1 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:07,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 2 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:13,840 Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 3 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:16,759 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:18,759 Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I Heart Radio and I love 5 00:00:18,960 --> 00:00:23,279 Speaker 1: all Things tech. And this is part four of a 6 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:28,040 Speaker 1: multi part episode arc about technology and media and how 7 00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:31,880 Speaker 1: the changes in technology change the very business of entertainment 8 00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:35,519 Speaker 1: as well as our relationship to entertainment. And in the 9 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:39,120 Speaker 1: previous three episodes, I traced the origins of recorded media, 10 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:42,519 Speaker 1: the birth of the radio, film, and television industries, and 11 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:46,520 Speaker 1: the rise of the humble audio cassette. And we've seen 12 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:50,520 Speaker 1: that entertainment was gradually transitioning from something you could only 13 00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:53,280 Speaker 1: experience in the moment, such as when a radio station 14 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:56,520 Speaker 1: would play a song or a theater would show a film. 15 00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:58,600 Speaker 1: And now we're in an age in which you could 16 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:02,000 Speaker 1: you could own a permanent record of some of those things. 17 00:01:02,480 --> 00:01:05,000 Speaker 1: Now I've covered music up through the cassette era, so 18 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,479 Speaker 1: we're going to switch back over to television and film 19 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:10,760 Speaker 1: a bit and the birth of the video cassette. Now, 20 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:14,920 Speaker 1: one of the challenges in early television was how do 21 00:01:14,959 --> 00:01:19,680 Speaker 1: you broadcast a television program to a national market, most 22 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:24,800 Speaker 1: broadcasts were done live, and that limited your your options. 23 00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:28,959 Speaker 1: The United States is a really big country, so if 24 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:31,360 Speaker 1: you did broadcast a show live, let's say that you've 25 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:34,280 Speaker 1: worked out all the technical details, you still have time 26 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:37,119 Speaker 1: as a factor. Because the two coasts of the United 27 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:40,199 Speaker 1: States are in time zones, there are three hours apart 28 00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:43,400 Speaker 1: from each other, so prime time for one coast isn't 29 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:47,560 Speaker 1: prime time for the other coast. Also, you were limited 30 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:51,760 Speaker 1: in transmission range, and in the days before massive cable 31 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:56,360 Speaker 1: companies had connected different regions using cable and satellites, you 32 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:59,400 Speaker 1: had limited options. So it would be better if you 33 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:02,040 Speaker 1: could find a a to record a show and then 34 00:02:02,120 --> 00:02:06,440 Speaker 1: broadcast it at a different time slot for other markets. 35 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,880 Speaker 1: And most shows were being shot in New York, so 36 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:11,280 Speaker 1: if you wanted to have a show in New York 37 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:14,480 Speaker 1: air in Los Angeles, it made more sense to record 38 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:17,680 Speaker 1: the show in New York and then send that recording, 39 00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:24,000 Speaker 1: perhaps even via cable, out to broadcast stations in Los Angeles, 40 00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:27,440 Speaker 1: which would then broadcast it. So you still have to 41 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:29,480 Speaker 1: figure out a way to record the show you were 42 00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:32,440 Speaker 1: actually doing, and recording a show was easier said than done. 43 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:38,120 Speaker 1: Television cameras and monitor technology was best suited for live broadcast, 44 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:42,680 Speaker 1: so you would use a camera to capture images, but 45 00:02:42,760 --> 00:02:45,919 Speaker 1: send that signal directly to a transmitter and blasted out 46 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:48,520 Speaker 1: over radio waves, and then television sets all over the 47 00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:51,720 Speaker 1: region would pick up those transmissions and show the live 48 00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:55,760 Speaker 1: broadcast right then and there. Before the invention of videotape, 49 00:02:56,120 --> 00:03:00,440 Speaker 1: one work around for this was the kinescope. This was 50 00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:05,160 Speaker 1: not an ideal solution. Basically, you would take a film camera, 51 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:07,040 Speaker 1: kind of like the ones you would use to shoot 52 00:03:07,040 --> 00:03:10,200 Speaker 1: a movie, and it was typically either a sixteen millimeter 53 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:13,480 Speaker 1: or a thirty five millimeter film camera, and you would 54 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:16,720 Speaker 1: put it behind a television monitor. You would point it 55 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:19,600 Speaker 1: at the TV monitor, so you would be shooting a 56 00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:23,520 Speaker 1: program on television cameras, and the monitor would actually be 57 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:26,560 Speaker 1: displaying the image live on it, and then you would 58 00:03:26,639 --> 00:03:30,160 Speaker 1: use a film camera to capture the image of that 59 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:32,920 Speaker 1: which was on the monitor screen. So viewers at home, 60 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,440 Speaker 1: at least outside the region that you're directly serving, would 61 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:39,440 Speaker 1: actually be looking at a picture of a picture. It's 62 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:41,280 Speaker 1: as if you were to play a YouTube video on 63 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,360 Speaker 1: your computer and then you use your phone's camera to 64 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:48,680 Speaker 1: stream that video to someone else. It's not ideal. One 65 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:50,240 Speaker 1: other thing had to be done for this to work. 66 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:52,600 Speaker 1: By the way, the cameras actually had to be synchronized 67 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:56,240 Speaker 1: to the monitors scanning rate. So you might remember I've 68 00:03:56,240 --> 00:03:59,680 Speaker 1: talked about this in other episodes. Cathode ray tube monitors 69 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:03,600 Speaker 1: paint screens line by line from the top to the bottom. 70 00:04:03,880 --> 00:04:05,920 Speaker 1: So they paint a horizontal line, they move down, they 71 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:09,360 Speaker 1: paint the next horizontal line. Technically they could paint every 72 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:12,400 Speaker 1: other line and then do a second frame where they're 73 00:04:12,400 --> 00:04:14,560 Speaker 1: doing the other lines. So you do the all the 74 00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:16,480 Speaker 1: oddlines first, then all the even lines. But you get 75 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:19,240 Speaker 1: the idea. It's the sequence of painting lines. Now it's 76 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:23,240 Speaker 1: done so quickly that our brains can't process this. We 77 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:27,440 Speaker 1: just see unbroken moving images. We don't see a series 78 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:30,200 Speaker 1: of lines being painted on a screen. But if you 79 00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:34,200 Speaker 1: have a film camera that isn't synchronized with the scanning rate, 80 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:38,039 Speaker 1: then you can pick up an artifact. Typically we see 81 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: this as sort of a rolling horizontal line moving across 82 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:44,839 Speaker 1: the television screen in regular cycles. If you've ever seen 83 00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:49,560 Speaker 1: any real cheap productions that especially like home videos or 84 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:51,599 Speaker 1: something that are pointed at a TV screen and you 85 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:54,719 Speaker 1: see this weird line scanning across the screen over and 86 00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:58,160 Speaker 1: over again. That's what we're seeing. You're seeing this, uh, 87 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:01,719 Speaker 1: the scan line or representa of that scan line. Because 88 00:05:01,839 --> 00:05:05,320 Speaker 1: the cycle of the camera is different from the scan 89 00:05:05,520 --> 00:05:08,880 Speaker 1: cycle of the monitor. Synchronizing the film camera to the 90 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,719 Speaker 1: monitor scanning rate eliminated that artifact. The pictures were still 91 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:16,320 Speaker 1: not great. They were grainy, They left a lot to 92 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:18,640 Speaker 1: be desired, They could be kind of dark, be hard 93 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:21,800 Speaker 1: to see what's going on. New York citizens typically got 94 00:05:21,800 --> 00:05:26,279 Speaker 1: a pretty darn good image because so much television production 95 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:29,119 Speaker 1: was happening in New York City. So if you happen 96 00:05:29,160 --> 00:05:31,320 Speaker 1: to live near New York, you were getting the live 97 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:34,320 Speaker 1: broadcast version. You were not getting the kiniscope version. But 98 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:37,560 Speaker 1: if you lived in a different time zone, chances are 99 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:40,800 Speaker 1: you were watching a kiniscope of those programs, and that 100 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:45,640 Speaker 1: was pretty common in the nineteen forties and early nineteen fifties. Sadly, 101 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:49,440 Speaker 1: a lot of kinscopes of early television programs have since 102 00:05:49,440 --> 00:05:54,360 Speaker 1: been lost. There wasn't much thought given to preserving television programs. 