Earliest surviving B&W videotape recording
 

G'day all. A few years back I watched in my video course class at TAFE college a documentary on video recording which was part of the Tim Hunkin "Secret Life Of Machines" series and they showed an extremely rare piece of video footage from the mid 50s which they say is the earliest surviving Ampex B&W videotape recording which I assume dates around 1956 or 1957. This footage appears to be of the Hoover Dam shot by a cameraman standing on the OB van while the van is in motion.

I've plucked it off that show and uploaded the 13 second clip to YouTube http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=uOcEq9LzjxM .

Anyways I really want to somehow get a hold of the full footage of this recording and I need some leads so I was wondering if anyone here can identify this footage and possibly the date of recording?

Cheers
Troy

Hard to tell. If it had a clear shot of the car, that could give SOME clue...

I think there is some prior work. I think the earliest is a studio shot of a young lady. The pictures aren't very good, as it was somewhat early in the development of quad.

David

If you want the earliest video recordings, you can go back much earlier.

http://www.tvdawn.com/silvaton.HTM

http://www.tvdawn.com/tv1strx.htm

These were recorded on platters, not film or tape, of course.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Wow that was fascinating maybe I should dip my toes into the TV forums more often!

:thmbsp:

G'day Phil. I'm very aware of these early Baird disc recordings but thanks for the link anyways. These recordings are very fascinating, John Logie Baird is a genius!!! It's so awesome how these recordings have successfully been transferred too!

In regards of that videotape recording, I will have to contact Tim Hunkin himself on his website as VinylDavid suggested.

Somewhat related:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyE...ddlyEnoughNews

The most facinating thing I found about that footage was the shadow of the guy standing on the van...

Try that today, especially around Hoover Dam, and I can promise you'll probably be warming a bunk in the pokey for an evening... or more..

Times change :tears:

Hear it here (left sidebar): http://tinyurl.com/36z5cj

Or the official site:
http://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/index.php

Neat photos:
http://www.firstsounds.org/press/032708/images.php

You may be thinking of a widely-reproduced still photo from an in-house demo at Ampex sometime in 1956; see attached.

Sorry--credit where credit's due; that copy of the picture came from Tim Stoffel's invaluable website:

http://www.lionlamb.us/quad/theory.html

According to my info, the 1st viable video tape recorder, an Ampex machine, made its debut at the NAB convention in Chicago in April 1956, upstaging the mighty RCA. Ampex's machine was crude, had very "soft" picture quality, was huge-remember, this was the era of tubes-and gym-floor-area size computers that could just barely do basic math were the norm-but even as primitive as it was, the Ampex machine was better than the old kinescope system. But the Ampex machine had one Achilles' heel-it couldn't do color, which wasn't much of a problem then, as color broadcasting was so limited to being inconsequential.

You might be right. I don't remember it being that particular picture, but I could have sworn that it was a moving one. I saw it at Ampex's museum before they closed, but that doesn't mean that it was really the earliest still existing.

David

You're right about everything but the "soft" picture quality--I've seen a digibeta master of "The Edsel Show" (generally accepted as the earliest surviving tape, from October 1957) and the picture is extremely sharp. The closeups of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby are rather brutal, in fact.

I've seen "The Edsel Show"- and yeah, it is pretty "sharp"- I guess the thing is that the machine displayed at NAB in '56 was basically a working prototype, improvements were being made almost on a daily basis, & a "production" machine of 15-18 months later would show rather drastic improvements.I have pictures showing what they had achieved in Feb 1955, which was recognisable as a woman's face, & a month later, it was a pretty clear, albeit quite "soft" picture, but was still a dramatic improvement.

I think the Hoover Dam piece is the earliest surviving video recording *of Hoover dam*. I find it hard to believe that there would be no earlier studio recordings. The thing of note is that they were able to do this at a remote site (although there is plenty of power available nearby <grin>).

Going off on that Hoover Dam video subject for a bit, can you tell me how can I get a hold of a copy this show and possibly even a copy of that 1958 Eisenhower dedication WRC-TV colour videotape recording? I'm aware of those recordings and am so wanting to somehow get a hold of them.

The Edsel Show isn't available on DVD. I have seen copies of it floating around on the video share sites, but I think those are only of the kinescope version, and not of the restored videotape version.

As far as the Eisenhower videotape, every major anniversary (like 20, 25, 30, 50 years etc.) many stations will play a retrospective of their past. Perhaps if one of those shows has been made for WRC it would include that footage, and that retrospective show might be available from the TV station on DVD.

David

I figured that be the case with The Edsel Show. I don't see why they don't release that show on DVD, but maybe one day they will.

You just made me think with what you said about the Eisenhower WRC-TV colour tape, this year on 22nd May will be the 50th anniversary of that recording so there's a possible chance it may go to air on that day on WRC-TV or at least an excerpt of it, I'm going to post a thread about this in the colour TV forum.