[1] It was developed and released for the broadcast television industry in 1956 by Ampex, an American company based in Redwood City, California.

(For NTSC systems, the math suggests 15 transverse head passes, each consisting of 16 lines of video, are required to complete one field.)

[10][11] Ampex, seeing the impracticality of prototype video tape recorders from Bing Crosby Enterprises (BCE) and RCA, started to develop a more practical videotape format with tape economy in mind, as well as providing a solution to the networks' West Coast delay woes.

After William Lodge of CBS finished his speech, the Mark IV replayed his image and words almost immediately, causing "pandemonium" among the astonished attendees.

[10] The earlier Mark III was given some cosmetic improvements, and was also demonstrated at Ampex headquarters in Redwood City the same day.

[citation needed] CBS was the first television network to use 2-inch quad videotape, using it for a West Coast delay of Douglas Edwards and the News on November 30, 1956.

[26] The CBS show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts on December 24, 1956, became the first entertainment program to be broadcast live to the nation from New York and taped for a time-delayed rebroadcast in the Pacific Time Zone.

[27][28] On January 22, 1957, the NBC game show Truth or Consequences, produced in Hollywood, became the first program to be broadcast in all time zones from a prerecorded videotape.

Despite this, these machines allowed for OB video engineers to provide instant replays and generate opening sequences over which captions could be added.

From VR-1200/2000 onward, improvements in head manufacturing/refurbishing tolerances, timebase correction, and greater thermal stability of solid-state electronics made tape changes possible in under a minute and needed servo calibrations only once per shift.

[99] The few quadruplex VTRs which remain in service are used for the transfer and/or restoration of archival 2-inch quad videotape material to newer data storage formats, although mainstream TV serials from the 1950s to late 1960s have mostly already been remastered onto more modern media some years ago, even digitized within the last decade.

This allows for higher signal to noise ratios and the possibility of reducing linear or longitudinal tape speeds.