Plumbicon camera tube - delivered decent colour video cameras
Philips Minicam - first practical colour handheld that used lightweight triax cable and would also work over an analogue RF link.
CCD - revolutionised cameras previously limited by tubes.
COFDM RF wireless cameras - finally made the cordless RF camera properly practical (and in HD)
Avid - 'nuff said
Betacam SP - UMatic started the ENG revolution, but Beta SP really delivered it properly and in decent quality for its time.
DV - see above but digital, in 16:9 and editable on laptops with no expensive video capture hardware, just Firewire I/O.
HD Cam - properly made HD production practical in the tape-based era. Still a workhorse and a very long lasting tape format (it's roughly the same age as DigiBeta and only a couple of years younger than D3...)
DVB-S - from SNG uplinks to Sky Digital - saved us from a nightmare of multiple standards.
Sure if I sit down for long enough I'll think of more...
(And very nice to see Quantel make a number of entries. One of the few remaining UK broadcast equipment companies still pushing development of new technologies - though sadly a slight shadow of their 80s/90s self)
Surprised not to see anything sound related on that list. Radio mics and talkback should be there, I think.
Increasingly for news the iPhone is becoming more important. An unobtrusive, common device that can get 'good enough for news ' footage in places where conventional kit would leave the journo and crew exposed to danger (e.g. riots) or where it is simply not possiblyto get conventional kit quickly (e.g. village cut of by floods) plus the 'citizen journalism' uses.
Lapel mics maybe, but radio mics havent really done anything that lead mics couldn't do. They just make the job a bit easier and neater looking.
Not sure I agree there. Radio Mics have, in the same way as radio cameras, made certain stuff possible that would be impossible with a cabled mic unless you were pre-recording with a separate sound recorder (and in some cases even this wouldn't have been an option).
Whether it be a piece to camera at distance (say where the camera is one side of the road and the presenter is on the other, or a presenter is on the top of a high building and the camera isn't), or a piece to camera whilst mobile (can you imagine some of the stuff that we take for granted on shows like Airport Live being done cabled). Sure you can boom or fishpole some stuff - but there are lots of cases where radio mics solve problems that were otherwise very tricky.
Surprised not to see anything sound related on that list. Radio mics and talkback should be there, I think.
Lapel mics maybe, but radio mics havent really done anything that lead mics couldn't do. They just make the job a bit easier and neater looking.
Radio mics are more expensive, more complicated and less reliable than cabled mics. They certainly have their uses, but they'll never replace cabled mics completely.
If by talkback, you're referring to radio talkback, then that's basically the same invention as radio mics - several systems use exactly the same components as a radio mic system. Talkback itself, as in communications, has been around since day one of television - it'd be impossible without it.
Surprised not to see anything sound related on that list. Radio mics and talkback should be there, I think.
Lapel mics maybe, but radio mics havent really done anything that lead mics couldn't do. They just make the job a bit easier and neater looking.
Radio mics are more expensive, more complicated and less reliable than cabled mics. They certainly have their uses, but they'll never replace cabled mics completely.
Just like cabled cameras.
However just as cordless cameras have revolutionised some areas of production, so has the radio mic.
Can you imagine modern entertainment shows like Eurovision with cabled mics as they had in years gone by?
Think the Technocrane, Jimmy Jib and Steadicam all have their place in that list as well. All have had a huge impact on entertainment programmes.