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Today we’re going to talk about one of Sony’s
most ingenious technological advancements

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that went absolutely nowhere.

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And it’s been sitting right behind me for
the past few weeks.

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This is Betamovie, Sony’s groundbreaking
product that quite literally is the invention

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of the camcorder.

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This very model, the BMC-110, was the first
all-in-one camera and videocassette recorder,

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released in 1983.

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This camcorder promised consumers a lightweight
and easy-to-use product that would change

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the way you make home movies.

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The only problem is that it’s absolutely
terrible.

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OK, no, it’s not a terrible product from
a design or engineering perspective.

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I actually quite like the design, especially
the addition of the RGB dots that Sony liked

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to throw on all their Trinitron TV sets.

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Lots of manufacturers did this sort of thing
to denote that it was a color video product.

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But Sony stuck with their classic ovals, and
I like it.

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The problem with this device is that it was
essentially no more functional than a hand-cranked

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8mm movie camera.

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And you’ll see what I mean in a moment.

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So first, a little history.

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The reason this is called a camcorder is that
it is a single device, with a camera integrated

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into a videocassette recorder.

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In this case, integrated is a little generous

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- bolted on seems more appropriate -

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but until this very product was released, making and
recording home movies onto video tape would

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require a portable VCR and a separate camera.

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And these portable VCRs weren’t really all
that portable.

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Weighing in between 10 and 25 pounds, these
VCRs were lugged around with a shoulder strap,

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and your other shoulder would support a composite
camera.

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Sounds fun.

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In creating Betamovie, Sony sought to create
a single device containing both the VCR and

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the camera.

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Thus, the camcorder was born.

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Now, I have a strong feeling that Sony created
the word “camcorder”.

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They referred to a lot of their audio tape
products as “tapecorders”, and generally

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liked to drop the Re in recorder wherever
possible, so it really seems like camcorder

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was a word right up their alley.

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But, none of the labels on here say anything
but “Betamovie”, and the etymology of

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the word camcorder isn’t attributed to Sony
from what I can tell, but I still find it

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unlikely not to be a word of their invention.

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Anyway to get ourselves back on track here,
one of the greatest hurdles to designing a

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device like this is that of miniaturization.

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The rotary head drum, required to create a
high bandwidth signal on video tape, is quite

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large in a normal Betamax machine.

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Normally, the tape is threaded 180 degrees
around the drum.

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The beta tape transport may seem very odd
to those who have never seen it before, but

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fundamentally it’s similar to VHS--the tape
is just wrapped around it in a very different fashion.

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Two spinning heads on opposite sides of the
drum write to the tape by tracing a diagonal

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path from edge to edge, and there’s a near
seamless gap from one head to the next.

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In a normal Betamax or VHS deck, one head
writes one field of the video signal, and

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the second head writes the other.

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The drum spins at the frame rate of the television
signal, so in the US it spins at 30 revolutions

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per second, or 1800 RPM.

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But remember, there are two fields per frame,
which is why there are two head sweeps per rotation.

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Each head has a slightly different azimuth
to prevent crosstalk among adjacent tracks,

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and the repeated switching back and forth
creates a seamless video signal.

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Cramming this entire mechanism into a camera
would be pretty absurd.

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The best thing to do would be to shrink the
video head drum as much as possible.

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Sony’s solution is truly ingenious.

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It’s a little complicated to explain, so
bear with me.

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To shrink the drum in size, Sony designed
a single video head that was really two heads

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in one, each with a different azimuth.

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This dual azimuth head would on its own be
responsible for recording both the odd and

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even video fields.

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If you look at the normal Beta head drum,
you can see two wires going down to each head.

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But if you look at the head drum on this Betamovie,
you’ll see that the single head has 4 wires

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going down to it.

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One pair drives the odd field azimuth and
the second drives the even field azimuth.

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Again, it’s really two heads in one place.

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This single head then has to somehow record
two fields consecutively.

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To make this possible, this shrunken head
drum spins at twice the normal speed.