103 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,719 Speaker 1: Early on TV studios were more concerned with churning out 104 00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:00,080 Speaker 1: content than keeping the stuff that they had. Are He 105 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,200 Speaker 1: made and most stuff would just be broadcast live as 106 00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:06,559 Speaker 1: it happened in its home region and then only used 107 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:09,800 Speaker 1: for rebroadcast for other time zones. It wasn't used for 108 00:06:09,839 --> 00:06:13,479 Speaker 1: any kind of rebroadcast of the original program, and once 109 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:15,160 Speaker 1: it was done, it was time to move on. So 110 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:18,560 Speaker 1: there was no real thought to stuff like syndication, and 111 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:22,479 Speaker 1: the idea of home theater wasn't a thing for a 112 00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:24,920 Speaker 1: couple of decades. No one was thinking about how can 113 00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:29,160 Speaker 1: I watch the stuff at home on demand? So there's 114 00:06:29,160 --> 00:06:31,360 Speaker 1: a ton of stuff that was shown that we know 115 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:35,279 Speaker 1: about but that we have no known recordings of. Um. 116 00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:38,880 Speaker 1: This isn't just to the United States. That's happened in 117 00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:42,160 Speaker 1: other places as well. In the United Kingdom, the BBC 118 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:46,800 Speaker 1: was actually famous for not holding on to stuff that 119 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,240 Speaker 1: future generations thought of as being historically important, but at 120 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:53,200 Speaker 1: the time no one was really thinking about that. Even 121 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:55,520 Speaker 1: in the days of videotape, once that became a thing, 122 00:06:55,839 --> 00:06:59,359 Speaker 1: the BBC was known for saving money by taping over 123 00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:03,279 Speaker 1: old videotape. There are a lot of stories about different 124 00:07:03,520 --> 00:07:07,360 Speaker 1: shows that survived that fate simply by purchasing the tapes directly. 125 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:10,600 Speaker 1: Monty Pythons Flying Circus is one of those, Eric Idol 126 00:07:10,760 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 1: actually spent the money to buy the original tapes so 127 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,320 Speaker 1: that the BBC wouldn't tape over them anyway. There were 128 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:21,480 Speaker 1: a few exceptions to the kinescope approach. In n the 129 00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:25,120 Speaker 1: sitcom I Love Lucy broke new ground by filming every 130 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:29,640 Speaker 1: episode using three film cameras, the classic three camera set 131 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:34,080 Speaker 1: up for sitcoms, and they used those instead of television cameras, 132 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:36,840 Speaker 1: so they would have a live studio audience, but they 133 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,520 Speaker 1: would be using film cameras to capture everything, and then 134 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:42,640 Speaker 1: the film was used to produce the episode for broadcast 135 00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:46,360 Speaker 1: to all markets, which drastically improved the quality and the 136 00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:51,320 Speaker 1: production cost for the show. So it because it was 137 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:54,480 Speaker 1: so expensive, it wasn't done for everything it was. I 138 00:07:54,520 --> 00:07:57,480 Speaker 1: Love Lucy was kind of an exception because it was 139 00:07:57,640 --> 00:08:00,680 Speaker 1: high enough in demand for to justify by the expense. 140 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:04,480 Speaker 1: But in something else was also happening. A guy named 141 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:07,200 Speaker 1: Charles Ginsburg was hard at work trying to come up 142 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:11,120 Speaker 1: with an alternative solution to this problem. Ginsburg had just 143 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:14,400 Speaker 1: started working for a company called Ampex. That's the same 144 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:18,720 Speaker 1: company that was instrumental in developing multitrack recorders for recording studios. 145 00:08:18,760 --> 00:08:22,160 Speaker 1: That I mentioned in the previous episode. So Ginsburg was 146 00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:27,160 Speaker 1: working to make a practical video tape recorder or vt R. 147 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:29,800 Speaker 1: And if you listen to my last episode about cassettes, 148 00:08:29,840 --> 00:08:33,200 Speaker 1: you heard me talking about magnetic tape and how it works. 149 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:35,840 Speaker 1: So I'm not going to repeat all of that here. 150 00:08:36,160 --> 00:08:39,760 Speaker 1: If you have not heard that previous episode, I recommend 151 00:08:39,800 --> 00:08:42,320 Speaker 1: you go check it out first, as the process for 152 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,600 Speaker 1: recording audio to magnetic tape is pretty similar to recording 153 00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:50,200 Speaker 1: video to tape. Now, obviously video carries with it a 154 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:53,480 Speaker 1: lot more information than just audio, but the process is 155 00:08:53,640 --> 00:08:58,400 Speaker 1: pretty similar. But here's here's a real super fast cliffs 156 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:02,240 Speaker 1: Notes version of this. An electrical impulse passes through an 157 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:06,360 Speaker 1: electro magnet, which then generates a fluctuating magnetic field, and 158 00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:11,120 Speaker 1: that magnetic field then magnetizes some sort of medium, and 159 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:14,280 Speaker 1: in the case of videotape, we're talking about a tape 160 00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:18,680 Speaker 1: coded with ferro magnetic particles. The ferro magnetic particles retain 161 00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:22,040 Speaker 1: their magnetic properties after they pass under the electro magnet, 162 00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:25,640 Speaker 1: so they maintain their magnetic orientation. You can think of 163 00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:28,000 Speaker 1: it like that. And then if you run the tape 164 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:32,200 Speaker 1: through a player, the reed head reverses this process. It 165 00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:35,160 Speaker 1: induces an electric current to flow through the player, which 166 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:38,160 Speaker 1: can then be used to regenerate the recorded video and audio. 167 00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:41,960 Speaker 1: Now Ginsburg hailed from San Francisco and he had studied 168 00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:44,360 Speaker 1: engineering in college and he had been working in the 169 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:47,640 Speaker 1: radio industry since nineteen forty eight. He was mainly focused 170 00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:50,959 Speaker 1: on studio and transmitter engineering, but he got the call 171 00:09:51,040 --> 00:09:53,560 Speaker 1: from Ampex in nineteen fifty one to join their team 172 00:09:53,559 --> 00:09:56,760 Speaker 1: to work on this problem. In fact, the founder of 173 00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:03,320 Speaker 1: Ampex himself, Alexander M. Poniata, gave gave Ginsburg a call 174 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,719 Speaker 1: to bring him over, and Poniatov hope Ginsburg would be 175 00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:08,760 Speaker 1: able to help the company come up with the means 176 00:10:08,800 --> 00:10:12,959 Speaker 1: to record broadcast quality television to videotape, and there have 177 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:16,480 Speaker 1: been some experiments with this, but the results had not 178 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:22,679 Speaker 1: been really marketable. Promising but not marketable. So Ginsburg led 179 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:27,200 Speaker 1: a team to design a system. Ampex patented his design 180 00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:31,040 Speaker 1: in nine two, and that same year Ray Dolby, whose 181 00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:33,559 Speaker 1: name should sound familiar if you're into sound, if you've 182 00:10:33,559 --> 00:10:36,719 Speaker 1: heard about Dolby Sound, he joined the project. He was 183 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:40,640 Speaker 1: nineteen years old at the time, and his time with 184 00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:42,959 Speaker 1: the project would get interrupted as he would be called 185 00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:45,800 Speaker 1: into military service for a few years uh and then 186 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:48,960 Speaker 1: he would rejoin the project anyway. This again is not 187 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,000 Speaker 1: to say that these are the first people to ever 188 00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:53,880 Speaker 1: work on this problem or even produce technology that could 189 00:10:54,080 --> 00:10:59,120 Speaker 1: do some form of video to tape. Shortly after World 190 00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:01,520 Speaker 1: War Two, engineers had been trying to find ways to 191 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:05,480 Speaker 1: preserve television on magnetic tape. But the previous efforts used 192 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:10,440 Speaker 1: audio tape recorders, and in order to store the same 193 00:11:10,440 --> 00:11:13,800 Speaker 1: amount of information of video as you would with audio, 194 00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:17,400 Speaker 1: you had to run the recorders much faster. You had 195 00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:20,240 Speaker 1: to dedicate a lot more tape to hold all that 196 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:23,520 Speaker 1: extra information since you had video on top of audio, 197 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:26,040 Speaker 1: which meant that you had to run these things at 198 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:29,520 Speaker 1: incredible speeds to achieve a high frequency response suitable for 199 00:11:29,559 --> 00:11:32,880 Speaker 1: preserving television. And by incredible speeds, I mean the tape 200 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:36,080 Speaker 1: would pass under the recording tape head at a speed 201 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:41,320 Speaker 1: of around two hundred forty or about six meters per second. 202 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:44,719 Speaker 1: At that speed, even a short program would need an 203 00:11:44,920 --> 00:11:48,800 Speaker 1: enormous amount of tape. And that was just one typical approach. 204 00:11:49,200 --> 00:11:52,400 Speaker 1: Being Crosby, he wanted to be able to tape essentially 205 00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:55,440 Speaker 1: a month's worth of shows in a single week. That 206 00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:57,720 Speaker 1: way he would work for a week and then have 207 00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:00,320 Speaker 1: the next three weeks off. Sounds like d ill, I 208 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:02,760 Speaker 1: wish I could do that. I just I don't think 209 00:12:02,760 --> 00:12:05,120 Speaker 1: I can physically record that many episodes in a week 210 00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:08,320 Speaker 1: and then take another month off. But he worked with 211 00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:12,520 Speaker 1: Ampex to use audio tape recorders, and with his approach 212 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,320 Speaker 1: Crosby's approach, they were actually running even faster. They were 213 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:18,120 Speaker 1: running out of speed of three hundred sixty inches per second. 