The History Of Video Tape Development By The Man Who Did It!

Above is Melvin Sater’s 18 page account of those early days of developing the first commercially available line of video tape. Most of this amazing read has to do with the 1956 and ’57 period, but takes us into the mid ’60s and color tape.

Those first rolls used for the April ’56 NAB demonstration could only give 15 to 25 playbacks, but in order to switch from kinescopes to videotape that next summer, the networks needed something that would give them at least 65 to 100 playbacks.

The photo of the piece of tape from the April 12, 1957 CBS tests we saw yesterday is explained here and they were elated that they were able to get up to 390 replays before the tape broke down, but there were more hurdles to overcome. The 3M plant was working literally around the clock to produce enough tape for the summer of ’57 introduction, but 97% of the initial runs had to be scrapped and the manufacturing process modified.

By the way…they were flying blind on this! Ampex had not been able to get them a VTR to use in testing, so this was all theory and trial and error. History buffs will want to save this link and share it with their friends as this is the only place to find this on the web. Our thanks again to Neil Gjere for sharing this. Up next is Neil’s backstory of how he met Mel Sater’s son and was able to gather all this rare history, the iconic relics and rare photos. Enjoy and Share! -Bobby Ellerbee

Below is a photo of Mel Sater and Johnathan Winters. The EMMY was presented to Sater for his work in videotape development. The first use of videotape in a network show was a three minute black and white insert into ‘The Johnathan Winters Show’ by NBC in 1957. The prerecorded song by Dorothy Collins was inserted without fanfare to see if the viewing audience would notice it. They didn’t.

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