WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.110 --> 00:00:04.400 Today we’re going to talk about one of Sony’s most ingenious technological advancements 00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:07.010 that went absolutely nowhere. 00:00:07.010 --> 00:00:09.889 And it’s been sitting right behind me for the past few weeks. 00:00:09.889 --> 00:00:15.320 This is Betamovie, Sony’s groundbreaking product that quite literally is the invention 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:16.990 of the camcorder. 00:00:16.990 --> 00:00:23.060 This very model, the BMC-110, was the first all-in-one camera and videocassette recorder, 00:00:23.060 --> 00:00:24.910 released in 1983. 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:29.090 This camcorder promised consumers a lightweight and easy-to-use product that would change 00:00:29.090 --> 00:00:31.040 the way you make home movies. 00:00:31.040 --> 00:00:33.740 The only problem is that it’s absolutely terrible. 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:37.840 OK, no, it’s not a terrible product from a design or engineering perspective. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:42.050 I actually quite like the design, especially the addition of the RGB dots that Sony liked 00:00:42.050 --> 00:00:45.310 to throw on all their Trinitron TV sets. 00:00:45.310 --> 00:00:49.560 Lots of manufacturers did this sort of thing to denote that it was a color video product. 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:53.000 But Sony stuck with their classic ovals, and I like it. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:57.190 The problem with this device is that it was essentially no more functional than a hand-cranked 00:00:57.190 --> 00:00:59.210 8mm movie camera. 00:00:59.210 --> 00:01:00.670 And you’ll see what I mean in a moment. 00:01:00.670 --> 00:01:02.230 So first, a little history. 00:01:02.230 --> 00:01:07.420 The reason this is called a camcorder is that it is a single device, with a camera integrated 00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:09.890 into a videocassette recorder. 00:01:09.890 --> 00:01:12.040 In this case, integrated is a little generous 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:14.144 - bolted on seems more appropriate - 00:01:14.144 --> 00:01:19.040 but until this very product was released, making and recording home movies onto video tape would 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.660 require a portable VCR and a separate camera. 00:01:22.660 --> 00:01:26.610 And these portable VCRs weren’t really all that portable. 00:01:26.610 --> 00:01:31.970 Weighing in between 10 and 25 pounds, these VCRs were lugged around with a shoulder strap, 00:01:31.970 --> 00:01:34.740 and your other shoulder would support a composite camera. 00:01:34.740 --> 00:01:36.080 Sounds fun. 00:01:36.080 --> 00:01:41.299 In creating Betamovie, Sony sought to create a single device containing both the VCR and 00:01:41.299 --> 00:01:42.299 the camera. 00:01:42.299 --> 00:01:44.390 Thus, the camcorder was born. 00:01:44.390 --> 00:01:48.840 Now, I have a strong feeling that Sony created the word “camcorder”. 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:52.759 They referred to a lot of their audio tape products as “tapecorders”, and generally 00:01:52.759 --> 00:01:57.920 liked to drop the Re in recorder wherever possible, so it really seems like camcorder 00:01:57.920 --> 00:01:59.619 was a word right up their alley. 00:01:59.619 --> 00:02:04.500 But, none of the labels on here say anything but “Betamovie”, and the etymology of 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:09.259 the word camcorder isn’t attributed to Sony from what I can tell, but I still find it 00:02:09.259 --> 00:02:12.069 unlikely not to be a word of their invention. 00:02:12.069 --> 00:02:15.550 Anyway to get ourselves back on track here, one of the greatest hurdles to designing a 00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:18.710 device like this is that of miniaturization. 00:02:18.710 --> 00:02:23.200 The rotary head drum, required to create a high bandwidth signal on video tape, is quite 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:25.510 large in a normal Betamax machine. 