214 00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,400 Speaker 1: That's nine meters per second of film or rather tape, 215 00:12:22,520 --> 00:12:27,280 Speaker 1: not film, but man super fast. So Ginsberg's team comes 216 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,000 Speaker 1: up with a solution, but it wasn't easy. According to 217 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,880 Speaker 1: Ginsburg himself, the project took four years of research and 218 00:12:33,960 --> 00:12:35,959 Speaker 1: testing to come up with a viable way to get 219 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:39,520 Speaker 1: around this problem, and along the way the project was 220 00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:43,360 Speaker 1: shelved twice. Rather than have the tape pass at this 221 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:48,320 Speaker 1: incredible rate of speed over the recording head or under 222 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:52,960 Speaker 1: the recording head, the idea was build a rotating recording head. 223 00:12:53,400 --> 00:12:56,679 Speaker 1: The head would spin as tape passed underneath, and it 224 00:12:56,679 --> 00:12:59,840 Speaker 1: would record tracks of information in arcs and such as 225 00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:03,320 Speaker 1: a stom is called an arcuate recorder and That's a 226 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:06,240 Speaker 1: word I had never encountered before I did the research 227 00:13:06,280 --> 00:13:08,400 Speaker 1: for this episode. In fact, the first time I saw 228 00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:11,040 Speaker 1: it printed, I thought perhaps I was looking at a 229 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:14,480 Speaker 1: typo and what they meant to say was an accurate recorder. 230 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:17,040 Speaker 1: But no, that meant they meant arquate, and that the 231 00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:21,640 Speaker 1: information was being recorded in arcs onto the tape um. 232 00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:25,920 Speaker 1: The recording head that Ginsburg's team built was actually the 233 00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:29,559 Speaker 1: initial one was actually three heads on a rotating drum, 234 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:32,120 Speaker 1: and it would scan tape that was about two inches 235 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:35,360 Speaker 1: in width or about five centimeters, and the tape would 236 00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:39,280 Speaker 1: move past the head at a relatively leisurely thirty inches 237 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:42,280 Speaker 1: per second or seventy six point two centimeters per second, 238 00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:44,720 Speaker 1: which is still pretty fast, but nothing like the two 239 00:13:45,679 --> 00:13:48,720 Speaker 1: per second of the earlier method. What's more, the rotating 240 00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:51,880 Speaker 1: drums speed allowed Ginsburg to record the same amount of 241 00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:54,720 Speaker 1: information as he could if the tape were moving at 242 00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:59,360 Speaker 1: a blistering two thousand, five hundred inches per second. He 243 00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:02,320 Speaker 1: could cramp far more information onto a shorter length of 244 00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:07,280 Speaker 1: tape using this methodology. Still, this early prototype produced recordings that, 245 00:14:07,360 --> 00:14:13,000 Speaker 1: in Ginsberg's own words, produced and quote almost unrecognizable picture 246 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:17,040 Speaker 1: end quote. The next prototype added another recording head, so 247 00:14:17,360 --> 00:14:20,120 Speaker 1: brought the total up to four on the drum, and 248 00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:22,400 Speaker 1: with some other technical changes that get a little too 249 00:14:22,400 --> 00:14:24,920 Speaker 1: complicated for me to go into in this episode. But 250 00:14:25,360 --> 00:14:28,120 Speaker 1: this version had its own problems and at this stage 251 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:31,240 Speaker 1: the project was shelved. Technically, it was shelved for a 252 00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:33,920 Speaker 1: second time, and this happened around the summer of nineteen 253 00:14:33,960 --> 00:14:37,440 Speaker 1: fifty three, and the project would not officially start up 254 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:42,040 Speaker 1: again in earnest until August nine. However, in that off time, 255 00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:45,000 Speaker 1: Ginsburg and others on his team would continue kind of 256 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:48,680 Speaker 1: working on specific problems on the SLY and so they 257 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:50,960 Speaker 1: were able to solve some of the issues. While the 258 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:56,280 Speaker 1: project was officially no longer on the books, Ginsburg was 259 00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:59,920 Speaker 1: able to secure approval from management for a small number 260 00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:03,400 Speaker 1: of hours to be devoted to another prototype, and so 261 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:05,920 Speaker 1: he and his team built a device that got the 262 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,680 Speaker 1: name the Mark one. On September one, nineteen fifty four, 263 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:13,560 Speaker 1: Ginsburg's team demonstrated the Mark one to executives and it 264 00:15:13,640 --> 00:15:16,680 Speaker 1: must have gone pretty well because Ampex authorized the project 265 00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:20,520 Speaker 1: to get back into full swing officially, and the major 266 00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:23,000 Speaker 1: change was how the information was being laid down on 267 00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:26,760 Speaker 1: the tape While the earlier prototypes were using that arquit approach, 268 00:15:26,960 --> 00:15:29,360 Speaker 1: in which each line of information moved in an arc 269 00:15:29,480 --> 00:15:31,960 Speaker 1: across the length of the tape, the new one laid 270 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:35,640 Speaker 1: down the information in straight lines on the tape. Two 271 00:15:35,640 --> 00:15:39,160 Speaker 1: more years of refinements would follow until February ninety six. 272 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:41,840 Speaker 1: That's when Ginsburg's team would give a new demo to 273 00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:46,160 Speaker 1: thirty Ampex executives, and in that demo, the team used 274 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:49,400 Speaker 1: a new system, this one called the Mark four, to 275 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:53,920 Speaker 1: record a video sequence live at the event. So they 276 00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:58,200 Speaker 1: shot video for a couple of minutes. Um they actually 277 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,440 Speaker 1: set up a camera and shot video of the people 278 00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:03,200 Speaker 1: attending the meeting. Then they rewound the tape and they 279 00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:05,480 Speaker 1: fed it through the playback system, and according to Ginsburg, 280 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:09,080 Speaker 1: at the conclusion of the playback, the whole room erupted 281 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:12,800 Speaker 1: with a celebration, so it must have gone pretty darn well. 282 00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:15,480 Speaker 1: They followed that up with a demonstration of the Mark 283 00:16:15,560 --> 00:16:19,360 Speaker 1: four at the National Association of Broadcasters conference, and it 284 00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:22,040 Speaker 1: was a huge hit, and Ampex started to get orders 285 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:25,800 Speaker 1: for its technology, which would change TV production and preservation 286 00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:29,280 Speaker 1: and lay the groundwork for home theaters. When we come back, 287 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:33,280 Speaker 1: i'll talk more about that evolution and how the video 288 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:36,840 Speaker 1: tape recorder made its transition to the video cassette recorder. 289 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:46,440 Speaker 1: But first, let's take a quick break. So the video 290 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:51,120 Speaker 1: tape recorder or VTR got real start in n S. 291 00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:55,440 Speaker 1: CBS would jump on board first, but other other networks 292 00:16:55,480 --> 00:17:00,200 Speaker 1: would join suit, and for about two decades that's where 293 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:04,680 Speaker 1: videotape lived. In the production side, it was very rare 294 00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:08,320 Speaker 1: to run into a consumer video tape machine. The systems 295 00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:11,199 Speaker 1: cost thousands of dollars when they first came out, like 296 00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:15,520 Speaker 1: fifty thou dollars uh, and that was well beyond the 297 00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:19,280 Speaker 1: reach of consumers. And the tape was also really expensive 298 00:17:19,400 --> 00:17:21,480 Speaker 1: and it was it was like three dollars a foot, 299 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:25,560 Speaker 1: so it was prohibitively expensive for almost everyone. This was 300 00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:29,399 Speaker 1: not a consumer device, but a professional production machine. You 301 00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:31,439 Speaker 1: wouldn't have one in your own home unless you were 302 00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:36,440 Speaker 1: extravagantly wealthy and probably a little bit eccentric. So Ampex 303 00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:39,879 Speaker 1: would continue to improve its technology, but other companies also 304 00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:42,800 Speaker 1: got into the mix with their own video tape recorders, 305 00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:46,040 Speaker 1: and the quest for a consumer device would take a 306 00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:50,280 Speaker 1: little longer. You had different companies UH experimenting with different 307 00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:54,879 Speaker 1: widths of videotape, different styles of recording heads. Uh, So 308 00:17:54,960 --> 00:17:56,919 Speaker 1: you had a lot of different companies all trying to 309 00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:01,919 Speaker 1: become the industry leader and to top Ampex. Meanwhile, you 310 00:18:01,960 --> 00:18:04,480 Speaker 1: had a company out of the UK called the Nottingham 311 00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:08,280 Speaker 1: Electric Valve Company that marketed a device called the tail 312 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,560 Speaker 1: Cam in the early nineteen sixties, and this was technically 313 00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:16,000 Speaker 1: the first, or at least one of the first home 314 00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:20,520 Speaker 1: video recording devices on record. This one was pretty limited. 315 00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:24,000 Speaker 1: It could only record about twenty minutes of video per tape, 316 00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:26,560 Speaker 1: and it was real to real tape. It was not 317 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:29,479 Speaker 1: a cassette, so you actually had to mount reels on 318 00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,080 Speaker 1: this device like the old real to real audio recorders. 319 00:18:32,359 --> 00:18:35,840 Speaker 1: The quality of the recording wasn't terribly good. The device 320 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:37,680 Speaker 1: itself was a bit of a chore to use, and 321 00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:41,879 Speaker 1: on top of it all, it was expensive. So Tellcan 322 00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,240 Speaker 1: didn't really seem much success and it would fade away, 323 00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:49,920 Speaker 1: it wouldn't get market support. According to the website Inventricity, 324 00:18:50,359 --> 00:18:53,720 Speaker 1: only two tell Can units are known to exist today. 