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…

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…

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…

In 2002 George Lucas made history, shooting the first major Hollywood blockbuster on video. It is less known that thirty years earlier, the Hollywood was already making feature movies using 24p HD. In 1971, Image…