1971 The U-matic tape VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) system, putting video into the home. In 1971 there were less than a thousand television stations, 892 to be exact. That's a rather small market for the EIA(J) vendors, especially when most of these were already locked up by Ampex. These stations spoke to more than 62 million households, that would spend $3 billion on new TV sets that year alone. Ampex had nothing small enough to even fit in a home. Having outflanked Ampex in finding a market for the portable VTR business, the Japanese consortium would now bring out the most successful VCR system ever invented. Sony was the linch pin and their trademark term "U-Matic" was understood industry wide, although models were also made by Panasonic, JVC, Concord, NEC, Wollensak, and others.
First-generation design sets (ie Sony VO1600/VP1000, JVC CR6000) included analog clock timers, click TV tuners with the new UHF channels and an RF modulator for viewing playback on TV sets. This whole idea bombed from the outset.
Oops, big time. Japanese TV sets were quality transistor designs and could lockup instantly on any video signal. American tube sets were made by the likes of Mad Man Muntz, that removed as many parts as possible and still have something that worked. Television broadcasters are required to have rock steady synchronization of horizontal and vertical timing, so in order to keep parts count to a minimum, most TV sets were built using long time constant detection for sync pulses. Picture from the new-fangled home VCR playback jumped and rolled all over the place.
But there were users for this new format. Libraries, corporate training departments and schools liked the ease of tape handling. Tape boxes were very handsome and were just the right size to fit neatly on standard bookselves, like a set of encylopedia. Many of these buyers regularly specified Wollensak audio equipment over Ampex. The 1 hour time limit was not a problem, in fact it was widely believed that educational programming exceeding 15 minutes was ineffective. And they were already using high end TV receivers/monitors that were capable of short time constant sync.
Second-generation design (ie Sony VO2800) replaced the clock timers and TV tuners with external sync/subcarrier connections so that an external box TBC (Time Base Corrector) could stabilize color playback for on-air broadcast use.
And while these did not go into many TV homes as expected, they did go eventually into virtually every TV station, which was not expected. Most TV stations that used SMPTE type A really wished they didn't. Of course U-matic could not replace the big 2" quads for quality programs and network delay, because no color under system could produce full resolution color pictures. But here was a simple, cheap yet effective way to have tapes that not only interchanged in the studio, but could be mailed all over the country and be expected to playback. In the era before television satellites, syndication of programs could only be with movie film, or the kinescope equivalent. Only the networks had live microwave, and even the AT&T microwave didn't reach every market. Film was so expensive that one print would have to make the rounds, usually by bus, from station to station to get aired. U-matic was cheap enough that a copy could now be sent out to each station. And the tape was re-usable for the next season.
But what really put u-matic on the map for broadcasters was the portable decks that used a smaller 20 minute version of the cassette that could still be played in full size studio decks (much like VHS-C). By now the Japanese had also developed simple battery operated color cameras, so here was a system that could be used for news gathering to replace 16mm film. The cameras were not full broadcast spec, but then neither was u-matic so together they made a well engineered balanced match of economy and performance. Since the tape is encased in a shell, the reels cannot be manually rocked back for pre-roll timing needed for electronic editing. So automated external edit controllers were developed. U-matic comes up to speed much faster, only 5 seconds is needed for pre-roll. The control track pulses recorded at each frame allowed for a precise pre-roll to be cued by simply counting back (electronically) 150 "beeps". While television was mono audio, u-matic came with 2 audio tracks. This gave the news editor the ability to dub in additional narration after the original video was shot, a very handy tool. In fact field audio was a novelty. With film, a magnetic audio track could be used but that made edit splicing nearly impossible. Mostly it was shot silent and the field reporter would use a portable audio recorder to get sounds and file reports. The field "stand up" is really an invention of the videotape era.
Sony helped its cause by offering broadcast stations a complete engineered system. From field cameras (ie DXC1800), which by the way connected to recorders using EIA(J) standardized connections, field recorder (BVU100), studio edit recorder (BVU200) and automatic edit controller (BVE500). The only parts of these early systems that did not interchange between various brands was the cable that connected edit controller to the VCR (strange but true), and the type of battery for field use.
One other industry that uses u-matic equipment extensively is the 12,000 cable TV operating systems. In fact when Sony announced it had finally terminated new u-matic production, the industry nearly had a feeding frenzy. Since cable does not need to produce programming to TV air standards, the de-facto standard became U-matic (although EIA(J) was popular with cable in the early days also). It is one heck of a survivor, and unlike Quad, is still in service most places.
It also outlasted most of its manufacturers. The American distributors mostly dropped out in the first round when it became painfully obvious that it would not become a household word. The last source manufacturer outside of Sony was JVC whose final models (CR600/CR850) were produced in 1989. Sony's last models were designed in 1986 (VO9800/BVU950) and were produced about 10 years. Ampex never made one.
next on the history of videotape, 1975 Sony introduces the Betamax 1/2" videotape cassette