VTRs, NASA, and Digital Camera Technology

Today's technology seems to change as fast as a camera's shutter. However, where did digital camera technology originate from? By learning where the science of digital cameras comes from, we can better appreciate where our cameras can take us.

When a VCR was a VTR.

At first, our digital cameras may seem to have nothing in common with VCRs. However, the two technologies are linked, and the former's technology progressed from the latter's technology.

The first video tape recorder (VTR) altered live images that television cameras captured, into digital or electrical impulses. Magnetic tape was then to store that data. This technology emerged in 1951.

One of the first multi-media stars, Bing Crosby, financially supported Bing Crosby laboratories, which had constructed the first VTR. By the year 1956, television companies were frequently using a superior VTR.

What did those early VTRs and the digital camera technology of today have in common? Both use something called a Charged Coupled Device, or CCD. This mechanism is used to detect the intensity and color of light.

Digital Imaging Makes A World Of Difference

Then in the 1960s, NASA indirectly helped digital camera technology to evolve even further. The American agency began using digital signals, rather than analog signals, to transmit digital images of the moon's surface, back to Earth.

After the probes sent these images, NASA then used state-of-the-art computers on Earth, to improve the images. Another governmental usage of digital imaging involved the U.S.'s spy satellites.

(Digital) Kodak Moments

Nevertheless, governments alone did not indirectly improve digital camera technology, by advancing digital imaging. For example, in 1979, Texas Instruments invented and patented the first electronic camera that required no film. Then Sony introduced the first commercial electronic camera, onto the market.

A mini disc was used to record images. Afterwards, the images were piped into a video recorder that was linked to a TV monitor. This camera was technically a video camera that captured video freeze-frames. However, it helped to launch the digital camera fad.

Beginning in the middle 1970s, Kodak created numerous solid-state image sensors that transformed light to digital images. These machines were also instrumental in the development of digital camera technology.

They created the first megapixel sensor in 1986. This could create a 5x7-inch digital print with 1.4 million pixels, whose quality was equivalent to standard photographs'. Then Kodak sold the first professional digital camera, in 1991. Kodak continued as a pioneer of digital camera technology, when it introduced its first digital camera for the consumer market, in 1991.

Interestingly, digital camera technology was born decades before the first digital camera rolled off the assembly line. However, each image that a digital camera captures today, still pays tribute to that tradition of innovation.