ABSTRACT
A s commercial television expanded in the early 1950s, the problem posed by the ineffective ways of recording television on film became insurmountable. The quest for fresh ideas was therefore imminent. The major proposal was to capitalize on the already successful audio magnetic tape recording medium, improving its technical quality in order to make it viable to recording both sound and photographs. Four organizations, Bing Crosby Enterprises, RCA, BBC, and Ampex Corporation, were central in this early research. The breakthrough in modern television recording therefore occurred in the early 1950s through these efforts when audio magnetic recording principles were transformed to make possible the recording of video signals. This chapter examines this early research tradition.
