History
Prior to the advent of home video as a popular medium in the late 1970s, most feature films were inaccessible after their theatrical runs for the general public. They were only viewable in theatrical re-releases, revival houses and television broadcasts. Super8 versions (often heavily edited) of some of the more popular theatrical features were sold at high prices since the late 1960s (see section Packaged movies at Super 8 mm film).
The first company to duplicate and distribute home video was Magnetic Video, established as an audio and video duplication service for professional audio and television corporations in Farmington Hills, Michigan, USA, in 1968. Although Avco's 1972 Cartrivision system preceded Magnetic Vision's expansion into home video by a few years, it took until the late 1970s that VHS and Betamax became widely available for home use. Major United States players in the video rental business today include Netflix.
Read more about this topic: Home Video
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)