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Instead of head 1 making a 180 degree sweep
for the odd field, followed by head 2 making

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another 180 degree sweep for the even field,
in Betamovie Head 1 makes a nearly 360 degree

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sweep for the odd field, and then the same
head makes a second 360 degree sweep for the

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even field, this time acting as if it were
head 2 by switching to the second azimuth.

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By pulling double duty, the drum could be
much smaller, and the tape transport could

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be shrunken down to fit in this little box.

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But I spy a problem.

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You see, although the tape is wrapped most
of the way around the drum, there is still

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a gap.

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The head can’t possibly make a seamless
video signal because there’s a chunk of

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each rotation where it’s not touching the
tape!

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Well, here’s where things get even more
complicated.

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Sony managed to in a kinda-sorta way time-compress
the image from the camera so that it was recorded

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faster than real time.

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This may sound like a daunting task for an
analog video system, but it’s actually a

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little simpler than it seems.

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There isn’t really any time compression
going on, rather the image tube is being oversampled.

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So imagine we want a normal 525 line signal
to be put on the tape.

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Each pass of the head across the tape needs
to record 262.5 lines.

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A normal VCR just spits this straight onto
the tape because the two heads seamlessly

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take over for each other at the end of each
field.

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But with a literal gap from the end of one
sweep to the start of another, even though

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we have this magic dual azimuth head, some
of those 525 lines would be recorded onto air.

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Thus they’d be missing.

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Rather than panic about missing lines, Sony
decided to just thrown in extra lines.

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By sampling the image tube with, say, 625
lines per frame, then the gap in the tape

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won’t matter.

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Each time the head passes the gap, it tries
to record 50 of the lines onto thin air.

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But so long as those lines don’t contain
any of the image, their absence on the tape

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is of no consequence.

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In the end, 525 lines get put on the tape
in exactly the same fashion as a normal VCR.

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[Banjoey country music which abruptly stops
each time the head passes the gap]

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This is often described as time compression
because the camcorder is literally recording

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at a higher clock speed than a normal VCR--about
18.8 kHz compared to 15.7 KHz.

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See the actual distance the head travels along
the tape with each sweep is the same as a

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normal VCR.

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It will line up perfectly with the head surface
once it’s inside a full size Beta VCR.

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But that gap means that the head is travelling
a longer distance with each rotation.

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Even though the head is rotating once per
field, the head drum itself is a little bit

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larger than half the normal size.

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This means that the head itself travels the
distance with a tape-to-head speed that’s

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about 20% too fast.

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It’s like taking this sound recording, speeding
it up by 20% and then adding gaps of silence

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to return it to its original length.

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Each section of data was recorded a little
too fast in real time, and it has to be slowed

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down somehow to fill in the gaps.

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For a Beta VCR to display an image from the
Betamovie, there have to be 525 lines for

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every two sweeps of the video head.

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By simply sampling the picture tube at 625
lines, the gap from the Betamovie head will

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routinely throw out 100 of them and you’ll
be left with the 525 you need.

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By tossing out roughly 20% of the lines with
each head sweep, in effect the head’s higher

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speed when recording becomes cancelled out.

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And it’s not like parts of the image are
being lost here--the image tube is simply

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being overscanned, so the tossed out lines
are pretty much just black.

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Going back to our audio analogy, the Betamovie
records onto the tape with a continuous stream,

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but because there’s a gap of silence with
each pass of the head, in effect it’s as

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though only this is being recorded onto the
tape, and in real-time the frequency of that

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signal is about 20% faster than a normal cassette.

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But because what lies in the gaps isn’t
part of the signal we actually need, they

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don’t matter for a VCR to read the tape.

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What might be a little hard to explain is
that the gap is only there when recording.

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It’s simply a chunk of the data stream coming
from the image sensor that doesn’t get recorded

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on the tape.

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But we don't want that data anyway, it just
gets tossed out when the head is passing the gap.

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So when the tape is played back on a normal
VCR, there are no gaps at all.

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And because the tape-to-head speed is a little
bit slower in the VCR, that 18.8 kilohertz

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signal recorded by the Betamovie will automatically
be slowed down and become the 15.7 kilohertz

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signal the TV needs.