00:02:25.510 --> 00:02:29.550 Normally, the tape is threaded 180 degrees around the drum. 00:02:29.550 --> 00:02:33.540 The beta tape transport may seem very odd to those who have never seen it before, but 00:02:33.540 --> 00:02:39.010 fundamentally it’s similar to VHS--the tape is just wrapped around it in a very different fashion. 00:02:39.010 --> 00:02:43.640 Two spinning heads on opposite sides of the drum write to the tape by tracing a diagonal 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:49.080 path from edge to edge, and there’s a near seamless gap from one head to the next. 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:53.580 In a normal Betamax or VHS deck, one head writes one field of the video signal, and 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:55.570 the second head writes the other. 00:02:55.570 --> 00:03:00.580 The drum spins at the frame rate of the television signal, so in the US it spins at 30 revolutions 00:03:00.580 --> 00:03:03.470 per second, or 1800 RPM. 00:03:03.470 --> 00:03:08.599 But remember, there are two fields per frame, which is why there are two head sweeps per rotation. 00:03:08.599 --> 00:03:13.660 Each head has a slightly different azimuth to prevent crosstalk among adjacent tracks, 00:03:13.660 --> 00:03:17.440 and the repeated switching back and forth creates a seamless video signal. 00:03:17.440 --> 00:03:22.010 Cramming this entire mechanism into a camera would be pretty absurd. 00:03:22.010 --> 00:03:26.489 The best thing to do would be to shrink the video head drum as much as possible. 00:03:26.489 --> 00:03:29.500 Sony’s solution is truly ingenious. 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:32.300 It’s a little complicated to explain, so bear with me. 00:03:32.310 --> 00:03:37.690 To shrink the drum in size, Sony designed a single video head that was really two heads 00:03:37.690 --> 00:03:40.769 in one, each with a different azimuth. 00:03:40.769 --> 00:03:45.659 This dual azimuth head would on its own be responsible for recording both the odd and 00:03:45.659 --> 00:03:47.600 even video fields. 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:52.440 If you look at the normal Beta head drum, you can see two wires going down to each head. 00:03:52.440 --> 00:03:56.849 But if you look at the head drum on this Betamovie, you’ll see that the single head has 4 wires 00:03:56.849 --> 00:03:58.569 going down to it. 00:03:58.569 --> 00:04:02.720 One pair drives the odd field azimuth and the second drives the even field azimuth. 00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:05.989 Again, it’s really two heads in one place. 00:04:05.989 --> 00:04:10.200 This single head then has to somehow record two fields consecutively. 00:04:10.200 --> 00:04:14.370 To make this possible, this shrunken head drum spins at twice the normal speed. 00:04:14.370 --> 00:04:19.400 Instead of head 1 making a 180 degree sweep for the odd field, followed by head 2 making 00:04:19.400 --> 00:04:26.100 another 180 degree sweep for the even field, in Betamovie Head 1 makes a nearly 360 degree 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:30.849 sweep for the odd field, and then the same head makes a second 360 degree sweep for the 00:04:30.849 --> 00:04:36.530 even field, this time acting as if it were head 2 by switching to the second azimuth. 00:04:36.530 --> 00:04:40.180 By pulling double duty, the drum could be much smaller, and the tape transport could 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:43.119 be shrunken down to fit in this little box. 00:04:43.119 --> 00:04:44.740 But I spy a problem. 00:04:44.740 --> 00:04:48.560 You see, although the tape is wrapped most of the way around the drum, there is still 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:49.560 a gap. 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:53.449 The head can’t possibly make a seamless video signal because there’s a chunk of 00:04:53.449 --> 00:04:56.080 each rotation where it’s not touching the tape! 00:04:56.080 --> 00:04:59.499 Well, here’s where things get even more complicated. 