of history surely then must be the next defining moment of of home TV taping ? what do you think on that?
Or what is your opinion on which came what and did what?

As for a steam train in Alexandria, If you want to go back into history then John Logie Baird's video discs could be a defining moment in TV recording ?, they are actually proven to work unlike
your steam train example.

[Deleted]

Back to the original query, what do you define as "home video", Simon? Did you mean the first machine specifically aimed at the consumer / had a timer function? Or did you mean the first video machine that COULD have been used in the home regardless of where the main market was (some early machines were utilised domestically in this way)? If the former then it probably would have been the Philips machines in 1972, as Peter says. If the latter, then probably it would have been a reel to reel machine of one kind or another that was around about 7 or 8 years earlier.

[simonwells61]

Laurence,
Yes, what I was aiming at determining was when they actually became the sort of thing you could pick up in your High Street. I am aware that they were around in the 1960's, but I was keen to ascertain when they actually fell into the public domain. I say this, because like many who trawl Jumble Sales and Boot Fairs, I live in hope of finding some old video cassettes with missing material on.

Best

SI

[David Buck]

[quote author=stirling board=general thread=4636 post=43425 time=1246737033If you zoom into the TVTimes cover with Patrick Mcgoohan on the front from 1965. it is being offered as a first prize

[/quote]

Dick Fiddy tracked down the winners of this or a similar 1960's tv times win a video competition ( I'm sure he said there were several winners )- no-one he contacted still had the machines or tapes and I don't think any of the winners thought much of them

[RWels]

Peter, the question was when video recording became available to the general public.
Early attempts may be technologically fascinating in the approaches and used imagined, but they didn't mean a thing to the man on the street.
Baird recordings are exactly the same: interesting experiments, but without any meaning or impact on the outside world.
And it was many decades later before anyone managed to play back his discs!

I wasn't around in the sixties so I couldn't say if there was any one system that really marked the start. All those reel to reel systems must have cost a fortune in those days! So it still wasn't the start video recording for the masses.

Note. I didn't say train, I said engine. The ancient Alexandrians had discovered steam power, but could find no use for it.
What I meant was, technological advances aren't just a matter of inventions. There has to be a market as well. (Just look at VHS, it wasn't the best system at all, but it still won the home video format war!)

Jul 4, 2009 23:45:07 GMT @laurencepiper said:

a machine that took cartridges from the late '60s (i've seen one myself).

Oh, this one?