Video was founded in 1977 by Reese Communications publisher Jay Rosenfield with a small team including editors Rena Adler and Deeny Kaplan, marketing director Thomas Koger, circulation director Max H. Wolff, and contributors including Kenneth Lorber, Dee Shannon, Wayne Hyde, and Ivan Berger and Lancelot Braithwaite.

In March 1995, Video was acquired from Reese by Hachette Filipacchi, and in 1999 it was merged with their Stereo Review magazine to become Sound & Vision.

[1] Appealing the decision before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in early 1980, Reese asserted that the lower court had abused its discretion in finding the trademark to be generic, that it had failed to provide Reese an adequate opportunity to present all evidence, that state claims were not adjudicated, and that other bases for enjoining Hampton's use of the mark had been ignored.

The three-judge panel considered the mark's position relative to the spectrum of distinctiveness recently expounded in the 1976 decision of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Hunting World, Inc., and noted particularly the similarities between Reese's claims and those of CES (who in 1975 had sought unsuccessfully to protect their trademark for the term "Consumer Electronics") in CES Publishing Corp. v. St. Regis Publications, Inc.

Features were run irregularly to semi-regularly with "New Products", "Reader Feedback", and the "VideoTest Report" series (with tests conducted by technical editors Ivan Berger and Lancelot Braithwaite) proving to be the most regular.

In 1980, Video became a monthly publication and the new editor-in-chief, Bruce Apar, oversaw a number of format and layout changes with semi-regular features like "New Products" and "Reader Feedback" becoming departments, "VideoTest Report" becoming its own division, and with the creation of a half-dozen regular columns including "Channel One" written by Apar, "Video Programmer" written by Ken Winslow, "TV Den" by Bill Smolen, "VideoGram" by Susan March, "Fine Tuning" by Susan Prentiss and Roderick Woodcock, and "Arcade Alley" by Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz.

It was created by Bill Kunkel, Arnie Katz, and Joyce Worley, three New York-based friends with a common background in comics, professional wrestling, freelance journalism, and fanzine culture.

Katz additionally wrote for and served as associate editor for the trade journal, Chain Store Age,[3] so for contractual reasons[16] and to avoid tarnishing his name as a serious tech journalist, writing credits for Arcade Alley were given to Kunkel and Katz under the pseudonym Frank T. Laney II.

[3] The depth of coverage given to the few titles available was notable for its time, and aspects interesting to the reader such as "easter eggs"—a term for hidden messages and inside jokes left by game programmers—were emphasized.

[19] Bruce Apar became editor-in-chief in 1980 and "Arcade Alley" grew from a quarterly to a monthly column in parallel with the expansion of Video's publishing frequency.

[10] Despite this outlet, however, the three founders of Arcade Alley continued working for Video, jointly hosting the Arkie Awards between the two Reese publications.