325 00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:56,200 Speaker 1: One of them is in Nottingham and the other one 326 00:18:56,320 --> 00:19:00,280 Speaker 1: is in San Francisco. Ampex introduced a real to real 327 00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:03,360 Speaker 1: recorder in nineteen sixty three in the United States called 328 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:06,960 Speaker 1: the Signature five, which used two inch tape, so it's 329 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:10,959 Speaker 1: about five centimeters wide. The following year, Phillips would introduce 330 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:13,760 Speaker 1: a different reel to reel video recorder meant for semi 331 00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:16,600 Speaker 1: professional use or what we might refer to as the 332 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:20,600 Speaker 1: pro sumer market. It could only record in black and white, 333 00:19:20,760 --> 00:19:22,720 Speaker 1: and the tape of the reels measured one inch or 334 00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:26,160 Speaker 1: about two point five centimeters in width. And then Sony 335 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:29,960 Speaker 1: introduced the CV twenty twenty, which was another reel to 336 00:19:30,080 --> 00:19:33,480 Speaker 1: reel video recorder that used half inch tape. And all 337 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:36,400 Speaker 1: of these were expensive units and the real to real 338 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:38,840 Speaker 1: nature meant they weren't very user friendly. You know, you 339 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,560 Speaker 1: still had to feed the tape through the machine and 340 00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:47,600 Speaker 1: then uh, get it attached to the secondary reel and 341 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:50,840 Speaker 1: then feed it, you know, play it from there. That 342 00:19:50,960 --> 00:19:53,920 Speaker 1: was not easy to do. So like the earlier tel Can, 343 00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:57,480 Speaker 1: they didn't get a widespread adoption among consumers. If you 344 00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:02,160 Speaker 1: were technically savvy and you had a whole bunch of cash, 345 00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:06,320 Speaker 1: then maybe you had one, but otherwise it probably passed 346 00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:09,320 Speaker 1: you by. The real to real format had a lot 347 00:20:09,320 --> 00:20:12,959 Speaker 1: of drawbacks because the tape, just like film could be 348 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:16,760 Speaker 1: easily damaged by environmental forces. There was nothing protecting the 349 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:23,800 Speaker 1: tape from stuff like dust or fingers or dogs, and 350 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:27,639 Speaker 1: so you could very easily damage the tape and ruin 351 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:30,960 Speaker 1: your recording. Companies were working on prototypes of a form 352 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,000 Speaker 1: factor that would greatly simplify the use of a tape, 353 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:36,960 Speaker 1: and one of those was Sony, which had started working 354 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: on video cassettes back in nineteen sixty nine and its 355 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:45,080 Speaker 1: research and development department. In nine seventy, Sony, Panasonic, and 356 00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:49,560 Speaker 1: JVC arrived at an agreed upon standard for video cassettes, 357 00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:53,040 Speaker 1: ensuring that the different companies would create recording and playback 358 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:57,000 Speaker 1: devices as well as cassettes that could work together across 359 00:20:57,119 --> 00:21:00,240 Speaker 1: the different companies products. So if you bought a any 360 00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:05,520 Speaker 1: video cassette player, then you bought a cassette that was 361 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:08,199 Speaker 1: made by j VC, you could be sure that the 362 00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:13,159 Speaker 1: two would work together. In Sony introduced the U Matic, 363 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:17,600 Speaker 1: which is arguably the first video cassette recorder or VCR, 364 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,000 Speaker 1: but the name VCR actually comes from a different device, 365 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:24,840 Speaker 1: the Phillips Video Cassette Recorder. That one came out a 366 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:28,720 Speaker 1: couple of months after Sony's. It didn't seem much consumer success, 367 00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:32,680 Speaker 1: but lower budget television stations relied on it to record 368 00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:36,199 Speaker 1: broadcasts to video and in fact in TV production. The 369 00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,719 Speaker 1: you Matic would stick around until the nineteen nineties, so 370 00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:43,680 Speaker 1: while it didn't become a vague home device, it did 371 00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:47,360 Speaker 1: play a very important role in TV production behind the scenes. 372 00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:51,200 Speaker 1: A company called c t I introduced another cassette player 373 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:55,359 Speaker 1: called the cartra Vision in nineteen seventy two. It became 374 00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:58,840 Speaker 1: the first company to offer pre recorded films for purchase 375 00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:01,320 Speaker 1: for the home. So this was the first time you 376 00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:05,280 Speaker 1: had a company not just produce a player, but also 377 00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:10,840 Speaker 1: make deals with production studios to get licensing for films 378 00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:13,800 Speaker 1: or television programs and then to offer them for sale. 379 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:16,840 Speaker 1: So now people had the option to actually own a 380 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:21,000 Speaker 1: copy of a film, making it possible to watch whenever 381 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,959 Speaker 1: they wanted. It was a huge, huge deal, right. This 382 00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:30,080 Speaker 1: was a breakthrough in approach, but the cart Revision as 383 00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:32,800 Speaker 1: a format didn't last very long. It didn't take off, 384 00:22:33,160 --> 00:22:37,840 Speaker 1: so while the concept was important, the actual implementation didn't work. 385 00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,879 Speaker 1: All of those early devices were really expensive and that 386 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:45,919 Speaker 1: contributed to their lack of tractions. So while we started 387 00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:49,760 Speaker 1: to see the promise of this technology, it wasn't quite 388 00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:53,200 Speaker 1: at the level where it could be commercially viable for 389 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:57,800 Speaker 1: the home consumer. That changed in UH. Sony and j 390 00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:00,440 Speaker 1: VC had a little parting of the ways. Had worked 391 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:03,760 Speaker 1: together to create the standard for you Matic, but now 392 00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:08,399 Speaker 1: Sony was looking to develop its own proprietary approach for 393 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:12,600 Speaker 1: the home market UH, and so they were both trying 394 00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:17,719 Speaker 1: different proprietary approaches at the same time. Sony's version was 395 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,639 Speaker 1: the Beta Max format, which was smaller than the u 396 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,399 Speaker 1: Matic format. If you had a Pumatic cassette and a 397 00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,920 Speaker 1: Beta Max cassette side by side, you'd see the Beta 398 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,760 Speaker 1: Max cassette was smaller, and it was able to produce 399 00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:33,359 Speaker 1: recordings of a comparable quality to you Matic. It wasn't 400 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,960 Speaker 1: quite as good, but it was pretty good. It's really close. 401 00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:39,600 Speaker 1: Then j v C would follow suit in nineteen seventy 402 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,800 Speaker 1: six with the introduction of the VHS format, and thus 403 00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:46,880 Speaker 1: began one of the famous format wars that we talked 404 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:50,960 Speaker 1: about in Tech Beta Max versus VHS. It's a story 405 00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:53,359 Speaker 1: that we've seen play out lots of different times, and 406 00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:55,679 Speaker 1: it's a story we're going to revisit in a future 407 00:23:55,720 --> 00:24:00,280 Speaker 1: episode with Blu Ray versus HD DVD Beta mat X 408 00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,360 Speaker 1: had the edge over VHS when it came to picture quality, 409 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,880 Speaker 1: the quality was slightly better. The difference wasn't a dramatic one, 410 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,639 Speaker 1: but Beta Max could legitimately claim our picture has higher 411 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:16,720 Speaker 1: resolution than VHS. However, VHS tapes could hold more content 412 00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,679 Speaker 1: than Beta Max tapes could. Early Beta Max tapes had 413 00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,560 Speaker 1: a limit of about an hour's worth of material, so 414 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:24,760 Speaker 1: you couldn't even get a full movie on a single 415 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:28,840 Speaker 1: Beta Max cassette. In the early days, VHS could outperform 416 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:32,120 Speaker 1: in that space. With a VHS tape, even an early one, 417 00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,200 Speaker 1: you could record a whole film onto one cassette. Later 418 00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,800 Speaker 1: on you would be able to film to record multiple 419 00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,720 Speaker 1: films on a single cassette. The HS slowly got the 420 00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,840 Speaker 1: upper hand in the format wars, and by night one, 421 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:48,399 Speaker 1: the VHS format accounted for seventy five of the VCR market. 422 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:51,639 Speaker 1: The Beta Max share would drop continuously at you know 423 00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,000 Speaker 1: it was that twenty in nine. By night six it 424 00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,159 Speaker 1: was down to just seven point five percent of the market. 