1952-1958 – the British video tape recorder that never made the grade

Called VERA (Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus), this video tape machine was developed by the BBC. For many years it was believed VERA was the first video tape recorder, a myth that emerged as a result of the BBC having invested heavily in the project, and promoting it well beyond its ‘sell-by’ date. By 1954 VERA was widely understood to be technically flawed, and commercially unviable, yet the BBC could not seem to face facts, demonstrating the machine in on air test in an edition of Panorama in 1958. Panorama did not mention that the vastly superior Ampex machine from America, commercially available from 1956, was used on air by ITV as early as May, 1957.