00:04:59.499 --> 00:05:04.909 Sony managed to in a kinda-sorta way time-compress the image from the camera so that it was recorded 00:05:04.909 --> 00:05:07.569 faster than real time. 00:05:07.569 --> 00:05:11.649 This may sound like a daunting task for an analog video system, but it’s actually a 00:05:11.649 --> 00:05:13.559 little simpler than it seems. 00:05:13.559 --> 00:05:18.780 There isn’t really any time compression going on, rather the image tube is being oversampled. 00:05:18.780 --> 00:05:23.400 So imagine we want a normal 525 line signal to be put on the tape. 00:05:23.400 --> 00:05:28.069 Each pass of the head across the tape needs to record 262.5 lines. 00:05:28.069 --> 00:05:32.550 A normal VCR just spits this straight onto the tape because the two heads seamlessly 00:05:32.550 --> 00:05:35.300 take over for each other at the end of each field. 00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:39.669 But with a literal gap from the end of one sweep to the start of another, even though 00:05:39.669 --> 00:05:45.849 we have this magic dual azimuth head, some of those 525 lines would be recorded onto air. 00:05:45.849 --> 00:05:47.860 Thus they’d be missing. 00:05:47.860 --> 00:05:52.379 Rather than panic about missing lines, Sony decided to just thrown in extra lines. 00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:57.390 By sampling the image tube with, say, 625 lines per frame, then the gap in the tape 00:05:57.390 --> 00:05:58.979 won’t matter. 00:05:58.979 --> 00:06:03.819 Each time the head passes the gap, it tries to record 50 of the lines onto thin air. 00:06:03.819 --> 00:06:07.529 But so long as those lines don’t contain any of the image, their absence on the tape 00:06:07.529 --> 00:06:09.479 is of no consequence. 00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:15.540 In the end, 525 lines get put on the tape in exactly the same fashion as a normal VCR. 00:06:15.980 --> 00:06:25.020 [Banjoey country music which abruptly stops each time the head passes the gap] 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:31.860 This is often described as time compression because the camcorder is literally recording 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:38.379 at a higher clock speed than a normal VCR--about 18.8 kHz compared to 15.7 KHz. 00:06:38.379 --> 00:06:42.569 See the actual distance the head travels along the tape with each sweep is the same as a 00:06:42.569 --> 00:06:43.879 normal VCR. 00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:48.110 It will line up perfectly with the head surface once it’s inside a full size Beta VCR. 00:06:48.110 --> 00:06:52.440 But that gap means that the head is travelling a longer distance with each rotation. 00:06:52.440 --> 00:06:56.309 Even though the head is rotating once per field, the head drum itself is a little bit 00:06:56.309 --> 00:06:58.659 larger than half the normal size. 00:06:58.659 --> 00:07:02.029 This means that the head itself travels the distance with a tape-to-head speed that’s 00:07:02.029 --> 00:07:03.729 about 20% too fast. 00:07:03.729 --> 00:07:09.039 It’s like taking this sound recording, speeding it up by 20% and then adding gaps of silence 00:07:09.039 --> 00:07:11.310 to return it to its original length. 00:07:11.310 --> 00:07:15.849 Each section of data was recorded a little too fast in real time, and it has to be slowed 00:07:15.849 --> 00:07:19.180 down somehow to fill in the gaps. 00:07:24.789 --> 00:07:30.300 For a Beta VCR to display an image from the Betamovie, there have to be 525 lines for 00:07:30.300 --> 00:07:32.639 every two sweeps of the video head. 00:07:32.639 --> 00:07:37.689 By simply sampling the picture tube at 625 lines, the gap from the Betamovie head will 00:07:37.689 --> 00:07:42.760 routinely throw out 100 of them and you’ll be left with the 525 you need. 00:07:42.760 --> 00:07:47.680 By tossing out roughly 20% of the lines with each head sweep, in effect the head’s higher 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.729 speed when recording becomes cancelled out. 00:07:50.729 --> 00:07:54.139 And it’s not like parts of the image are being lost here--the image tube is simply 00:07:54.139 --> 00:07:58.610 being overscanned, so the tossed out lines are pretty much just black. 