425 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,639 Speaker 1: So VHS dominated in the space. But while VHS and 426 00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,600 Speaker 1: Beta Max were fighting for supremacy, there was another fight 427 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,000 Speaker 1: that was boiling regarding the practice of videotaping at home 428 00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:14,000 Speaker 1: at all. This one originated in Hollywood. So in nineteen 429 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,000 Speaker 1: seventy six, the same year that JVC would debut the 430 00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:22,040 Speaker 1: VHS format, the movie studio Universal Pictures filed a copyright 431 00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:26,719 Speaker 1: infringement lawsuit against Sony. The argument Universal made was that 432 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,440 Speaker 1: just by creating a device capable of recording video images 433 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:35,080 Speaker 1: off of a television, Sony had violated copyright law. Akio Marita, 434 00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,679 Speaker 1: Sony's founder, had said that the Beta max device allowed 435 00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:42,360 Speaker 1: for a time shift approach to television. That's something we'll 436 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,640 Speaker 1: talk about again. Upon the development of the digital video recorder, 437 00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,920 Speaker 1: so the idea was no longer would you have audiences 438 00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:53,280 Speaker 1: being dependent upon the broadcast schedule of TV stations. I 439 00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,080 Speaker 1: don't know if all of you guys remember this. Some 440 00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,320 Speaker 1: of you young ones may not have ever known a 441 00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,840 Speaker 1: world like this, but back in the day, we were 442 00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:06,800 Speaker 1: completely dependent upon the broadcast schedule of television stations. If 443 00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,080 Speaker 1: you were not home at eight pm on a Thursday night, 444 00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,199 Speaker 1: you were not going to see that next episode of 445 00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:17,359 Speaker 1: I don't know, cheers um, unless you had to have 446 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:19,600 Speaker 1: happened to have a VCR where you could set it 447 00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:22,359 Speaker 1: to record while you were away and then you could 448 00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:25,320 Speaker 1: time shift. You could watch the program whenever you wanted 449 00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:27,440 Speaker 1: on your schedule. So it was kind of like an 450 00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,520 Speaker 1: on demand kind of approach, except you had to actually 451 00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:34,359 Speaker 1: actively record the show first. But before there were VCRs 452 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,159 Speaker 1: that there was no option. You were either home to 453 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,800 Speaker 1: watch it or you missed it and that was it. 454 00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,040 Speaker 1: So Marita's argument was, this is going to give the 455 00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:48,840 Speaker 1: consumer far more flexibility in the consumption of entertainment. So 456 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:50,960 Speaker 1: you could leave your home, you set your recorder to 457 00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,439 Speaker 1: capture a program or a film on television, and then 458 00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:55,879 Speaker 1: you can watch it whenever you wanted. It's something we 459 00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:57,960 Speaker 1: take for granted now, but this was a brand new 460 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:02,200 Speaker 1: idea in the nineties seventies. It was revolutionary. But Lou 461 00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:07,040 Speaker 1: Wasserman of m c A slash Universal had different plans. See, 462 00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:09,320 Speaker 1: he had an idea that his company was going to 463 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,320 Speaker 1: partner with some other companies on developing a proprietary playback device. 464 00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,200 Speaker 1: Uh primarily they were going to partner with Phillips and 465 00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,919 Speaker 1: this device was called disco Vision and would later be 466 00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,879 Speaker 1: called the Laser Disc. And the plan was to release 467 00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:28,399 Speaker 1: content for this device and it would only be able 468 00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,919 Speaker 1: to play that content back it couldn't record anything, It 469 00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:35,880 Speaker 1: could only play back prerecorded material, and that would give 470 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:39,119 Speaker 1: Universal full control of its television and film libraries. They 471 00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,600 Speaker 1: could say, hey, do you want to see our movies, 472 00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:43,600 Speaker 1: Well you can do that, but the only way you 473 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:45,800 Speaker 1: can do it is to go through us, to buy 474 00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,359 Speaker 1: these proprietary discs that will run on this proprietary hardware 475 00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:52,760 Speaker 1: and UH. That way they could have full control of 476 00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:57,399 Speaker 1: the situation. Walt Disney Productions would join with Universal in 477 00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:02,200 Speaker 1: this lawsuit against uh UH, the Sony, and and they 478 00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,760 Speaker 1: sought to block all sales of Beta Max machines. Now, 479 00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,840 Speaker 1: Sony argued that the Beta Max was similar to tape recorders, 480 00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,280 Speaker 1: which had been deemed a legal product all the way 481 00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,080 Speaker 1: back in the nineteen sixties. So the U. S. District 482 00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,719 Speaker 1: Court would hear the case in nineteen seventy nine, and 483 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,800 Speaker 1: they ruled in favor of Sony. But then the case 484 00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,040 Speaker 1: went to an appeals court and the appeals court reversed 485 00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,240 Speaker 1: the decision in nineteen one. However, at this point, the 486 00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:32,080 Speaker 1: VCR was really doing pretty well. VCR sales were picking up, 487 00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,919 Speaker 1: and the VHS format, which wasn't even Beta Max, was 488 00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:41,520 Speaker 1: already ahead of the Sony beta max approach. So even 489 00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,800 Speaker 1: if the the court had argued that there needs to 490 00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:49,920 Speaker 1: be a block on beta max sales, VHS was already winning. However, 491 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,160 Speaker 1: the case would continue through the court system, finally making 492 00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,600 Speaker 1: its way all the way to the United States Supreme 493 00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,760 Speaker 1: Court in four and the Supreme Court reversed the appeals 494 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:03,800 Speaker 1: court decision and ruled in favor for Sony that settled 495 00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,800 Speaker 1: the matter officially saying these devices do not violate copyright law. 496 00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:14,120 Speaker 1: By half of all American households would own a VCR. 497 00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,200 Speaker 1: As for the movie studios well, Even as the case 498 00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,800 Speaker 1: was making its way through the court, it became clear 499 00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,120 Speaker 1: that video cassettes actually represented a new line of revenue 500 00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,960 Speaker 1: generation that it wasn't going to hurt the studios. It 501 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,800 Speaker 1: could actually really help them. Studios could dive into their 502 00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:34,520 Speaker 1: back catalogs of movies and sell video cassettes to consumers 503 00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,240 Speaker 1: movies that would otherwise just sit in a storage facility, 504 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,840 Speaker 1: maybe like an old salt mine. They could actually earn money. Again. 505 00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,160 Speaker 1: Even Walt Disney Productions would jump on board, though that 506 00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,680 Speaker 1: was largely due to a change in leadership because a 507 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,240 Speaker 1: guy named Michael Eisner became CEO of the company, and 508 00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,720 Speaker 1: Eisner led the studio to release several of their classic 509 00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:59,040 Speaker 1: films on video cassette, and before long, Disney Movies captured 510 00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:02,120 Speaker 1: something like seven out of the top ten best selling 511 00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,160 Speaker 1: video tapes of all time, so it was a very 512 00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:09,360 Speaker 1: much a winning strategy for Walt Disney, even though earlier 513 00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:15,280 Speaker 1: the company had opposed the technology. That same year was 514 00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:19,600 Speaker 1: when the videotape industry actually overtook the film industry in revenue, 515 00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,160 Speaker 1: and it turned out the fears of piracy were largely misplaced. 516 00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,440 Speaker 1: Just like audio cassettes, most VCRs can only record at 517 00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,760 Speaker 1: the same speed as the playback of a source, so 518 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,600 Speaker 1: if you're trying to tape a two hour movie, it 519 00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,920 Speaker 1: would take you two hours to tape it. It wasn't 520 00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,280 Speaker 1: the sort of thing that the average person could do 521 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,000 Speaker 1: to just churn out pirated copies of videos. Though if 522 00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,600 Speaker 1: you got your hands on some semi professional equipment, you 523 00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,760 Speaker 1: could do it at a faster clip. You could reproduce 524 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:53,240 Speaker 1: video tapes faster than your your you know, store brand VCR, 525 00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:55,800 Speaker 1: but that was an investment most folks weren't able to make. 526 00:30:55,880 --> 00:31:00,840 Speaker 1: So it was possible to generate, you know, lots of 527 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,600 Speaker 1: of unlicensed copies of a film, but only if you 528 00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: had access to this equipment. If you were just using 529 00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:10,720 Speaker 1: two VCRs at home, it was such a painstakingly long 530 00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,040 Speaker 1: process that it didn't make much sense now. In the 531 00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:17,880 Speaker 1: early days, prerecorded video cassettes were really expensive, like if 532 00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:19,760 Speaker 1: you wanted to go out and buy a movie on 533 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,040 Speaker 1: video cassette, you were showing out some big bucks. For example, 534 00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:30,360 Speaker 1: when Columbia Pictures made Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters available for purchase on VHS, 535 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,560 Speaker 1: each copy costs the princely sum of eighty dollars. The 536 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:37,200 Speaker 1: company sold more than four hundred thousand copies of the 537 00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,000 Speaker 1: film at that price, And if you want to adjust 538 00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,600 Speaker 1: it for inflation in today's cash, that's nearly a hundred 539 00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,840 Speaker 1: ninety dollars for a copy of a movie. And that's 540 00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:50,760 Speaker 1: just for one film. Yikes, switching gears for a second. 