Welcome to MBT - The Museum of Broadcast Technology.

A number of developmental versions of those original machines were made. Eventually, in the fall of 1956, developmental machines were delivered to the television networks in the the United States starting with CBS. Often they were called VRX models with the X likely standing for experimental.

It wasn't until 1957 that Videotape Recorders began rolling of the newly constructed assembly line. The machine was now officially crowned the VR-1000 and thus the VR-1000 became the world's first video recording machine using this new medium called Videotape!

In the Museum we are fortunate to have a slightly updated version of the original machine, an Ampex VR-1000B. Back in 2014 we decided to tackle to task of restoring our VR-1000B to working condition in time for the 60th anniversary of the introduction of video recording in 2016.
Around the end of February we achieved our goal with our VR-1000B making pretty reasonable pictures, in color no less!

Many folks suggested that we should truck our newly-operational VR-1000B to the 2016 NAB Convention in Las Vegas. In the end, the time proved to be too short to raise the rather long amount of money needed to accomplish the task. So we made a video about the machine that first made it possible to make a video - and we ran that at the 2016 NAB Convention. You can find the video along with an opportunity to support our effort to preserve and restore the the equipment that made the broadcasting industry possible. Just click the link to the right.

Click the machine
to watch the video.