This is the JVC GR-DVL9000 camcorder. It records standard definition video on MiniDV cassettes. Its CCD sensor has global shutter, just like on a film camera, and it can capture a whole frame at once, just like a film camera. There is no combing and no interline twitter, characteristic to…

What do you call this? I can help you with some choices: tape cartridge tape cassette cassette tape compact cassette audio cassette tape cassette One of these names is an official trademark, and another one is just plain wrong, but which one is which? …

This is a combo VCR-DVD player from Sony, SLV-D380P. There is nothing remarkable about this machine. The DVD section can play DVDs, CDs, VCDs, as well as MP3s from Data CDs and Data DVDs. It is just a player, so it cannot record. The VCR section can play standard…

I made a short video about the JVC GR-SX950, a Super VHS camcorder made around the year 2000. I shot the review with a similar camcorder for you to appreciate how far the industry has moved since then. Actually, the camcorder that I used to shoot this review has…

This is a Sony Discman from 1992. It is a portable CD player to an extent that it can be moved from one place to another without carefully packaging it first. Nowhere on the player it says that it is shock resistant. On contrary, the user’s instructions strongly suggest not…

Recently I made a video tutorial about how to digitize VHS, DV and Hi8 video. In my workflow I used Pinnacle Dazzle analog-to-digital converter for capturing the video, and VirtualDub2 for encoding it and saving to a file. Out of several models offered by Pinnacle, I use a very specific…

There were dozens if not hundreds of VHS camcorders produced from the mid-1980s to mid-2000s, but the JVC GR-SZ7 stands out of the pack. Videomaker magazine praised it for “breathing new life into the flagging S-VHS-C format”. The magazine spoke highly of the “ultra…

Super VHS — or S-VHS for short — is an improved version of VHS, a tape-based home video format. When Super VHS was introduced in 1987, it was proclaimed to be a “quantum leap in home video picture quality” providing “dramatic improvement” over contemporary home video formats. Super VHS…

This is a relic from the late 1980s, JVC Videomovie letter. It is a bundle for amateur videomakers that includes an adapter from Compact VHS to full-size VHS, an instructional video how to shoot a video letter, a padded envelope and a shipping label. This particular set does not…