541 00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:52,800 Speaker 1: The birth of the video cassette also led to the 542 00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,160 Speaker 1: birth of another industry that a video rental. It's pretty 543 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,200 Speaker 1: much agreed that the first, honest to goodness real video 544 00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: rental store was created by George Atkinson in nineteen seventy 545 00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,640 Speaker 1: seven in Los Angeles, California. A guy named Andre Blair 546 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,760 Speaker 1: had negotiated with studios to license the rights for a 547 00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,840 Speaker 1: few dozen films to be recorded to videotape for sale, 548 00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,680 Speaker 1: and Atkinson bought up some copies of those films that 549 00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,360 Speaker 1: that Blay had licensed, and then he started to offer 550 00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:24,120 Speaker 1: those up as rentals. Atkinson actually faced some opposition for 551 00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,360 Speaker 1: this business, with entertainment companies threatening to sue him, but 552 00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:29,840 Speaker 1: he researched copyright law and he saw that he had 553 00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:32,120 Speaker 1: the right, as the owner of a copy of a 554 00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,880 Speaker 1: work to rent or resell his copy. He wasn't doing 555 00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:40,479 Speaker 1: anything illegal, he wasn't duplicating the films, He was just 556 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,680 Speaker 1: renting the copy he happened to own. Other video rental 557 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,080 Speaker 1: stores opened in different parts of the country, and by 558 00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,440 Speaker 1: night one the owners of several of these stores or 559 00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,720 Speaker 1: small chains of stores got together to form an industry 560 00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,080 Speaker 1: organization they called the Video Software Dealers Association, and the 561 00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,960 Speaker 1: purpose of that organization was to help TechEd video rental 562 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,080 Speaker 1: stores from litigation and changes to what is called the 563 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,360 Speaker 1: first sale doctrine, as the concept that says a copyright 564 00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:11,120 Speaker 1: holder can't stop someone from lending out or reselling their 565 00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:15,320 Speaker 1: legally acquired copy of a copyrighted work without those protections. 566 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,080 Speaker 1: Stuff like libraries would cease to exist because of legal challenges. 567 00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,800 Speaker 1: But because this doctrine is in place, I can do 568 00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:25,080 Speaker 1: stuff like by a VHS copy of Tron, and later 569 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,760 Speaker 1: on I can sell it at a garage sale without 570 00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,080 Speaker 1: worrying about getting sued for it or whether if I 571 00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:33,200 Speaker 1: am sued for it, I'll win. Now, one thing that 572 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,840 Speaker 1: I couldn't do is I wouldn't be allowed to make 573 00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,000 Speaker 1: copies of that Tron tape and then sell those copies 574 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,520 Speaker 1: to other people. The right to reproduce a copyrighted work 575 00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,480 Speaker 1: falls to the owner of the copyright. The most I 576 00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,040 Speaker 1: could do is I can make a backup copy of 577 00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:51,600 Speaker 1: the Tron tape that I own myself, and I'm not 578 00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,440 Speaker 1: selling it. I'm not lending it out. I make a 579 00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,720 Speaker 1: backup copy and I put it away in a safe place, 580 00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:59,400 Speaker 1: just in case my original tape breaks or something else 581 00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:02,720 Speaker 1: goes wrong. Backup copies fall under the category of fair 582 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,840 Speaker 1: use and copyright law, meaning it's a fair use of 583 00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,960 Speaker 1: the copyrighted work. So there's some fine lines to walk 584 00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,279 Speaker 1: in this arena. And developments and technology are what made 585 00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,080 Speaker 1: these these ideas necessary, And the same thing holds true 586 00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,680 Speaker 1: for record albums and other stuff. Like if I owned 587 00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,799 Speaker 1: a vinyl album, I would be allowed to transfer that 588 00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,360 Speaker 1: to audio cassette in order for me to have a 589 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,520 Speaker 1: backup copy of that vinyl album should something happen to it. 590 00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,839 Speaker 1: But I couldn't make copies of it over and over 591 00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:32,920 Speaker 1: and over again and then give it away or sell 592 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,040 Speaker 1: it to friends. That would be a violation of copyright. 593 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,719 Speaker 1: This is also going to become important when we move 594 00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,440 Speaker 1: to digital music, and we'll see that in future episodes. So, 595 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,239 Speaker 1: the video cassette was changing the business of entertainment and 596 00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,200 Speaker 1: it allowed for the establishment of video rental companies. The 597 00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:49,839 Speaker 1: men that filmmakers and entertainers had a new market they 598 00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:53,560 Speaker 1: could exploit. This is also when enterprising individuals started making 599 00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:56,919 Speaker 1: content specifically for the home video market. Some we're making 600 00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:00,399 Speaker 1: stuff like self help videos or exercise videos, or made 601 00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,919 Speaker 1: for video films and shows. Stuff that couldn't get distribution 602 00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,160 Speaker 1: in theaters or on television could find a home on 603 00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,400 Speaker 1: video cassette. And boy, if you've ever gone through the 604 00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,279 Speaker 1: bargain bins that have had video cassettes in them, you've 605 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,200 Speaker 1: probably seen some examples of this stuff that you otherwise 606 00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,040 Speaker 1: never would have heard of. And the late nineteen eighties, 607 00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,600 Speaker 1: studios began to drop the price of prerecorded video cassettes, 608 00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,759 Speaker 1: with tapes dropping below thirty dollars a title, and the 609 00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,680 Speaker 1: video cassette era boomed, with VCRs becoming a common component 610 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,600 Speaker 1: in homes around the world. It would also set the 611 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,520 Speaker 1: stage for future technologies like the DVD player and later 612 00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,440 Speaker 1: still the HD DVD player and the Blu ray player. 613 00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:42,320 Speaker 1: Those technologies rely on a completely different approach to recording media, 614 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,520 Speaker 1: but the business side of selling and renting copies and 615 00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:48,719 Speaker 1: the consumer relationship with the technology would be similar to 616 00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,240 Speaker 1: that of the VCR and the video cassette. It also 617 00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,440 Speaker 1: helped establish practices and precedents that would be important upon 618 00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,839 Speaker 1: the introduction of devices like digital video recorders. So for now, 619 00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,480 Speaker 1: let's shift not in time but in top So when 620 00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:02,760 Speaker 1: we come back, I'll talk a bit about a different 621 00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,720 Speaker 1: technology that would displace the audio cassette in the consumer 622 00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:09,000 Speaker 1: music world, the compact disc. But first let's take another 623 00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:20,400 Speaker 1: quick break. While the audio cassette, sometimes called the compact cassette, 624 00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:22,960 Speaker 1: was gearing up to take over the top spot in 625 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:27,520 Speaker 1: consumer audio from the vinyl record album, its successor was 626 00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:31,479 Speaker 1: already in development, the compact disc, which would be able 627 00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,680 Speaker 1: to preserve music and a high fidelity much higher than 628 00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,279 Speaker 1: what audio cassettes could do at the time, and with 629 00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:40,680 Speaker 1: proper care, could last much longer than audio cassettes was 630 00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,440 Speaker 1: starting to take shape. Interestingly, the compact disc kind of 631 00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,239 Speaker 1: rose out of a failure, namely that the aforementioned laser disc. 632 00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:53,280 Speaker 1: So while magnetic tape stored information using magnetism, laser discs 633 00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,279 Speaker 1: and later CDs and DVDs and blu rays and h 634 00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:01,920 Speaker 1: D DVDs used optical storage uh optical storage, meaning that 635 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,560 Speaker 1: it was all done with light. So a physicist named 636 00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:08,960 Speaker 1: James Russell pioneered this technology all the way back in 637 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:13,120 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. He's a brilliant physicist and also a 638 00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:15,719 Speaker 