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The only reason this time compression needed
to be done was because there’s a gap from

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one head sweep to the next in the Betamovie.

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Wow, that was kind of tough to explain.

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But what’s not tough to explain is how incredibly
unique this solution is.

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This video trickery enabled the Betamovie
to be remarkably small for its time, while

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producing recordings that were compatible
with your favorite Beta VCR.

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But now is where things start to fall apart.

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See, although this bit of engineering is clever
and awesome, the user experience with this

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machine is just kind of real bad.

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To start, the single-head trickery means
the Betamovie cannot play back its own recordings.

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There’s no way for it to decompress the
signals it records.

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A normal Beta machine, where the heads travel
a bit slower relative to the tape and there

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is no gap between them, will produce the continuous
15.7 kilohertz signal your TV needs.

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But the higher tape-to-head speed of the Betamovie
could only reproduce chunks of its original

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18.8 kilohertz signal, no good for getting
a picture on screen.

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The only way to get this mechanism to play
back a tape for a TV would be to actually

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design a time delay circuit that could slow
down each head sweep by 20 percent and eliminate

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the physical gap between the sweeps.

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Doing so mechanically with another VCR is
easy, but electronically in 1983?

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Yikes.

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Because the camcorder cannot play back its
own recordings, it was designed without an

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electronic viewfinder.

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Most other camcorders of this time have a
small black and white CRT that is basically

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showing you exactly what the camera sees.

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The upshot of this is that you can easily tell what’s
in focus, you can see if its putting a timestamp

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on there, and the camcorder can display error
messages or battery life or any number of

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things on that screen.

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But for Betamovie?

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This is all you get.

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4 LEDs.

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The C means “Caution” so any number of
things.

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W means you should probably check the white
balance--that’s right there’s no automatic

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white balance here!

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Instead, you were supposed to use the translucent
lens cap, point the camera at the light source,

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and then hit the white balance button on the
side.

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Neat.

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The T simply means that it’s recording.

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You know, T for Record,

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but it also means
low battery, so it’s probably flashing for that?

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But I don’t know.

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And then L means that--there’s low light.

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Maybe find some more light.

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Or put on an accessory light.

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I mean, it’s nice of it to warn me, but…

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Now what is nice about the Betamovie viewfinder
is that it’s in color.

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Using a split prism similar to some SLR cameras,
the image in the viewfinder is actually through-the-lens,

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so you get a full bright, color image.

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This also means you can check focus and composition.

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The only trouble is that the focusing aid
is really tough for me to use.

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Perhaps I could get better with practice,
but in this footage I shot, a lot of it wasn’t

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exactly in great focus.

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It’s just very hard to see what is and isn’t
in focus through this viewfinder.

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Oh, and of course focus is entirely manual.

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This lens is aided by a very slow power zoom,
but that’s the only automation you get.

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You’re on your own for focusing.

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Although this electronic viewfinder is black
and white, I find it much easier to work with.

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Particularly since it allows you to see the
camera’s exposure level, and since it automatically

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adjusts exposure, your eye in the eyecup doesn’t
have to cope with rapid changes in image brightness,

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which again I think makes it easier to use.

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It also means that you know if the camera’s
image is being washed out, whereas on the

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Betamovie you’ll have no clue until you
get home and can watch the tape.

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The real trouble with Betamovie was that its
crippled functionality made it barely better

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than a wind-up 8mm film camera.

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It’s basically just point and shoot with
no chance of review.

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There is no rewind or fast forward button-

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it can only record so all you get is a record button.

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This camera here, which was my grandfather’s,
is used in practically the same way as the Betamovie.

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Of course the Betamovie didn’t require film
development and could record sound

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- I’m not an idiot, I realize it’s far more convenient
than 8mm film -

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But you lost out on so much of what other
cameras could do.

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Oh, so now we need to talk about other cameras.

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What might be the saddest thing about Betamovie
and its ingenious head drum was that VHS was

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able to do a similar miniaturization while
still retaining full VHS functionality.

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This camcorder was also my grandfather’s,
and while it is a little bigger than the Betamovie,

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it’s only marginally larger.

