Editing Videotape (section)

=== Quad ===
[[File:2-inch Quad Tape Reel with miniDV cassette.jpg|thumb|A 14-inch reel of 2-inch quad videotape compared with a modern-day [[MiniDV]] videocassette. Both media store one hour of color video.]]

The first commercial professional [[broadcast quality]] videotape machines capable of replacing [[kinescope]]s were the two-inch [[quadruplex videotape]] (Quad) machines introduced by [[Ampex]] on April 14, 1956, at the [[National Association of Broadcasters]] convention in [[Chicago]]. Quad employed a transverse (scanning the tape across its width) four-head system on a two-inch (5.08&nbsp;cm) tape and stationary heads for the soundtrack.

[[CBS Television]] first used the Ampex VRX-1000<ref name="nasginsburg" /> Mark IV at its Television City studios in Hollywood on November 30, 1956, to play a delayed broadcast of ''[[Douglas Edwards and the News]]'' from [[New York City]] to the [[Pacific Time Zone]].<ref name="nasginsburg" /><ref>Ampex Corporation, [http://www.ampex.com/03corp/03corp.html Ampex Chronology] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703164729/http://www.ampex.com/03corp/03corp.html |date=2007-07-03}}.</ref> On January 22, 1957, the [[NBC Television]] game show ''[[Truth or Consequences]]'', produced in Hollywood, became the first program to be broadcast in all time zones from a prerecorded videotape.<ref>"Daily N.B.C. Show Will Be on Tape", ''The New York Times'', Jan. 18, 1957, p. 31.</ref> 

Ampex introduced a color videotape recorder in 1958 in a cross-licensing agreement with RCA, whose engineers had developed it from an Ampex black-and-white recorder.<ref>"[https://books.google.com/books?id=ICkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3 Industry Agrees to Standardize Tape Recording on Ampex Lines]", ''Billboard'', Oct. 28, 1957, p. 3.</ref>  NBC's special, ''[[An Evening With Fred Astaire]]'' (1958), is the oldest surviving [[television network]] color videotape, and has been restored by the [[UCLA Film and Television Archive]].

On December 7, 1963, [[instant replay]], originally a videotape-based system, was used for the first time during the live transmission of the [[Army–Navy Game]] by its inventor, director [[Tony Verna]].<ref>{{citation |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/20/378570541/he-invented-instant-replay-the-tv-trick-we-now-take-for-granted |title=He Invented Instant Replay, The TV Trick We Now Take For Granted |date=January 20, 2015 |publisher=[[NPR]] |work=Morning Edition}}</ref>

Although Quad became the industry standard for approximately thirty years, it has drawbacks such as an inability to freeze pictures, and no picture search.{{efn|In fact, the quadruplex format can only reproduce recognizable pictures when the tape is playing at normal speed.<ref>[http://winkhackman.com/blog/gone-quite-forgotten/ Wink Hackman; Expert training for Sony MVS users worldwide] Retrieved September 19, 2015</ref>}} Also, in early machines, a tape could reliably be played back using only the same set of hand-made tape heads, which wore out very quickly.{{efn|Later machines had longer life and used [[Analog delay line|delay lines]] to compensate for the differences in the four heads.}} Despite these problems, Quad is capable of producing excellent images. Subsequent videotape systems have used helical scan, where the video heads record diagonal tracks (of complete fields) onto the tape.

[[List of lost television broadcasts|Many early videotape recordings were not preserved]]. While much less expensive (if repeatedly recycled) and more convenient than kinescope, the high cost of [[3M]] Scotch 179<ref name="nasginsburg">"[http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4779&page=84 Charles P. Ginsburg]". ''Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering'', Vol. 7. 1994: The National Academies Press, Washington DC.</ref> and other early videotapes ($300 per one-hour reel)<ref name="bfi">Elen, Richard G. "[http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/technology/technology10.html TV Technology]". BFI Screenonline.</ref> meant that most broadcasters [[Lost television broadcast|erased and reused]] them, and (in the United States) regarded videotape as simply a better and more cost-effective means of time-delaying broadcasts than kinescopes. It was the four time zones of the continental United States which had made the system very desirable in the first place.

Some early broadcast videotapes have survived, including ''[[The Edsel Show]]'', broadcast live on October 13, 1957 and ''[[An Evening With Fred Astaire]]'' which aired on October 18, 1958 and was the oldest color videotape of an entertainment program known to exist until the discovery of the October 8, 1958 episode of the ''[[Kraft Music Hall (TV series)|Kraft Music Hall]]'' hosted by [[Milton Berle]]. The oldest color videotape known to survive is the May 1958 dedication of the [[WRC-TV]] studios in [[Washington, D.C.]]). In 1976, [[NBC]]'s 50th-anniversary special included an excerpt from a 1957 color special starring [[Donald O'Connor]]; despite some obvious technical problems, the color tape was remarkably good. Some classic television programs recorded on studio videotape have been made available on DVD – among them NBC's ''[[Peter Pan (1954 musical)|Peter Pan]]'' (first telecast in 1960) with [[Mary Martin]] as Peter, several episodes of [[The Dinah Shore Chevy Show]] (late 1950s/early 60s), the final [[Howdy Doody Show]] (1960), the television version of [[Hal Holbrook]]'s one-man show ''[[Mark Twain Tonight]]'' (first telecast in 1967), and [[Mikhail Baryshnikov]]'s classic production of the ballet ''[[The Nutcracker]]'' (first telecast in 1977).