1: lover of music. That led him kind of down this 639 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,480 Speaker 1: pathway to determine how could he create a new form 640 00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:24,560 Speaker 1: of storage media. He was wanting to make something that 641 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:29,160 Speaker 1: would preserve music better than the vinyl form factor. See, 642 00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:34,680 Speaker 1: he was frustrated because the vinyl album methodology means you're 643 00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,080 Speaker 1: going to be wearing out your records if you listen 644 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,600 Speaker 1: to them a lot, because you're using a physical stylus 645 00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:44,279 Speaker 1: or needle. It's making its way through the grooves on 646 00:37:44,400 --> 00:37:47,600 Speaker 1: the record, and as it does so, it starts to 647 00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:49,840 Speaker 1: wear down those grooves a little bit. So if you 648 00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,799 Speaker 1: listen to the same vinyl album enough times, you're going 649 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,680 Speaker 1: to negatively affect the quality of the sound you get 650 00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,560 Speaker 1: when you play it back. It just starts to wear down. 651 00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:00,920 Speaker 1: So he said, we need some way to play back 652 00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:05,920 Speaker 1: music that doesn't require physical contact between the media and 653 00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:08,920 Speaker 1: the playback device. There needs to be some way where 654 00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,240 Speaker 1: whatever the sensor is that's picking up the information isn't 655 00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:19,640 Speaker 1: directly touching the actual surface that holds that information. He 656 00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,120 Speaker 1: determined that if you converted music into binary data. In 657 00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,719 Speaker 1: other words, if you encoded the music in zeros and 658 00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:30,680 Speaker 1: ones the information of computers in bits, and you did 659 00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,879 Speaker 1: that to describe everything about the music, you know, all 660 00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:38,760 Speaker 1: the frequencies, all the volumes, you could store this music 661 00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:43,279 Speaker 1: digitally onto a medium. By the way, this is essentially 662 00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:48,120 Speaker 1: the idea that Ada Lovelace had way back in the 663 00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,640 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds when she was working with Charles Babbage. She 664 00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:56,080 Speaker 1: had suggested that mathematics could be used to represent all 665 00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:00,640 Speaker 1: sorts of things, including music, and that's essentially what Russell 666 00:39:00,760 --> 00:39:04,520 Speaker 1: was saying as well. He was specifically talking about binary 667 00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,920 Speaker 1: whereas uh Lovelace did not quite get to that point, 668 00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:10,800 Speaker 1: but Russell was saying, no, we could. We could totally 669 00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:15,359 Speaker 1: describe music in bits and be able to encode it 670 00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,759 Speaker 1: in that way, and then using the proper decoding, you 671 00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:23,719 Speaker 1: could decipher the information and replicate the performance. So if 672 00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,799 Speaker 1: you use light to pick up this digital information, you 673 00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:31,000 Speaker 1: wouldn't need physical contact with the recorded surface of a 674 00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,239 Speaker 1: piece of media. So he filed for a patent in 675 00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,080 Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six for what he called the Digital to 676 00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,840 Speaker 1: Optical Recording and Playback System, and he received the patent 677 00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:44,839 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy. Russell used a photo sensitive platter and 678 00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:48,960 Speaker 1: he programmed it by making alternating dark and light bits 679 00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:53,120 Speaker 1: measuring about a micron in size. So to play back 680 00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:56,880 Speaker 1: what was recorded on the platter, he used a laser 681 00:39:57,200 --> 00:40:00,400 Speaker 1: to scan it, and the laser was register during the 682 00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,520 Speaker 1: tiny pits on the platter. Those pits represented the binary 683 00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,960 Speaker 1: patterns on the platter. So these pits were telling the 684 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,040 Speaker 1: system whether it was a zero or one. And you 685 00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:15,279 Speaker 1: had some very nice mirrors to reflect any light that 686 00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,160 Speaker 1: was being picked up, and that was what was indicating 687 00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,759 Speaker 1: whether or not it was a pit. Or just a 688 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:25,040 Speaker 1: regular plateau on the platter. This became sort of the 689 00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:29,040 Speaker 1: basis for the laser disc. Universal and Phillips would license 690 00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,960 Speaker 1: the pattern from Russell, but they departed from Russell's plan. See, 691 00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,080 Speaker 1: Russell wanted to record in pure digital. He wanted to 692 00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,680 Speaker 1: convert everything into binary information. Everything was supposed to be bits. 693 00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,400 Speaker 1: The laser disc went a slightly different way. So the 694 00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,799 Speaker 1: laser disc would record information on a platter on a 695 00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,560 Speaker 1: disc in the form of little pits, just like Russell's vision, 696 00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,840 Speaker 1: but the encoding was analog, not digital, so instead of 697 00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,120 Speaker 1: it being a representation of zeros and ones, the shape 698 00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:03,160 Speaker 1: and the length of the pits indicated the analog information 699 00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:06,960 Speaker 1: that was encoded onto the disc. So you could argue 700 00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:11,160 Speaker 1: the laser disc is mostly an analog format, which it 701 00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,840 Speaker 1: gets really confusing because you're using an optical approach, but 702 00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:19,799 Speaker 1: it is technically, at least in some definitions, and analog medium. Now, 703 00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:23,520 Speaker 1: to get into the real reasons why this is so 704 00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:25,920 Speaker 1: would require a much more in depth look at the 705 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,319 Speaker 1: laser disc, and honestly, I don't have the time to 706 00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,799 Speaker 1: do that in this episode, so I'll save that for 707 00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,000 Speaker 1: a future episode. I'll do a full episode just about 708 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:37,560 Speaker 1: the development of the laser disc in a future episode 709 00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,960 Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, But it was a fundamentally different approach 710 00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:44,160 Speaker 1: to what Russell was working on this. The pits on 711 00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:46,600 Speaker 1: the laser disc look kind of like the ones you 712 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,080 Speaker 1: would see on a c D or a DVD or 713 00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,359 Speaker 1: a Blu ray if you had a microscope to really 714 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,239 Speaker 1: look at them, but they didn't represent digital bits of 715 00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,360 Speaker 1: information in the same way. All right, So back to Russell. 716 00:41:57,680 --> 00:41:59,080 Speaker 1: I want to take a second here to point out 717 00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,799 Speaker 1: that russ really was a genius still is. It's not 718 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,279 Speaker 1: just that he came up with a new method of 719 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,560 Speaker 1: storing data onto a medium. He was also able to 720 00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:12,080 Speaker 1: figure out how to encode audio in binary data so 721 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,520 Speaker 1: that it could be decoded and played back, and it 722 00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:16,719 Speaker 1: took years of hard work and research to pull it 723 00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:22,040 Speaker 1: all off. Digital recording is different from analog, and I've 724 00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,080 Speaker 1: done episodes about this as well, so I'm not going 725 00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,440 Speaker 1: to go into great detail, but I do want to 726 00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,800 Speaker 1: kind of address this for a little bit. With analog, 727 00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,719 Speaker 1: you've got a continuous input signal, right, It's like if 728 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:35,640 Speaker 1: you were to look at a wave, it's just a 729 00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:41,840 Speaker 1: steady wave that is unbroken. Binary is a little bit different. 730 00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:47,279 Speaker 1: With binary, you sample an incoming signal. UH sampling is 731 00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,759 Speaker 1: kind of like taking snapshots of a signal, and the 732 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:54,279 Speaker 1: more samples you take per given unit of time, the 733 00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,359 Speaker 1: greater the resolution of your recording. I'm going to give 734 00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,279 Speaker 1: you a quick analogy this. This is just a sort 735 00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:02,680 Speaker 1: of visualize while I'm talking about. So let's say you're 736 00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:06,759 Speaker 1: standing outside of a room and the door to that 737 00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:09,640 Speaker 1: room is currently closed. It's a very heavy door. You 738 00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:12,880 Speaker 1: can open the door, but shortly after you open it, 739 00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,440 Speaker 1: you have to let go and it'll slam shut. So 740 00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:17,399 Speaker 1: when you open the door, you can hear what's going 741 00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:19,440 Speaker 1: on inside the room, but when the door is closed, 742 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:22,520 Speaker 1: you can't make out what's going on. And because the 743 00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,000 Speaker 1: door will slam shut shortly after you open it, you 744 00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,200 Speaker 1: only get a moment to hear something. So you open 745 00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:30,200 Speaker 1: the door quickly and you hear a lot of people 746 00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,480 Speaker 1: being loud, but you only hear it for that instant 747 00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,920 Speaker 1: before the door shuts and you can't hear anything else. 748 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,759 Speaker 1: And at that moment, you can't really draw any conclusions 749 00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:41,640 Speaker 1: about what you just heard. You just heard people being loud. 750 00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:44,640 Speaker 1: You don't know if they're happy or they're angry, or 751 00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,600 Speaker 1: they're scared, or they're just trying to talk over each other. 