A videotape is used to record images and sounds onto a magnetic tape. Generally, a helical scan video head rotates against the moving take to record data in two dimensions. The world’s first demonstration of a videotape recording occurred in Los Angeles on November 11, 1951 due to John T. Mullin and Wayne R. Johnson’s Ampex 200 tape recorder. Of course, this recording was done in black and white.

It was on this day, September 5, 1958, that color video recording was successful on magnetic tape for the first time. The design was introduced by Apex and RCA whose engineers had developed it from the Ampex black and white recorded model. “An Evening with Fred Astaire” is now the oldest surviving television network color videotape.

Since its invention, technology has soared. The market now consists of tapeless camcorders that use a built-in like hard disk drive with much larger memory space. Although videotape was still used in professional settings, such as for broadcast television, until the late 2000s, it has almost become fully obsolete.