00:07:58.610 --> 00:08:03.800 Going back to our audio analogy, the Betamovie records onto the tape with a continuous stream, 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:08.009 but because there’s a gap of silence with each pass of the head, in effect it’s as 00:08:08.009 --> 00:08:12.649 though only this is being recorded onto the tape, and in real-time the frequency of that 00:08:12.649 --> 00:08:16.479 signal is about 20% faster than a normal cassette. 00:08:16.479 --> 00:08:20.729 But because what lies in the gaps isn’t part of the signal we actually need, they 00:08:20.729 --> 00:08:23.679 don’t matter for a VCR to read the tape. 00:08:23.679 --> 00:08:27.550 What might be a little hard to explain is that the gap is only there when recording. 00:08:27.550 --> 00:08:32.089 It’s simply a chunk of the data stream coming from the image sensor that doesn’t get recorded 00:08:32.089 --> 00:08:33.300 on the tape. 00:08:33.300 --> 00:08:37.930 But we don't want that data anyway, it just gets tossed out when the head is passing the gap. 00:08:37.930 --> 00:08:42.500 So when the tape is played back on a normal VCR, there are no gaps at all. 00:08:42.500 --> 00:08:47.839 And because the tape-to-head speed is a little bit slower in the VCR, that 18.8 kilohertz 00:08:47.839 --> 00:08:53.930 signal recorded by the Betamovie will automatically be slowed down and become the 15.7 kilohertz 00:08:53.930 --> 00:08:56.019 signal the TV needs. 00:08:56.019 --> 00:08:59.839 The only reason this time compression needed to be done was because there’s a gap from 00:08:59.839 --> 00:09:02.199 one head sweep to the next in the Betamovie. 00:09:02.199 --> 00:09:04.130 Wow, that was kind of tough to explain. 00:09:04.130 --> 00:09:08.639 But what’s not tough to explain is how incredibly unique this solution is. 00:09:08.639 --> 00:09:12.920 This video trickery enabled the Betamovie to be remarkably small for its time, while 00:09:12.920 --> 00:09:17.500 producing recordings that were compatible with your favorite Beta VCR. 00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:19.980 But now is where things start to fall apart. 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:24.720 See, although this bit of engineering is clever and awesome, the user experience with this 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:27.199 machine is just kind of real bad. 00:09:27.199 --> 00:09:32.470 To start, the single-head trickery means the Betamovie cannot play back its own recordings. 00:09:32.470 --> 00:09:36.260 There’s no way for it to decompress the signals it records. 00:09:36.260 --> 00:09:40.490 A normal Beta machine, where the heads travel a bit slower relative to the tape and there 00:09:40.490 --> 00:09:46.350 is no gap between them, will produce the continuous 15.7 kilohertz signal your TV needs. 00:09:46.350 --> 00:09:51.449 But the higher tape-to-head speed of the Betamovie could only reproduce chunks of its original 00:09:51.449 --> 00:09:55.990 18.8 kilohertz signal, no good for getting a picture on screen. 00:09:55.990 --> 00:10:00.709 The only way to get this mechanism to play back a tape for a TV would be to actually 00:10:00.709 --> 00:10:06.240 design a time delay circuit that could slow down each head sweep by 20 percent and eliminate 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:08.740 the physical gap between the sweeps. 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:14.089 Doing so mechanically with another VCR is easy, but electronically in 1983? 00:10:14.089 --> 00:10:15.430 Yikes. 00:10:15.430 --> 00:10:19.000 Because the camcorder cannot play back its own recordings, it was designed without an 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:21.139 electronic viewfinder. 00:10:21.139 --> 00:10:25.389 Most other camcorders of this time have a small black and white CRT that is basically 00:10:25.389 --> 00:10:27.970 showing you exactly what the camera sees. 00:10:27.970 --> 00:10:32.399 The upshot of this is that you can easily tell what’s in focus, you can see if its putting a timestamp 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:36.750 on there, and the camcorder can display error messages or battery life or any number of 00:10:36.750 --> 00:10:38.910 things on that screen. 