752 00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:51,000 Speaker 1: So you open the door again. And the more times 753 00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,480 Speaker 1: you're able to open the door, the better an idea 754 00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,080 Speaker 1: you have of what's going on inside that room. And 755 00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:58,360 Speaker 1: if you're able to open up the door very quickly, 756 00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,080 Speaker 1: like right after it closes, it could be almost like 757 00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,640 Speaker 1: you're hearing what's going on in the room uninterrupted. Of course, 758 00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,879 Speaker 1: from an outside observer, you would look like you were 759 00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,480 Speaker 1: quite eccentric as you kept on opening a door that 760 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:13,839 Speaker 1: kept shutting on you. Digital sampling is a little bit 761 00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:16,400 Speaker 1: like that, though it gets much more technical as you 762 00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,680 Speaker 1: might imagine. But the digital nature of processing the sound 763 00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:23,760 Speaker 1: opened up a new battleground between audio files and people 764 00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:26,279 Speaker 1: just wanted easy access to music. I'll touch on that 765 00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,640 Speaker 1: a bit more in the next episode. The LaserDisc gathered 766 00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,560 Speaker 1: a devoted audience of film lovers, but the expense of 767 00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,080 Speaker 1: the devices and the limited video library meant and didn't 768 00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,840 Speaker 1: get widespread adoption the man, You know, LaserDiscs were pretty 769 00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,560 Speaker 1: darn neat. You typically had to flip them over to 770 00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,239 Speaker 1: watch a whole movie. One side might hold thirty or 771 00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:49,320 Speaker 1: sixty minutes worth of materials, so they had a limited capacity. 772 00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:52,480 Speaker 1: But they also introduced other stuff that would become standard 773 00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:56,760 Speaker 1: in future formats, stuff like extra features which you wouldn't 774 00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:58,759 Speaker 1: get in a typical VHS tape. You know, you buy 775 00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:01,080 Speaker 1: a VHS tape of a movie, you get the movie. 776 00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,160 Speaker 1: You buy a laser disc of the movie, you might 777 00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:06,680 Speaker 1: get some commentary, you might get extra scenes, you might 778 00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:08,760 Speaker 1: get a lot of stuff, and you could jump around 779 00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,120 Speaker 1: and watch different scenes through essentially the random access approach. 780 00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,840 Speaker 1: But you couldn't do that with VHS. You had to 781 00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:18,360 Speaker 1: just watch at whatever point the tape was at. You 782 00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,760 Speaker 1: could fast forward or rewind, but you couldn't just jump 783 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:23,880 Speaker 1: to a chapter or something. You could do that with 784 00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,520 Speaker 1: laser discs. So this was stuff that would carry over 785 00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:30,120 Speaker 1: into the DVD and Blu ray eras and it opened 786 00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,000 Speaker 1: up new opportunities and entertainment. So again we see how 787 00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:37,200 Speaker 1: the evolution of technology would change the actual business of entertainment. 788 00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:42,200 Speaker 1: Phillips initially was ready to say sayannara to the optical 789 00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,600 Speaker 1: storage format after the laser disc failed to win out 790 00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:48,239 Speaker 1: over the cassette based video formats that were already on 791 00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,799 Speaker 1: the market, but eventually the company, along with Sony came 792 00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:55,120 Speaker 1: around to the idea for audio discs, and the compact 793 00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:59,239 Speaker 1: disc was born. Phillips unveiled a prototype of the compact 794 00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,880 Speaker 1: disc in teen seventy nine, but it would be a 795 00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,759 Speaker 1: few years before the format was standardized. For one thing, 796 00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:08,960 Speaker 1: Sony allegedly demanded that a single compact disc would need 797 00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,239 Speaker 1: to be able to hold an entire performance of Beethoven's 798 00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:15,920 Speaker 1: Ninth Symphony. So, if you've ever wondered why a standard 799 00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,560 Speaker 1: c D is four point seven inches or twelve centimeters 800 00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:24,759 Speaker 1: in diameter, allegedly it's because of Beethoven. The duration of 801 00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:29,160 Speaker 1: Beethoven's symphony depends upon the arrangement, but typically the Ninth 802 00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,280 Speaker 1: Symphony tends to last somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy minutes. However, 803 00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,000 Speaker 1: they were looking for the longest version of the symphony 804 00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:38,520 Speaker 1: recorded to make that the standard, and it clocked in 805 00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:42,320 Speaker 1: at around seventy four minutes. And to hold that much audio, 806 00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,640 Speaker 1: the CD would have to be twelve centimeters in diameter, 807 00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,600 Speaker 1: and there we have it. Phillips and Sony established the 808 00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,839 Speaker 1: standards for CDs in nineteen eighty, with Phillips showing off 809 00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:54,600 Speaker 1: the first production model meant for consumers two years later, 810 00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,160 Speaker 1: and according to the BBC, the first two commercial c 811 00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:02,240 Speaker 1: D presses ever were a recording of Strauss's Alpine Symphony 812 00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:07,600 Speaker 1: and the immortal album The Visitors by Abba Super. When 813 00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,160 Speaker 1: the CD got started in the early nineteen eighties, it 814 00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,200 Speaker 1: wouldn't really start to be a threat to the cassette 815 00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,560 Speaker 1: until the nineteen nineties. So in our next episode will 816 00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,200 Speaker 1: continue our look at the c D and its impact 817 00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,839 Speaker 1: on the entertainment industry, including more about the audio file 818 00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,239 Speaker 1: objection I mentioned earlier. Will also look into the birth 819 00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,160 Speaker 1: of DVDs and their successors and lay the ground for 820 00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:32,520 Speaker 1: the digital file era. I hope you guys are enjoying 821 00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,640 Speaker 1: this series. I really like looking at this sort of 822 00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,880 Speaker 1: big picture stuff, this evolution of technology and how that 823 00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:45,640 Speaker 1: changed not just the business, but are very thoughts around entertainment, 824 00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:49,560 Speaker 1: how our attitudes about entertainment have changed as the technology 825 00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:54,800 Speaker 1: has enabled different ways to consume that that entertainment um 826 00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:57,040 Speaker 1: to me. This is what I love most about tech stuff, 827 00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:03,239 Speaker 1: is this relationship between technology industry and our our society. 828 00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:06,399 Speaker 1: So I hope you guys are enjoying this, and if 829 00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:09,040 Speaker 1: you're not, don't worry. Pretty soon we're gonna be off 830 00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,720 Speaker 1: this topic and talking about all sorts of other stuff. 831 00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,320 Speaker 1: If you have your own suggestions of what I should 832 00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:16,840 Speaker 1: be covering next, why not send me an email the 833 00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,319 Speaker 1: addresses tech stuff at how stuff works dot com or 834 00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,000 Speaker 1: pop on over to tech stuff podcast dot com. That's 835 00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:24,960 Speaker 1: our website where you'll find the archive of all of 836 00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,960 Speaker 1: our older episodes, plus you'll find links to our social 837 00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:31,480 Speaker 1: media presence. You can reach out to me on Facebook 838 00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,040 Speaker 1: or on Twitter and I'll be happy to hear your 839 00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:37,399 Speaker 1: suggestions there as well. And also don't forget to head 840 00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:39,640 Speaker 1: on over to our store and if you purchase something 841 00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:40,880 Speaker 1: over there, it goes to help the show and we 842 00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:44,760 Speaker 1: greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again really soon. 843 00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:51,120 Speaker 1: Hex Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How 844 00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,560 Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit 845 00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,680 Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 846 00:48:57,719 --> 00:49:01,240 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. Three