Production Glossary


Sony

Sony, founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, manufactures electronics for both the professional and consumer syndicates. The company’s primary business operations are Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Ericsson, Sony Corporation (aka Sony Electronics in the US), Sony Financial, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Sony Music Entertainment.

History

Morita and Ibuka chose the name Sony because of it’s Latin derivation meaning “sound”. It also reminded them of the slang term “sonny boys”, which means an intelligent young man.
Not long after forming the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation with Akio Morita, Masaru Ibuka persuaded the inventor of the transistor, Bell Labs, to license the technology to their company. In 1955, the partners successfully produced and sold the Sony TR-55, a transistor radio manufactured for commercial use. For the next ten years, Sony continued to roll out new and improved versions of the transistor radio.

Timeline

The following is a list of Sony development throughout the years, highlighting some of the more important or popular products.

  • Umatic (1968)
  • Betamax (1975)- Sony’s video cassette format that lost out to JVC’s VHS in the videotape format war.
  • Betacam (1981)- A professional component video format gleaned from Betamax. Still in use today in the television industry.
  • Compact Disc (1982)- Introduced, in conjunction with Philips, in Sony’s home computer system.
  • 3.5 inch Floppy Disk (1982)
  • Video 8 (1985)
  • DAT (1987)
  • Hi8 (1988)
  • MiniDisc (1990)
  • Digital Betacam (1990)
  • miniDV (1992)
  • PlayStation (1994)- Created to challenge other consoles, PlayStation was followed by two upgrades (PlayStation 2 and 3), with the second version becoming the most successful console of all time.
  • DVD (1995)
  • DVCAM (1996)
  • VAIO (1996)
  • Memory Stick (1998)
  • Digital 8 (1999)
  • Universal Media Disc (2003)
  • HDV (2004)
  • Blu-ray (2006)- Taking HD to a new level, Sony introduced the Blu-ray player and disc format. It now has the support of all but three of the largest movie studios.

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