The VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) Survey
  In this paper we describe the first data release of the the Visible and
Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) Deep Extragalactic Observations
(VIDEO) survey. VIDEO is a ~12degree^2 survey in the near-infrared Z,Y,J,H and
K_s bands, specifically designed to enable the evolution of galaxies and large
structures to be traced as a function of both epoch and environment from the
present day out to z=4, and active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the most massive
galaxies up to and into the epoch of reionization. With its depth and area,
VIDEO will be able to fully explore the period in the Universe where AGN and
starburst activity were at their peak and the first galaxy clusters were
beginning to virialize. VIDEO therefore offers a unique data set with which to
investigate the interplay between AGN, starbursts and environment, and the role
of feedback at a time when it was potentially most crucial.
  We provide data over the VIDEO-XMM3 tile, which also covers the
Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope Legacy Survey Deep-1 field (CFHTLS-D1). The
released VIDEO data reach a 5-sigma AB-magnitude depth of Z=25.7, Y=24.5,
J=24.4, H=24.1 and K_s=23.8 in 2 arcsec diameter apertures (the full depth of
Y=24.6 will be reached within the full integration time in future releases).
The data are compared to previous surveys over this field and we find good
astrometric agreement with the Two-Micron All Sky Survey, and source counts in
agreement with the recently released UltraVISTA survey data. The addition of
the VIDEO data to the CFHTLS-D1 optical data increases the accuracy of
photometric redshifts and significantly reduces the fraction of catastrophic
outliers over the redshift range 0<z<1 from 5.8 to 3.1 per cent in the absence
of an i-band luminosity prior. (Truncated Abstract)
