Business screen magazine (1946)

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ANEW VIDEOTAPE system with ci^nsidcrablc significance to the sponsored film industry was unveiled in New York in November by Sony Corporation of America. A cassette videoplayer system, utilizing regular home TV color or b/vv sets, or large-screen projection TV. as recjuired. a Sony Color \ ideoplayer. and a VideiKassette tape which can be loaded and unloaded as easily as an audio tape cassette, comprise the basis for the system. Each Videocassette can provide a program up to 90 minutes. In addition, a simple adaptor to the Color Videoplayer will permit color or b/w TV programs to be recorded from the air, or, cassettes to be duplicated from one cassette to another. The Sony Color Videoplayer can be connected to any standard color TV set, without any modifications to the set, to immediately reproduce a color picture on the screen, with sound. Additionally, because it is fully compatible, it may be used with a b,'w TV set. As seen in the New York demonstration, the quality of the picture on 12-inch Sony and 23inch Zenith receivers placed about the Cotillion Room of the Pierre Hotel was very, very good — superior, it seemed to some viewers, than color tape reproduction on any helical scan system yet seen. In order to create a Videocassette library with a wide variety of programs for the Color Videoplayer. Sony intends to make its recording facilities available to the motion picture and TV industries, music recording companies, publishers, educational institutions and sports promoters to transfer their programs to Videocassettes. Sony believes its Color Videoplayer will create, for these industries, new ways of selling programs to the public. The company expects that the ultimate price of its Videoplayer will be as low as $350 in the United States. Because the Color Videoplayer utilizes a magnetic tape recording system, a program on a Videocassette can be erased easily and as frequently as on audio tape. The reuse of the Videocassette will reflect substantial savings, the company said. Sony also pointed out that the original cost of the Videocassette will be amortized in direct proportion to the number of programs record ed on the tape. After a customer has played back the Videocassette program, the cassette can he returned to the program's supjilicr for re-recording another program on the same Videocassette. The price of a non-recorded, re-usable Videocassette for a 90minute program is expected to be $20 in the United States. Since a Videocassette has two sound tracks, a program can have stereophonic sound when the sound is played back through a stereo amplifier and separate speakers are used as well as the TV set for video. By attaching a simple adaptor, ultimately about $100 in the United States, to the Color Videoplayer, TV programs from the air can be recorded in color or b/w on the Videocassette in the home. Horizontal resolution of the Sony Videoplayer is 250 lines in color, 300 monochrome. Width of the tape is approximately % inch. Sony disclosed that it has been working with Philips, of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in the development of video recording technology to meet worldwide standards. Sony, Philips, and other companies, such as Grundig GmbH of West Germany hope to accomplish this worldwide aim with the Sony system. But it is likely that other manufacturers will soon introduce other systems for worldwide consideration before universal standards are finally achieved. Akio Morita, executive vice president, and co-founder, of Sony, said that the company's Color Videoplayer, together with an extensive Videocassette library will at first be on the market in Japan in late 1970. Industrial film sponsors, currently intrigued with the possibilities of the CBS-EVR system introduced early last year, have now another possible program distribution medium to consider. If 90 minutes of good quality color picture can be placed in a reusable casette about the size of a pocket book for $20 for 90 minutes (and probably considerably lower for shorter programs), perhaps the day may loom when industrial sponsors will be loaning their programs to a great new mass of TV videoplayer owner who will be able to borrow free programs from distributor exchanges located in hundreds of cities across the country. • The Cassette Videoplayer Surprisingly good quality TV pictures have been shown in Sony's newly introduced cassette videoplayer system. Close-up shows videocassette which carries a program of up to 90 minutes being loaded. Pre-recorded program is reproduced with the Sony Color Videoplayer on a 19-inch color TV screen. JANUARY, 1970 27