Quadruplex videotape

Common card · No. 413452

2-inch quadruplex videotape (also called 2" quad video tape or quadraplex) was the first practical and commercially successful analog recording video tape format. The format uses 2-inch-wide (51 mm) magnetic tape and was developed and released for the broadcast television industry in 1956 by Ampex, an American company based in Redwood City, California. The first videotape recorder using this format was built the same year. This format revolutionized broadcast television operations and television production, since the only recording medium available to the TV industry until then was motion picture film. Since most United States network broadcast delays by the television networks at the time used kinescope film that took time to develop, the networks wanted a more practical, cost-effective, and quicker way to time-shift television programming for later airing in Western time zones than the expensive and time-consuming processing and editing of film. Faced with these challenges, broadcasters...

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