00:10:38.910 --> 00:10:40.589 But for Betamovie? 00:10:40.589 --> 00:10:41.610 This is all you get. 00:10:41.610 --> 00:10:43.000 4 LEDs. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.300 The C means “Caution” so any number of things. 00:10:46.310 --> 00:10:49.970 W means you should probably check the white balance--that’s right there’s no automatic 00:10:49.970 --> 00:10:51.070 white balance here! 00:10:51.070 --> 00:10:55.470 Instead, you were supposed to use the translucent lens cap, point the camera at the light source, 00:10:55.470 --> 00:10:57.950 and then hit the white balance button on the side. 00:10:57.950 --> 00:10:58.950 Neat. 00:10:58.950 --> 00:11:00.940 The T simply means that it’s recording. 00:11:00.940 --> 00:11:02.740 You know, T for Record, 00:11:02.740 --> 00:11:06.360 but it also means low battery, so it’s probably flashing for that? 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:07.580 But I don’t know. 00:11:07.580 --> 00:11:10.460 And then L means that--there’s low light. 00:11:10.470 --> 00:11:11.790 Maybe find some more light. 00:11:11.790 --> 00:11:13.230 Or put on an accessory light. 00:11:13.230 --> 00:11:15.709 I mean, it’s nice of it to warn me, but… 00:11:15.709 --> 00:11:19.959 Now what is nice about the Betamovie viewfinder is that it’s in color. 00:11:19.959 --> 00:11:24.860 Using a split prism similar to some SLR cameras, the image in the viewfinder is actually through-the-lens, 00:11:24.860 --> 00:11:27.779 so you get a full bright, color image. 00:11:27.779 --> 00:11:30.850 This also means you can check focus and composition. 00:11:30.850 --> 00:11:34.829 The only trouble is that the focusing aid is really tough for me to use. 00:11:34.829 --> 00:11:38.699 Perhaps I could get better with practice, but in this footage I shot, a lot of it wasn’t 00:11:38.699 --> 00:11:40.110 exactly in great focus. 00:11:40.110 --> 00:11:44.019 It’s just very hard to see what is and isn’t in focus through this viewfinder. 00:11:44.019 --> 00:11:46.899 Oh, and of course focus is entirely manual. 00:11:46.899 --> 00:11:52.569 This lens is aided by a very slow power zoom, but that’s the only automation you get. 00:11:52.569 --> 00:11:54.639 You’re on your own for focusing. 00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:58.560 Although this electronic viewfinder is black and white, I find it much easier to work with. 00:11:58.560 --> 00:12:03.009 Particularly since it allows you to see the camera’s exposure level, and since it automatically 00:12:03.009 --> 00:12:08.700 adjusts exposure, your eye in the eyecup doesn’t have to cope with rapid changes in image brightness, 00:12:08.700 --> 00:12:10.749 which again I think makes it easier to use. 00:12:10.749 --> 00:12:15.529 It also means that you know if the camera’s image is being washed out, whereas on the 00:12:15.529 --> 00:12:19.110 Betamovie you’ll have no clue until you get home and can watch the tape. 00:12:19.110 --> 00:12:23.829 The real trouble with Betamovie was that its crippled functionality made it barely better 00:12:23.829 --> 00:12:26.329 than a wind-up 8mm film camera. 00:12:26.329 --> 00:12:29.769 It’s basically just point and shoot with no chance of review. 00:12:29.769 --> 00:12:32.180 There is no rewind or fast forward button- 00:12:32.180 --> 00:12:35.990 it can only record so all you get is a record button. 00:12:35.990 --> 00:12:41.740 This camera here, which was my grandfather’s, is used in practically the same way as the Betamovie. 00:12:41.740 --> 00:12:45.220 Of course the Betamovie didn’t require film development and could record sound 00:12:45.220 --> 00:12:49.060 - I’m not an idiot, I realize it’s far more convenient than 8mm film - 00:12:49.060 --> 00:12:52.350 But you lost out on so much of what other cameras could do. 00:12:52.350 --> 00:12:54.959 Oh, so now we need to talk about other cameras. 00:12:54.959 --> 00:12:59.230 What might be the saddest thing about Betamovie and its ingenious head drum was that VHS was 00:12:59.230 --> 00:13:04.959 able to do a similar miniaturization while still retaining full VHS functionality. 00:13:04.959 --> 00:13:09.269 This camcorder was also my grandfather’s, and while it is a little bigger than the Betamovie, 00:13:09.269 --> 00:13:11.589 it’s only marginally larger. 