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And it takes full-size VHS cassettes, which
themselves are much larger than Beta.

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If we take it apart, we find a similar shrunken
head drum that also gets the tape wrapped

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around it most of the way.

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But rather than create a weird dual azimuth
head and increase the tape-to-head speed,

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VHS camcorders simply used more heads.

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00:13:30,740 --> 00:13:34,980
With this machine and others like it, the
tape wraps around 270 degrees.

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With 4 heads placed in quadrants, when one
head finishes tracing the tape, rather than

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the opposite head taking over for it as in
a normal VCR, the adjacent head is in place

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00:13:44,790 --> 00:13:46,610
to start the next track.

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00:13:46,610 --> 00:13:52,480
The head drum has to spin faster than a normal
VCR, but there is no gap at all between scans.

224
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This required a bit more of an elaborate head-switching
scheme, since it was less a your-turn my-turn

225
00:13:57,329 --> 00:14:02,309
setup, and more of a hot-potato hot-potato
hot potato, but it meant that no signal trickery

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00:14:02,309 --> 00:14:03,309
needed to be done.

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00:14:03,309 --> 00:14:07,290
And, most importantly, a VHS camcorder can
play its own recordings.

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00:14:07,290 --> 00:14:10,810
Now, this is useful of course when you’re
out and about filming your child’s lackluster

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00:14:10,810 --> 00:14:13,749
softball performance and you want to show
little Jimmy how he screwed up right there

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00:14:13,749 --> 00:14:16,230
and so hopefully he won’t do it again!

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00:14:16,230 --> 00:14:22,069
But most importantly it allowed for dubbing
your own tapes onto a second tape with another VCR.

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This camcorder’s battery charger and power
brick is also a dock of sorts.

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The multi-pin connection actually sends composite
and even RF video to the jacks in the base,

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so you could easily plug the camcorder into
your tabletop VCR.

235
00:14:35,629 --> 00:14:38,380
Or even vice versa, if so desired.

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00:14:38,380 --> 00:14:41,949
Lots of families liked to create tapes to
send to relatives and to brag about their

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00:14:41,949 --> 00:14:45,660
new camcorder, and this Magnavox machine makes
that easy.

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Simply plug it into your VCR’s A/V input,
hit play on the camera,

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00:14:49,140 --> 00:14:51,350
and record on the VCR.

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But with a Betamovie, you’ll need to
get your hands on a second VCR if you want

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00:14:55,059 --> 00:14:56,100
to do that.

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00:14:56,100 --> 00:15:00,230
Its power brick does nothing but charge the
battery, or power the camcorder.

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00:15:00,230 --> 00:15:01,290
So let’s review.

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00:15:01,290 --> 00:15:06,029
Sony made a really neat and honestly groundbreaking
product with Betamovie.

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00:15:06,029 --> 00:15:11,249
Their single dual-azimuth head and time-compressed
recording scheme was technologically intriguing,

246
00:15:11,249 --> 00:15:14,759
but crippled the functionality of the device
itself.

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00:15:14,759 --> 00:15:19,700
With little purpose to an electronic viewfinder,
Sony stuck with cryptic LED indicators in

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00:15:19,700 --> 00:15:23,370
a somewhat difficult to use through-the-lens
viewfinder.

249
00:15:23,370 --> 00:15:29,620
So essentially, Sony once again put some wonderful
engineering into a devastatingly flawed device.

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00:15:29,620 --> 00:15:34,930
With the Betamax format already struggling
in 1983, the release of Betamovie wasn’t

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00:15:34,930 --> 00:15:36,160
super well timed.

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00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:39,060
Plus, the only people who could use a betamovie

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00:15:39,060 --> 00:15:42,970
were the same people who already had a Betamax VCR.

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00:15:42,970 --> 00:15:48,290
This camera is of literally no use if you
don’t already have a Betamax machine.

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00:15:48,290 --> 00:15:51,820
And at $1500 it ain’t exactly cheap.

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00:15:51,820 --> 00:15:54,980
On the other hand, this Magnavox camera with
its docking station

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00:15:54,980 --> 00:15:57,360
could function completely on its own.

