Moderators: Dave Moll, Steve Anderson
Steve Anderson wrote:Very interesting Harry! I didn't quite realise how many formats there were. However, he's omitted the 2" Ampex Quadruplex format (possibly because he had no example to show). It was the first professional videotape format..I remember installing a few of these at the BBC far too many decades ago...for archive retrieval and copying onto newer formats, so they were only used in playback mode.
Steve Anderson wrote:Generally there were two open-reel tape sizes for professional video recording, 1" (25.4mm) and 2" (50.8mm). The 2" came first with the Ampex Quadraplex machines, later Bosch, Ampex and Sony introduced the 1" machines. The most common format was the C-format used by Ampex and Sony, the incompatible Bosch format was called 'M' if I remember correct. There were one or two others but they never gained traction.
The professional cassette-based versions were the analogue Betacam (not Betamax), and the Digicam (digital), the cassettes looked the same but the tape formulation was Cobalt-based, not Ferric. Also the Hi-band Umatic (3/4") which faded rapidly when the Betacam cassettes were introduced.
Steve A.
Steve Anderson wrote:I bought an S-VHS camcorder, a S-VHS editing machine and edit controller sometime in the 90's. And although the luminance bandwidth was increased to 4MHz as opposed to around 2MHz, the colour-under system was the same as standard VHS, so there was still the same 'smearing' in heavily colour-saturated scenes as standard VHS. Somewhat disappointed...Now a smartphone can do much better at a fraction of the price...
Steve A.
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