00:13:11.589 --> 00:13:16.740 And it takes full-size VHS cassettes, which themselves are much larger than Beta. 00:13:16.740 --> 00:13:21.079 If we take it apart, we find a similar shrunken head drum that also gets the tape wrapped 00:13:21.079 --> 00:13:22.589 around it most of the way. 00:13:22.589 --> 00:13:27.540 But rather than create a weird dual azimuth head and increase the tape-to-head speed, 00:13:27.540 --> 00:13:30.740 VHS camcorders simply used more heads. 00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:34.980 With this machine and others like it, the tape wraps around 270 degrees. 00:13:34.980 --> 00:13:39.589 With 4 heads placed in quadrants, when one head finishes tracing the tape, rather than 00:13:39.589 --> 00:13:44.790 the opposite head taking over for it as in a normal VCR, the adjacent head is in place 00:13:44.790 --> 00:13:46.610 to start the next track. 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. 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:57.329 This required a bit more of an elaborate head-switching scheme, since it was less a your-turn my-turn 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 00:14:02.309 --> 00:14:03.309 needed to be done. 00:14:03.309 --> 00:14:07.290 And, most importantly, a VHS camcorder can play its own recordings. 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 00:14:10.810 --> 00:14:13.749 softball performance and you want to show little Jimmy how he screwed up right there 00:14:13.749 --> 00:14:16.230 and so hopefully he won’t do it again! 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. 00:14:22.069 --> 00:14:26.680 This camcorder’s battery charger and power brick is also a dock of sorts. 00:14:26.680 --> 00:14:31.970 The multi-pin connection actually sends composite and even RF video to the jacks in the base, 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:35.629 so you could easily plug the camcorder into your tabletop VCR. 00:14:35.629 --> 00:14:38.380 Or even vice versa, if so desired. 00:14:38.380 --> 00:14:41.949 Lots of families liked to create tapes to send to relatives and to brag about their 00:14:41.949 --> 00:14:45.660 new camcorder, and this Magnavox machine makes that easy. 00:14:45.660 --> 00:14:49.140 Simply plug it into your VCR’s A/V input, hit play on the camera, 00:14:49.140 --> 00:14:51.350 and record on the VCR. 00:14:51.350 --> 00:14:55.059 But with a Betamovie, you’ll need to get your hands on a second VCR if you want 00:14:55.059 --> 00:14:56.100 to do that. 00:14:56.100 --> 00:15:00.230 Its power brick does nothing but charge the battery, or power the camcorder. 00:15:00.230 --> 00:15:01.290 So let’s review. 00:15:01.290 --> 00:15:06.029 Sony made a really neat and honestly groundbreaking product with Betamovie. 00:15:06.029 --> 00:15:11.249 Their single dual-azimuth head and time-compressed recording scheme was technologically intriguing, 00:15:11.249 --> 00:15:14.759 but crippled the functionality of the device itself. 00:15:14.759 --> 00:15:19.700 With little purpose to an electronic viewfinder, Sony stuck with cryptic LED indicators in 00:15:19.700 --> 00:15:23.370 a somewhat difficult to use through-the-lens viewfinder. 00:15:23.370 --> 00:15:29.620 So essentially, Sony once again put some wonderful engineering into a devastatingly flawed device. 00:15:29.620 --> 00:15:34.930 With the Betamax format already struggling in 1983, the release of Betamovie wasn’t 00:15:34.930 --> 00:15:36.160 super well timed. 00:15:36.160 --> 00:15:39.060 Plus, the only people who could use a betamovie 00:15:39.060 --> 00:15:42.970 were the same people who already had a Betamax VCR. 00:15:42.970 --> 00:15:48.290 This camera is of literally no use if you don’t already have a Betamax machine. 00:15:48.290 --> 00:15:51.820 And at $1500 it ain’t exactly cheap. 00:15:51.820 --> 00:15:54.980 On the other hand, this Magnavox camera with its docking station 00:15:54.980 --> 00:15:57.360 could function completely on its own. 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:01.720 You can even play prerecorded rental tapes through it, so for some people their new camcorders 00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:04.999 played double duty as their first VCRs. 