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00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:01,720
You can even play prerecorded rental tapes
through it, so for some people their new camcorders

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00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:04,999
played double duty as their first VCRs.

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00:16:04,999 --> 00:16:10,089
The only real downside with using the camera
as a VCR is that it can’t record from TV,

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00:16:10,089 --> 00:16:11,269
at least not easily.

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00:16:11,269 --> 00:16:15,570
But then children, oh boy did JVC just go
and one-up Sony real hard.

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Just one year after Betamovie came out, JVC
released the Videomovie.

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00:16:20,540 --> 00:16:22,160
Great name guys, super unique.

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Anyway, the Videomovie introduced the VHS-C
format.

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Now, these tapes, if you’re unfamiliar,
are miniature VHS cassettes that are recorded

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in exactly the same fashion as a standard
cassette.

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00:16:32,660 --> 00:16:38,639
JVC used a very clever design where the supply
reel has a normal cog on the bottom, and the

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take-up reel is turned by a small gear.

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00:16:41,180 --> 00:16:45,889
This could drastically shrink the tape transport
of a portable VCR, and by simply popping it

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into one of these adapters, the same cassette
can be used with a full-sized VCR.

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The adapter will move the tape out to the
normal position, and it has gearing inside

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00:16:55,129 --> 00:16:58,760
to run the take-up gear wheel from this second
cog below.

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Pretty clever.

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00:16:59,879 --> 00:17:03,230
Now, when these were first released, only
20 minute tapes were available.

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Recording with the SLP speed could push this
to an hour with a sacrifice of quality, but

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it was still significantly shorter than the
3 hours of a standard L-750 cassette with

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00:17:11,230 --> 00:17:12,520
the Betamovie.

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But camcorders themselves could be very very
small.

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00:17:16,190 --> 00:17:20,052
The first videomovie is somewhat famous as
this is what Marty McFly uses to videotape

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Doc in Back to the Future.

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00:17:22,340 --> 00:17:25,460
[This is truly amazing.

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A portable television studio!]

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But later camcorders like this one show how
much the transport could shrink.

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00:17:32,620 --> 00:17:34,980
This is getting into palm-sized territory.

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00:17:34,980 --> 00:17:38,340
Yeah it’s still kinda chunky, but you can
indeed hold this with one hand.

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00:17:38,350 --> 00:17:40,870
There’s no need to go over-the-shoulder.

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00:17:40,870 --> 00:17:43,830
Sony abandoned Betamovie relatively quickly.

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00:17:43,830 --> 00:17:48,159
With the demise of Betamax as a format, and
with their insistence on using the record-only

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00:17:48,159 --> 00:17:51,370
single head setup, it had limited appeal from
the start.

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00:17:51,370 --> 00:17:54,870
Only 5 consumer models were ever released.

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00:17:54,870 --> 00:17:59,690
Sony started concentrating on the Video 8
format, which was superior to VHS-C in that

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the camcorders could be even smaller.

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00:18:02,130 --> 00:18:07,149
But where Video 8 was lacking was in direct
compatibility with a standard VCR.

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00:18:07,149 --> 00:18:11,230
Being able to simply pop your little tapes
into an adapter and watch them on TV was pretty

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00:18:11,230 --> 00:18:13,220
compelling for many people.

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00:18:13,220 --> 00:18:17,570
For many years it was a choice of a slightly
bulkier camcorder with a more limited recording

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00:18:17,570 --> 00:18:19,940
time but true VHS compatibility,

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00:18:19,940 --> 00:18:24,169
or a smaller and longer-running camera with some playability caveats.

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00:18:24,169 --> 00:18:28,270
In the end, the Betamovie was a really clever
and very well designed machine.

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The fact that this is still working today
is pretty remarkable.

302
00:18:31,690 --> 00:18:34,559
But functionally, it’s just kind of a turd.

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00:18:34,559 --> 00:18:37,690
There are so many reasons not to buy this.

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00:18:37,690 --> 00:18:41,480
And I’ll tell you, I think the original
owner of this was embarrassed to have bought it.

