Television network you have never heard of — LX News has shut down. You may be wondering, “LX News, what is that, and why should I care?” LX News was a news brand, one could even call it a news network. It was launched in 2019 on YouTube and on its own website, and was…

In 1975 the “fantastically lightweight” Ikegami HL-35 camera weighed 12 pounds — this was the camera head only. The backpack with the camera control unit was another 22 pounds.

Recently I went to San Francisco, and I took a camcorder with me. But not an HD camcorder, which I used when I went to “Baghdad by the Bay” more than a decade ago, but a thirty-year old VHS camcorder. I thought it would be fun. I went for three…

DV video, launched in 1995, democratized digital video recording and editing. It came bundled with a transfer protocol that allowed to copy one tape to another or to upload it on a computer without loss. This communication protocol is officially called IEEE-1394, but is better known as Firewire or i.Link…

The world of television and broadcast-quality video changed forever in 1973 with the introduction of the digital time-base corrector (TBC). Two American companies — Consolidated Video Systems and Television Microtime — announced similar products almost simultaneously. With the digital wide-windowed time base corrector one “could take unstable poor-quality ½-inch videotape…

Rock Video Monthly was a subscription service, inaugurated by Warner Music Enterprises in October 1992. For $3/mo you would receive a videocassette with ten new releases in a chosen genre every month. For perspective, MTV, which Warner sold to Viacom in 1985, did not originally pay for music videos…

This VCR has all the features of a high end consumer-grade machine like Super-VHS capability with Expansion Technology, Hi-Fi audio, jog dial for accurate playback and editing, flying erase head, digital Y/C separation, digital noise reduction. It also has an RS-232 connector and a USB port. For someone who wants…

For quite a while I was considering testing the current generation of Pinnacle Dazzle analog to digital converter. I have a 2006 Pinnacle Dazzle DVC100, and I have been interested in how current product is different from the one Pinnacle released 16 years ago. Last year it was on sale…

Here is a question to fellow tapeheads: do you know what is a bias adjust knob? Do you use it? Do you think it helps? Let’s find out! First, what is bias? It is high-frequency current that shakes up the particles of…