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, 00:16:10.089 --> 00:16:11.269 at least not easily. 00:16:11.269 --> 00:16:15.570 But then children, oh boy did JVC just go and one-up Sony real hard. 00:16:15.570 --> 00:16:20.540 Just one year after Betamovie came out, JVC released the Videomovie. 00:16:20.540 --> 00:16:22.160 Great name guys, super unique. 00:16:22.160 --> 00:16:25.269 Anyway, the Videomovie introduced the VHS-C format. 00:16:25.269 --> 00:16:29.850 Now, these tapes, if you’re unfamiliar, are miniature VHS cassettes that are recorded 00:16:29.850 --> 00:16:32.660 in exactly the same fashion as a standard cassette. 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 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:41.180 take-up reel is turned by a small gear. 00:16:41.180 --> 00:16:45.889 This could drastically shrink the tape transport of a portable VCR, and by simply popping it 00:16:45.889 --> 00:16:51.110 into one of these adapters, the same cassette can be used with a full-sized VCR. 00:16:51.110 --> 00:16:55.129 The adapter will move the tape out to the normal position, and it has gearing inside 00:16:55.129 --> 00:16:58.760 to run the take-up gear wheel from this second cog below. 00:16:58.760 --> 00:16:59.879 Pretty clever. 00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:03.230 Now, when these were first released, only 20 minute tapes were available. 00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:07.150 Recording with the SLP speed could push this to an hour with a sacrifice of quality, but 00:17:07.150 --> 00:17:11.230 it was still significantly shorter than the 3 hours of a standard L-750 cassette with 00:17:11.230 --> 00:17:12.520 the Betamovie. 00:17:12.520 --> 00:17:16.190 But camcorders themselves could be very very small. 00:17:16.190 --> 00:17:20.052 The first videomovie is somewhat famous as this is what Marty McFly uses to videotape 00:17:20.060 --> 00:17:22.340 Doc in Back to the Future. 00:17:22.340 --> 00:17:25.460 [This is truly amazing. 00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:28.020 A portable television studio!] 00:17:28.020 --> 00:17:32.620 But later camcorders like this one show how much the transport could shrink. 00:17:32.620 --> 00:17:34.980 This is getting into palm-sized territory. 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:38.340 Yeah it’s still kinda chunky, but you can indeed hold this with one hand. 00:17:38.350 --> 00:17:40.870 There’s no need to go over-the-shoulder. 00:17:40.870 --> 00:17:43.830 Sony abandoned Betamovie relatively quickly. 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 00:17:48.159 --> 00:17:51.370 single head setup, it had limited appeal from the start. 00:17:51.370 --> 00:17:54.870 Only 5 consumer models were ever released. 00:17:54.870 --> 00:17:59.690 Sony started concentrating on the Video 8 format, which was superior to VHS-C in that 00:17:59.690 --> 00:18:02.130 the camcorders could be even smaller. 00:18:02.130 --> 00:18:07.149 But where Video 8 was lacking was in direct compatibility with a standard VCR. 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 00:18:11.230 --> 00:18:13.220 compelling for many people. 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 00:18:17.570 --> 00:18:19.940 time but true VHS compatibility, 00:18:19.940 --> 00:18:24.169 or a smaller and longer-running camera with some playability caveats. 00:18:24.169 --> 00:18:28.270 In the end, the Betamovie was a really clever and very well designed machine. 00:18:28.270 --> 00:18:31.690 The fact that this is still working today is pretty remarkable. 00:18:31.690 --> 00:18:34.559 But functionally, it’s just kind of a turd. 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:37.690 There are so many reasons not to buy this. 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. 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:45.900 I almost passed this up at my Goodwill where I found it because he or she... 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:49.620 had slapped this bumper sticker on the case 00:18:49.620 --> 00:18:52.010 where it should say “BETAMOVIE”. 