Market share
The video market was divided into 3 sections, target specific equipment to specific clients:1- Professional and Broadcast: camera work was done on Betacam and the tape edited and post produced on master tapes by different TV departments, ready for transmission.
2- Industrial: for production companies who would film, edit and post produce their videos, make duplicates on smaller formats, for promotion, education and training, socio-cultural work and the like. Typically, they would use U-matic formats.
3- Consumer: the general public who would record TV programmes on time shift and build up a collection of comedy classics and films (like I did) and the spectators only who who only rent of buy commercial films.VHS reigned supreme in this sector. These consumers were not concerned at all by broadcast or industrial video.
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| Philips VCR recorder and cassette |
When Philips managed to squeeze one hour of videotape in its VCR cassette in 1972, it opened the door to flux of changes that would influence the way images were presented. As 16 mm dwindled, the electronic formats took over, never to look back and video cassettes would reign supreme in education, training, industry and these areas were 16 mm had been so popular. Not for amateurs and home movie at first the equipment being too heavy, but that would soon change too.
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| Various formats: Umatic, V2000, VHS, VCR |
The first stage was simply to transfer 16 mm on video cassettes. So training films by Video Arts became available on 16 mm film (for a while), then on Umatic, VHS and Betamax. Audio-visual departments in education ministries got excited and also transferred their 16 mm to video. Some chose the ill-fated Philips cartridge a pioneer system that lived a brilliant but short life.
And all carried on in their sweet way towards electronic heaven, battling with different format, with ever changing techniques and increasing costs.
Pro and Industrial video
- Umatic, made by Sony in 1971 was one of the firts format to contain the tape inside a cassette
- it became a standard for production of industrial, training and professional film, taking over 16 mm.
Home video
- the VCR (video cassette recording) was the first consumer home recording system, invented by Philips in 1972. It used a thick square cartridge with 2 co-axial reels, one on top of the other, with 1/2 inch tape at 3 speeds: 30 min, 45 min ot 60 min.half inch (12.7 mm). By the mi 1970s, other formats took over the VCR.
The main problem with Home Video in the mid 1970s was its 3 competing systems:
- video 2000(disappeared)
- betamax: reconverted to professional use: betacam
- VHS: became the de facto universal standard
VHS Video tranfer:
If you still have VHS home videos that you want to keep, transfer them to DVD as soon as possible: a few options:
- copy from your VHS player to your DVD recorder through a simple cable connection;
- go the "digital route": transfer the video to your PC first; edit and burn a DVD from your files
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| Was your video library in perfect order or an almighty mess? Is it worth transferring all that to DVD? |
Camcorders: a flurry of formats
When Super 8 disappeared, there was a time of limbo for those who wanted to make home video movies and independent video makers. Affordable video equipment was still bulky: a separate camera connected to a portable recorder was a bad idea, but worked for a time until camcorders came along. Those using full size VHS cassettes were to big and heavy to carry about, so the video industry struggled to invent smaller alternatives. But there again, the market was plagued with too many different formats, all incompatible Compact VHS led the way until digital mini DV took over, offerings great quality in a compact package.
- VHS cassette too big: bulky cameras
- VHSC: VHS tape in a smaller cassette which can be inserted in a VHS size adapter;
- smaller format are better: analog: 8mm, Hi 8; digital: Digital 8, DV, mini-DV.
- more recently: DVD or mini DVD disc, but cameras are bulky;
- hard disk: like some MP3 players
- memory cards, like digital cameras: the easiest way;
- photo cameras and smartphones can record video on internal memory or on cards in a variety of formats,
- making dedicated camcorders obsolete.
Editing: a pain in the console
- the analog way : 2 tape machines + controller: not accurate and bad quality;
- problem of proprietary methods: synchro pulses,etc...
- no real standard, so quite difficult to find the right combination;
- the digital method: copy or upload the footage to a PC, laptop, tablet or whatever;
- edit with some software, incl. free with Windows and Mac;
- share or send to Youtube, Vimeo, Daily Motion, or any other hosting place in the Cloud;
- copy to USB stick to pass along or burn to DVD
Digital standard: smart wishful thinking: it's not going to happen!
- to keep it simple: all recordings should adopt one standard of memory cards (SD for example);
- editing on a PC with any free software;
- publish to web, SD memory cards, DVD;
- we need simple standardize home video editing machines to free our computers;
- we need video players and portable units that can read above memory cards
Video on computers and on the Web is still not very good. Too many codecs, to much hassle to get compatibility issues resolved. The digital world need to clean up their act and go for more simplicity and compatibility. That is not likely to happen either!
