Brief History of Video

Trace the key technical milestones that shaped modern video formats, distribution, and streaming infrastructure.

Brief History of Video

Brief history of video technicals

1. 1920s–30s

   Mechanical and then electronic television systems emerge.

2. 1950s

   Widespread broadcast TV; analog signals dominate.
3. 1970s–80s

   VHS and Betacam introduce portable recording; digital experimentation begins.

4. 1990s

   Digital video (DV) and MPEG compression make video storage and transmission viable.

5. 2000s

   Broadband + codecs like H.264 transform online streaming; YouTube launches (2005).

6. 2010s

   Adaptive bitrate streaming (HLS/DASH) becomes standard; GPUs accelerate encoding.

7. Late 2010s

   Live streaming explodes (Twitch, Instagram Live); mobile video becomes the majority of internet traffic.

8. 2020s

   AI enters the pipeline - upscaling, captioning, generative video, real-time inference; decentralised GPU networks like Livepeer make video compute cheaper and globally accessible.