| The
Ampex VR-1500 may well be the first consumer VTR. It appeared in the Christmas
1963 Neiman Marcus catalogue as part of a $30,000, 900-pound home entertainment
center known as Signature V. The system included a 21" color TV, TV
tuner, turntable, reel-to-reel audiotape recorder, video camera and VTR.
It had a timer to allow for television recordings of up to five hours of
black-and-white video. The "helical scan" system wrapped the tape
around the head drum at a slight angle as the tape was transported from
reel to reel. Because the head-drum rotation speed is essentially independent
of tape speed, the helical scan method allowed for a viewable picture at
pause, slow motion, fast motion or even reverse motion. This was not possible
with the Quad machines because an entire field of video is not scanned by
one complete pass of the video heads. |
