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Digital Video Technology First Adopted By Television
By Trevor | July 2, 2007
It is hard to believe that modern video technology has only been with us for the past 50 years. So much has changed during that time culminating in current digital video technology that is taken for granted by many.
The first video tape recorder was developed by John Mullin a research engineer who worked for Bing Crosby Productions back in 1951.
Bing Crosby helped to fund the research that created the first recorder, this converted the images from the television cameras into a digital signal and saved them to magnetic tape. The road to the development of digital video technology had begun.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration switched from analog to digital video technology when they were mapping the moon’s surface in the 1960s.
The digital video images sent back to earth were fed into new computer technology, which was just being developed at that time, to enhance the photos for better visual rendering of the photos.
While the United States government was using digital video technology in its spy satellites in the 1960s, the private sector was also pushing advances of the new technology.
The company Texas Instruments patented the first filmless electronic camera in 1972. Sony quickly followed in 1981 with the Mavica. Pictures were viewed by connecting it to a television or printed by being connected to a printer.
In 1986 the big yellow, Kodak sent out news of a 1.4 mega pixel converter which was suitable for both commercial and home use. They wasted no time because within a year later they had seven cameras on the market using electronic still images.
Today’s digital video technology is a direct offshoot of Bing Crosby’s desire to save what the television cameras saw back in the 1950’s.
Thanks to the research he funded storage devices became smaller as computer applications advanced, making digital video technology as versatile and in demand as single-shot digital cameras.
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