Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus (VERA) was an early
analog recording videotape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually Sound recording and reproduction, sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog signal, analog or Digital signal (signal processing), digital signal. V ...
format developed from 1952 by the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
under project manager Dr
Peter Axon.
History
In order to record high frequencies, a tape must move rapidly with respect to the recording or playback head. The frequencies used by video signals are so high that the tape/head speed is on the order of several meters per second (tens of feet per second), an order of magnitude faster than professional analog audio tape recording. The BBC solved the problem by using reels of magnetic tape that passed static heads at a speed of .
VERA was capable of recording about 15 minutes (e.g. 4,572 meters) of
405-line black-and-white video per reel, and the picture tended to wobble because of some jitter (uneven speed) of the tape transport. Later video recorders used a time base corrector to remove this jitter and make synchronization with the studio house possible.
In order to cope with 625-line
PAL or
SECAM colour transmissions VERA would likely have required an even faster, and possibly unfeasible, tape speed.
Development began in 1952, but VERA was not perfected until 1958. It was given a live demonstration on-air on ''
Panorama'' on 14 April 1958; Richard Dimbleby, seated by a clock, talked for a couple of minutes about the new method of vision recording with instant playback, and then the tape was wound back and replayed. The picture was slightly watery, but reasonably watchable,
[Description from seeing the original transmission. Part of it can be seen o]
YouTube
and instant playback was something completely new.
However, by this time it had already been rendered obsolete by the
Ampex
Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name ''AMPEX'' is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excell ...
quadruplex video recording system. This used wide tapes running at a speed of per second. The rapid tape-to-head speed of quadruplex videotape was achieved by spinning the ''heads'' rapidly on a drum: the system used, with variations, on all videotape systems ever since, as well as
DAT.
The BBC scrapped VERA and quickly adopted the Ampex system. It has been suggested that the BBC only continued to develop VERA as a bargaining tool, so it would be offered some of the first Ampex machines produced in unstated exchange for abandoning further work on a potential rival, but the colossal disadvantages of VERA and its status as a technological dead-end make this seem highly unlikely.
See also
*
Helical scan
Notes
External links
BBC: The rise and rise of the videoyoutube.com VERA - Early Video Tape Recorder - Peter Axon interview 1958
* ttp://www.birth-of-tv.org/birth/assetView.do?asset=BIRTHOFTELEV19001___1102013442156 birth-of-tv.org VERA 1958: Vision Electronic Recording Apparatusbr>Introduction to the video recorder
National Science and Media Museum blog
youtube.com VERAThe History of Television, 1942 to 2000, By Albert Abramson, Christopher H. Sterling, page 83youtube.com, Richard Dimbleby demonstrates the new BBC Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus in an edition of Panorama in April 1958.Basic Radio & Television, 2/E, By Sharma, page 447
{{Video storage formats
Audiovisual introductions in 1952
Videotape
History of television in the United Kingdom