The History Of Digital Video

Digital video is the natural progression of video recording technology that followed the analog treatment of the video system. Mostly, digital video's history is directly related to the digital camera. Interestingly, this technology is part and parcel of the innovations that made television possible.
Here is a brief history of digital video:

• 1951 was a crucial year for video. Video tape recorders were produced that could take in electric impulses and then transfer these impulses on what was referred to as magnetic tape.
  

• 1956 saw the finalization of this product and the use for television purposes. As the popularity of television grew, so did the popularity of video devices, and soon savvy movie directors were looking for the latest innovations that would help to make their films look better, brighter, and more professional than the competition. This was also the heyday of Hollywood and its divas, and it is not surprising that the high demands of the directors were met by back-room hobbyists and scientists alike who tweaked the new technology every which way to satisfy the needs.
  

• The 1960s saw the most popular decade of NASA, and as is so often the case with space technology, it also produced something useful for civilian life: digital imaging!
  

• It only took until 1972 for Texas instruments to produce its first - rather bulky - no film camera that operated on the digital principle. Obviously, this was not something for the average Joe.
  

• 1981 was the year when Sony first introduced its offering to the masses, and they loved it! It operated on the idea that a video camera that would be able to take individual frames of an event, rather than simply just photos. From then on, new innovations were to be had almost every year or two, and it is not surprising that for such a long time the technology was outdated almost the moment you picked it off the store shelf. Every year brought a newer, better, and also smaller product to the market that eager consumers were only too happy to purchase.

As you can easily see, the history of digital video is directly tied to the demand of those who were most intimately involved in filmmaking - namely directors. For the longest time, they were driving the manufacturers to come up with better and easier ways of handling film, and since they had the Hollywood cash registers behind them, money was rarely an object. These days, the industry is consumer driven, since everyone likes the perks of owning video cameras and video recorders, yet only very few want to have something that is overly expensive or bulky.

It is hard to tell who will continue to write the history of digital video. While it may appear to consumers at this juncture that there is precious little that can be done to improve upon this popular technology, it does stand to reason that the next generation of digital video devices is only a season away from the store shelves.