By: Lauren Carter

 The first machine patented in the United States that showed animated pictures or movies was a device called the "wheel of life" or "zoopraxiscope". Patented in 1867 by William Lincoln, moving drawings or photographs were watched through a slit in the zoopraxiscope.

 In 1891, the Edison company successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures.

 The Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited as inventing the first motion picture camera in 1895.

 in 1896, Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first commercially, successful, projector in the U.S.

 The first video cameras were produced in 1920.

 The very first video format. Never widely adopted - it was for practical purposes, an experimental format that used a record and a stylus to record and play back video.

 In 1951, the first video tape recorder captured live images from television cameras by converting the information into electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic tape.

 Introduced in 1956, 2" quadruplex was the first commercially viable professional broadcast video format to secure it's position in Video History. Instead of evolving into a broadcast format, Quadruplex was conceived and designed from the very start as being a professional broadcast format.

 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.

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

 Video tape in a large cassette format introduced by both JVC and Panasonic around 1976.

 Home color TV cameras are introduced.

 Videodisc players are first marketed.

 The 1 st portable recorder and camera combinations (Camcorders) are introduced.