U-matic
Sign in to saveAlso known as Type E Helical Scan
-inch Type E Helical Scan or SMPTE E is an analog recording videocassette format marketed by Sony Electronics Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic) and Victor Co. of Japan (JVC). It was initially developed by Sony and shown as a prototype in October 1969, refined and standardized among the three manufacturers in March 1970, and introduced commercially in September 1971 by Sony. The format was branded U-matic by Sony, U-Vision by Panasonic and U-VCR by JVC, referring to the U-shaped tape path as it threads around the video drum.
Key facts
- Media.name
- U-matic
- Media.logo
- U-matic logo.svgclass=skin-invert
- Media.image
- U-matic.jpg
- Media.caption
- Sony U-matic cassette
- Media.type
- Magnetic cassette tape, ¾-inch
- Media.encoding
- NTSC, PAL, SECAM
- Media.released
- September 1971
- Media.discontinued
- June 2000Technical support: 2016
- Media.read
- Helical scan drum
- Media.write
- Helical scan drum
- Media.owner
- Sony
- Media.use
- Video production
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- broadcast television system
- Owned by
- Sony Group
- Image
- U-matic.jpg
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- U-Matic
- inception
- 1969-00-00
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~17 min read
Encyclopedic overview
13 sectionsContents
- Development
- U-matic Hi-band
- U-matic Hi-Band SP
- Introduction
- Cassettes
- Models
- Problems
- Uses
- Digital audio
- Decline of use
- References
- Further reading
- External links
-inch Type E Helical Scan or SMPTE E is an analog recording videocassette format marketed by Sony Electronics Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic) and Victor Co. of Japan (JVC). It was initially developed by Sony and shown as a prototype in October 1969, refined and standardized among the three manufacturers in March 1970, and introduced commercially in September 1971 by Sony. The format was branded U-matic by Sony, U-Vision by Panasonic and U-VCR by JVC, referring to the U-shaped tape path as it threads around the video drum.
The format was among the earliest video formats to house videotape inside a cassette, replacing the reel-to-reel systems common at the time. The format uses tape, earning it the nickname "three-quarter-inch" or simply "three-quarter," in contrast to larger open-reel formats like Type C videotape and quadruplex videotape.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “U-matic” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.