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Ampex VR-1000 Videotape Recorder

Ampex VR-1000 Videotape Recorder

Image creditKarl Baron from Lund, Sweden (Flickr), CC BY 2.0
CC BY 2.0 ↗

Ampex VR-1000 Videotape Recorder

Year
1956
Creator
Charles Ginsburg, Charles Anderson, Ray Dolby, Shelby Henderson, Alex Maxey, Fred Pfost
Company
Ampex Corporation
Location
Redwood City, California

Description

The Ampex VR-1000 was the first practical videotape recorder, which recorded television pictures on two-inch magnetic tape with four heads that turn at high speed. Ampex showed it at a broadcasting convention in Chicago on April 14, 1956.

Importance

Before this machine, television networks recorded programs with a film camera in front of a monitor. From November 30, 1956, CBS used the Ampex recorder to play programs again hours later for western time zones. In the same year, IBM in San Jose announced the first hard disk drive, another product that stored data on a magnetic surface.

Interesting fact

Ray Dolby, who later started Dolby Laboratories, was one of the six men on the small team that designed the machine.

Sources

  1. Charles P. Ginsburg, 1920-1992 (Memorial Tributes: Volume 7) ↗National Academy of Engineering / National Academies Press · 1994
  2. Milestones: Ampex Videotape Recorder, 1956 ↗IEEE History Center (Engineering and Technology History Wiki)
  3. Ray Dolby: founder of Dolby Laboratories ↗Stanford Engineering Heroes · 2011