Early Cameras

• The first television camera employed early versions of the cathode ray tube invented in 1897. The RCA Company led production of early video production equipment in the United States and invented the first handheld mobile video production camera, the TK-44, in 1972.
  
  

First Video Recorder

• The Ampex Corporation used magnetic tape technology pioneered by German scientists during World War II to create the first video tape recorder, the Ampex VRX-1000, introduced in 1956.
  
  

Advent of Home Video

• The first commercially available video cassette recorder was the Sony Betamax, introduced in 1975.
  
  

First Digital Video Recorder

• Earliest commercially available professional digital video recorders were introduced by Sony using the D-1 format, which recorded uncompressed standard definition video using a component video.
  
  

First Digital Camera

• The first DV camcorder was the Sony DCR-VX1000, introduced in 1995. The camera featured a 3-CCD imaging device for unprecedented video quality in a home video camera.