Electronic Video Recording (EVR) (1969 – 1975)

Star Soccer Notts County v Walsall, monochrome 50 Hz

Electronic Video Recording (EVR) was developed by CBS, and released commercially in 1969. Whilst called video it actually used a filmstrip which was read by a flying-spot scanner to create an electronic signal to send to a standard television set. Whilst the name gave the impression that it was able to record, this was not the case and it was a playback system only.

The film was placed in the machine and was automatically threaded when the play button was pressed by moving the upper and lower halves of the reel apart slightly, allowing the leader to pop out and get picked up by the loading mechanism.

There were no sprocket holes on the film, and magnetic strips on the edges provided audio. Both monochrome and colour film titles were available; monochrome film had two sets of images that the user could switch between and offered a total of 50 minutes of playback in NTSC format (60 for PAL format) across the two programmes. Colour film on the other hand only offered 25 minutes of NTSC format playback per reel (30 for PAL format) as one set of frames provided the luminance signal as a normal monochrome image, while the other provided the chrominance signal in a series of encoded stripes.

Spools for the system were plastic, 7-inches in diameter, and held 750 feet of 8.75 mm wide film.

CBS announced their withdrawal from the project in late 1971, but EVR continued until around 1975 supported by a consortium of Japanese companies.

CBS didn’t manufacture players, and these were initially sold by Motorola. Among the features offered were the ability to freeze-frame and to advance frames manually. Motorola ceased production of EVR players in 1972, and later players were produced by companies such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi.

The system was expensive, and was a commercial failure.

The Last Assault (cassette 1 of 3), colour 50 Hz

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