305
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:45,900
I almost passed this up at my Goodwill where
I found it because he or she...

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00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:49,620
had slapped this bumper sticker on the case

307
00:18:49,620 --> 00:18:52,010
where it should say “BETAMOVIE”.

308
00:18:52,010 --> 00:18:55,760
I think they didn’t want to advertise that
they were in the Beta ecosystem.

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00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,210
To close out this video, let’s look at some
footage I recorded in the same park where

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I first made my Beta and VHS comparison.

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00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:06,140
I gotta tell you wandering around in public
with a big Betamovie on your shoulder is a

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00:19:06,140 --> 00:19:10,010
little embarrassing and thankfully only a
few people stared.

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00:19:10,010 --> 00:19:12,790
Of course, thanks for watching, I hope you
enjoyed this video!

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00:19:12,790 --> 00:19:16,390
If this is your first time watching Technology
Connections and you liked what you saw, please

315
00:19:16,390 --> 00:19:17,870
consider subscribing.

316
00:19:17,870 --> 00:19:21,690
And as always, thank you to everyone who supports
this channel on Patreon.

317
00:19:21,690 --> 00:19:24,510
Patrons of the channel are what keep these
videos coming, and if you’re interested

318
00:19:24,510 --> 00:19:28,390
in supporting the channel too, why not take a
look at my Patreon page.

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00:19:28,390 --> 00:19:30,640
Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time!

320
00:19:31,220 --> 00:19:37,600
So, should I adopt the typical 1980’s - uh,
or I guess home video voice?

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00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:41,080
“So here we are at the park.

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00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:45,680
And we’ve got some very, very pretty flowers.

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00:19:46,060 --> 00:19:49,240
Let’s get a closeup on those flowers.

324
00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:51,240
Ooh, pretty.

325
00:19:51,940 --> 00:19:55,880
I’ll have to maybe focus a bit. I think
that looks good.

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00:19:56,180 --> 00:19:58,340
OK we’ll zoom back out now.

327
00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:01,060
Let’s go down this way!”

328
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:05,040
[Sound of locomotive]

329
00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:20,200
How well, does this (laughter)…

330
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:22,190
How well does this work as a selfie cam?!

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00:20:22,190 --> 00:20:23,960
I don’t know!

332
00:20:25,530 --> 00:20:30,289
Here I am staring into the Betamovie, and
I have no idea what this looks like

333
00:20:30,289 --> 00:20:31,710
because you can’t tell!

334
00:20:31,710 --> 00:20:35,960
The power zoom on this thing is really, really
slow.

335
00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:44,900
I mean, you can just twist this here.

336
00:20:44,900 --> 00:20:46,860
It’s not limited to the power zoom.

337
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:52,000
But the power zoom is really, really slow.

338
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:54,080
Ooh, let’s try the macro lens.

339
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:55,680
It has a macro lens.

340
00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:01,520
So it’s all the way--that’s reasonably
macro.

341
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:07,200
I am pretty close to these.

342
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:08,260
Huh.

343
00:21:08,260 --> 00:21:09,440
Look at that!

344
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,800
We’ve got some decent bokeh here on the Betamovie!

345
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:13,680
Ah!

346
00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:18,080
Trouble is if you look up now…

347
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:23,200
Oh no you can, ok wait, am I in macro then?

348
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,920
[struggling with camera]

349
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:27,600
How did that work?

350
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:32,960
[struggling intensifies]

351
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:36,160
Huh, OK.

352
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:37,760
I don’t really get it.

353
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:49,440
‘Plane up there somewhere.

354
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,760
Ah, a plane!

355
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:10,160
Ooh, lens flare!

356
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:11,920
Lens flare!

357
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:13,520
It’s actually pretty decent!

358
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:17,280
I probably shouldn’t look at the sun too
much, though…

359
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:22,880
Ah, well I think this is enough footage with
the Betamovie for now.

360
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:39,600
OK now the moment of truth, did we push record
on the camera?

361
00:22:39,620 --> 00:22:42,870
Because I’m somewhat doubting that I did.

362
00:22:42,880 --> 00:22:43,520
Oh, thank god.