Timeline of video formats

A video format is a medium for video recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats. Video is recorded and distributed using a variety of formats, some of which store additional information.[1][2]

Timeline of video format developments

Year Physical media formats Recording formats
1889 Film An analogue medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent plastic film base coated on one side with a gelatin emulsion containing microscopically small light-sensitive silver halide crystals.
1956 Quadruplex videotape The first practical and commercially successful analogue recording video tape format, developed and released for the broadcast television industry by Ampex.
1971 U-matic Analogue video format developed by Sony, among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette. Mainly saw use in the television broadcast industry.
1975 Betamax Analogue video format developed by Sony. Inspired the later Betacam professional format.
1976 Type B videotape Reel-to-reel analogue recording video tape format developed by the Bosch Fernseh division of Bosch in Germany. It became the broadcasting standard in continental Europe, but adoption was limited in the United States and United Kingdom, where the Type C videotape format met with greater success.
1976 Type C videotape Professional reel-to-reel analogue recording helical scan videotape format co-developed and introduced by Ampex and Sony in 1976. Displaced the 2-inch quadruplex videotape in the broadcasting industry.
1976 VHS Analogue video recording on tape cassettes. Beat Betamax to become the dominant format for home analogue video.
1978 LaserDisc Analogue video that was read via laser stored on a 12 inch disc.
1981 Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) The Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) is an analogue video disc playback system developed by RCA, in which video and audio could be played back on a TV set using a special needle and high-density groove system similar to phonograph records.
1984 8mm Three related video cassette formats: the original Video8, Hi8, its improved variant, and Digital8. With much smaller tapes than VHS and Betamax, this format became very popular in the consumer camcorder market.
1987 Super VHS An improved version of the VHS standard for consumer-level video recording. S-VHS improves luminance (luma) resolution by increasing luminance bandwidth. Increased bandwidth is possible because of the increased luminance carrier from 3.4 megahertz (MHz) to 5.4 MHz. The luminance modulator bandwidth also is increased: in contrast to standard VHS's frequencies of 3.8 MHz (sync tip) to 4.8 MHz (peak white), S-VHS uses 5.4 MHz sync tip and 7.0 MHz peak white.
1995 DV DV, from Digital Video, is a family of codecs and tape formats used for storing digital video, launched in 1995 by a consortium of video camera manufacturers led by Sony and Panasonic.
1997 DVD-Video Digital. MPEG-2 video format and Dolby Digital or Digital Theatre System (DTS) audio format stored on a DVD
1999 VideoMD Digital format which stored video on MiniDisc. Saw limited use.
2001 MicroMV Proprietary videotape format introduced in October 2001 by Sony. It is the smallest videotape format.
2003 DualDisc Digital. Multiple formats encoded onto the same disc
2005 HD DVD Digital. Uses VC-1, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, or H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 video formats and Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio audio formats
2006 Blu-ray Disc Digital. Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio
2008 slotMusic Digital. Primarily used for MP3, however may also include high-quality images and videos. Stored on microSD or microSDHC.
Blu-spec CD Digital. PCM
2016 Ultra HD Blu-ray Digital H.265/MPEG-H Part 2 (HEVC). Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio

See also

References

  1. ^ Demetris, Jordan (1990-01-01). "The challenge of introducing digital audio tape technology into consumer markets". Technology in Society. 12 (1): 91–100. doi:10.1016/0160-791X(90)90031-7. ISSN 0160-791X.
  2. ^ Cornell University Library (2003). "Digital Preservation and Technology Timeline". Digital Preservation Management. USA. Retrieved February 28, 2017.