00:18:52.010 --> 00:18:55.760 I think they didn’t want to advertise that they were in the Beta ecosystem. 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 00:18:59.210 --> 00:19:01.960 I first made my Beta and VHS comparison. 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 00:19:06.140 --> 00:19:10.010 little embarrassing and thankfully only a few people stared. 00:19:10.010 --> 00:19:12.790 Of course, thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed this video! 00:19:12.790 --> 00:19:16.390 If this is your first time watching Technology Connections and you liked what you saw, please 00:19:16.390 --> 00:19:17.870 consider subscribing. 00:19:17.870 --> 00:19:21.690 And as always, thank you to everyone who supports this channel on Patreon. 00:19:21.690 --> 00:19:24.510 Patrons of the channel are what keep these videos coming, and if you’re interested 00:19:24.510 --> 00:19:28.390 in supporting the channel too, why not take a look at my Patreon page. 00:19:28.390 --> 00:19:30.640 Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll see you next time! 00:19:31.220 --> 00:19:37.600 So, should I adopt the typical 1980’s - uh, or I guess home video voice? 00:19:37.600 --> 00:19:41.080 “So here we are at the park. 00:19:41.080 --> 00:19:45.680 And we’ve got some very, very pretty flowers. 00:19:46.060 --> 00:19:49.240 Let’s get a closeup on those flowers. 00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:51.240 Ooh, pretty. 00:19:51.940 --> 00:19:55.880 I’ll have to maybe focus a bit. I think that looks good. 00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:58.340 OK we’ll zoom back out now. 00:19:58.600 --> 00:20:01.060 Let’s go down this way!” 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:05.040 [Sound of locomotive] 00:20:18.180 --> 00:20:20.200 How well, does this (laughter)… 00:20:20.200 --> 00:20:22.190 How well does this work as a selfie cam?! 00:20:22.190 --> 00:20:23.960 I don’t know! 00:20:25.530 --> 00:20:30.289 Here I am staring into the Betamovie, and I have no idea what this looks like 00:20:30.289 --> 00:20:31.710 because you can’t tell! 00:20:31.710 --> 00:20:35.960 The power zoom on this thing is really, really slow. 00:20:40.600 --> 00:20:44.900 I mean, you can just twist this here. 00:20:44.900 --> 00:20:46.860 It’s not limited to the power zoom. 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:52.000 But the power zoom is really, really slow. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.080 Ooh, let’s try the macro lens. 00:20:54.080 --> 00:20:55.680 It has a macro lens. 00:20:57.280 --> 00:21:01.520 So it’s all the way--that’s reasonably macro. 00:21:05.040 --> 00:21:07.200 I am pretty close to these. 00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:08.260 Huh. 00:21:08.260 --> 00:21:09.440 Look at that! 00:21:09.600 --> 00:21:12.800 We’ve got some decent bokeh here on the Betamovie! 00:21:12.800 --> 00:21:13.680 Ah! 00:21:14.560 --> 00:21:18.080 Trouble is if you look up now… 00:21:19.040 --> 00:21:23.200 Oh no you can, ok wait, am I in macro then? 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:25.920 [struggling with camera] 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:27.600 How did that work? 00:21:30.080 --> 00:21:32.960 [struggling intensifies] 00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:36.160 Huh, OK. 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:37.760 I don’t really get it. 00:21:47.760 --> 00:21:49.440 ‘Plane up there somewhere. 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:53.760 Ah, a plane! 00:22:08.560 --> 00:22:10.160 Ooh, lens flare! 00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:11.920 Lens flare! 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:13.520 It’s actually pretty decent! 00:22:14.560 --> 00:22:17.280 I probably shouldn’t look at the sun too much, though… 00:22:17.280 --> 00:22:22.880 Ah, well I think this is enough footage with the Betamovie for now. 00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:39.600 OK now the moment of truth, did we push record on the camera? 00:22:39.620 --> 00:22:42.870 Because I’m somewhat doubting that I did. 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:43.520 Oh, thank god.