In this paper, we describe the first data release of the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) survey. VIDEO is a similar to 12 deg(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 (AGNs) 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 Ks = 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 \textless z \textless 1 from 5.8 to 3.1 per cent in the absence of an i-band luminosity prior. However, we expect that the main improvement in photometric redshifts will come in the redshift range 1 \textless z \textless 4 due to the sensitivity to the Balmer and 4000 angstrom breaks provided by the near-infrared VISTA filters. All images and catalogues presented in this paper are publicly available through ESO's phase 3 archive and the VISTA Science Archive.