History of Record

By Shapla Arjan

What is record?

• Record is the procedure of capturing data or converting information onto some kind of storage.

- CD’s, books, internet etc are all types of record as data can be ‘recorded’ on to them.

Earliest forms of record

• One of the earliest forms of record ever were cave paintings. Scientists state that cave drawings discovered in caves in South West France are some of the oldest ever found.

Types of Record

• There are four forms of recording today; print, web-based, audio and film.

History of printing

• The history of printing started around 3000 BC with the duplication of images. Round ‘cylinder seals’ are used for rolling impresses onto clay tablets which dates back to the Mesopotamian civilization before 3000 BC.

• In China and Egypt, they began block printing with small stamps to use as seals.

• Print block were made of wood, metals such as tin, lead, cats iron as well as stone, glass and clay.

• Soon Europeans adapted to wooden block printing from the Arabs initially for fabrics.

• Print was one of the early forms of record.

En.wikipedia.org

History of audio

Inventors.about.com

• The first great invention developed by Thomas Edison was the tinfoil phonograph. Whilst working to improve the efficiency of the telegraph transmitter, he noted that the tape of the machine gave off a noise resembling spoken words when played at a high speed. This lead him to wonder whether he could record telephone messages. With this thought, he experimented with the diaphragm of the telephone receiver by attaching a needle to it. His experiments led him to try a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder which played back the short message he recorded ‘Mary had a little lamb’. On August 12th 1877 Edison completed his model of the first phonograph.

• On November 1887, Emile Berliner invented the Gramophone. He was the first to stop recording on cylinders and start on flat disks and records.

• The first records were made of glass, later zinc, and eventually plastic. A spiral groove with sound information was etched into the flat record. The record was rotated on the gramophone. The "arm" of the gramophone held a needle that read the grooves in the record by vibration and transmitting the information to the gramophone speaker.

• Valdemar Poulsen’s recorder used magnetized steel piano wire as the recording medium.

• Semi Joseph Begun developed the Stahltone-Bandmaschine steel tape recorder in 1935 for mobile radio broadcasting and manufactured the Dailygraph.

• The Philips Company of the Netherlands invented and released the first compact audio-cassette in 1962. They used high-quality polyester 1/8-inch tape produced by BASF. Recording and playback was at a speed of 1.7/8 inches per second.

History of filming

• Before the 1930’s most films that came out were silent and black and white. However during the 30’s it was the decade of sound and colour revolution. Development of colour was defiantly up and improved. Almost all inventors were searching for ways to add colour to their film and media. Videotape recorder was the tool to success. In the 1920’s, an American engineer named Philip Fransworth invented a television camera to convert electrical signal and view it on screen.

Today

• Technology has developed rapidly overtime which has broadened the variety and scope of record media. Today you are capable of recording via digital technology or through the internet. Many TV programmes are no longer available through television sets but as on-demand, downloadable media files on the internet. The development of personal recording systems such as video, CD and DVD added a whole new dimension to the process of recording as a film director can now show their feature film in cinema trailers etc.