1920-1992

Engineer who developed the first practical videotape recorder. Ginsburg was born in San Francisco, California, and graduated from San Jose State in 1948. He worked as a studio and transmitter engineer at a San Francisco radio station before joining the Ampex Corporation in 1952. Ginsburg developed a new method for recording a television signal by using a rapidly rotating recording head to apply high-frequency signals to magnetic tape. Ginsburg led Ampex in the development of a special machine that ran the tape at a lower speed, working in conjunction with the high-speed recording heads. His videotape recorder (VTR) changed the face of television. Networks soon replaced live broadcasts with taped and edited shows.