Present day video tape uses high speed mechanical scanning, with rapid wear of tape and heads. Electron beam scanning is proposed to eliminate mechanical problems and to allow the use of low cost tape. Development work has been conducted on a recording tube using a high density sheet beam to energize a simplified 500 element magnetic head. For playback a tube was built with a line of fine high-permeability wires sealed into the envelope in the beam path. Early television systems depended on mechanical scanners such as the Nipkow disc to convert a picture into a video signal and vice versa. Electronic scanning became perfected before television was commercialized. Whether mechanical scanning could have had a similar measure of success in the absence of cathode ray tubes, is a subject for interesting debate. One can point out that where electronic means were not available, mechanical devices as for example piston driven automobiles have become popular; even though at the outset one might have argued that they were too complicated, noisy and clumsy, and therefore would have to wait for jet or ion propulsion. In the late 1940's, when the problem of recording video came up, one should have looked at the history of television itself and noted that mechanical scanning tried for a half-century but television didn't become practical until electronic methods were developed. Therefore experience as well as common sense indicated that at this advanced state of technology a modern approach to recording should be electronic. As proved by later events, experience and common sense are not always accurate. Ten years afterward video recording was in extensive use, but the method was high speed mechanical scanning. In spite of its success, everyone in the industry has felt that there ought to be a more refined way. In the long run, mechanical scanning may yet give way to the "common sense" approach.