alternatehistory.com

The first video tape recorders, these being Qudruplex machines, first appeared in 1956, in the same country that previously pioneered colour TV.
Yet the Qudruplex tape format, and all subsequent VTR formats, until the 1980s, were all composite video. Now, composite video was introduced as a way to broacast colour while mantaining compadilbility with black and white TV, and reducing bandwidth in comparison to RGB colour.
I don't understand why pre-1980 colour videotape formats were composite video, given that these formats would have been designed with colour in mind right from the start. Why couldn't TV stations just work with component video and then mix down to composite for broadcasting?
Component video actually offers more editing accuracy than composite, for complex techical reasons.

Let's suppose that all (professional) colour video formats were component video right from the start.
Top