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These days, if you want to install some sort
of security camera system, you can just run

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to your favorite big box store or wholesale
club, buy a kit with 4 cameras and a DVR,

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and within hours have a working CCTV system
capable of recording days or weeks or even

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months worth of HD, or sometimes 4K security
footage.

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Now we can even access them remotely over
the Internet, or put them in doorbells, or

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backup the footage to the cloud, or any number
of things which, depending on your point of

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view, you may find interesting or…

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concerning.

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But…

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Not that long ago, we only had the world of
analog video.

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Sure, videocassette recorders were widely
available, but even with the most generous

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of tape lengths and the slowest of recording
times, you’re not going to be able to get

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more than 10 hours or so out of a tape.

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That’s not great for security cameras, particularly
if you want to be able to record footage over

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a weekend when no one is at the office.

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But this video is running at 30 frames per
second and for surveillance footage, that’s

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probably more than we need.

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If there were a way that we could reduce the
frame rate, we could get more time out of

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one tape.

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If we recorded, maybe, only two frames per
second, we’d still have a pretty good record

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of what happened, and we could get 15 times
as much footage.

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Well, that idea did come to fruition in the
form of the time-lapse VCR.

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I’ve known about these things for years,
but there have always been some nagging questions

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in my mind about how they work.

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For example, most VCRs just kinda…

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suck at showing a still image.

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If you hit pause on this one, you’ll inevitably
get some sort of snowy garbage at the top

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or the bottom.

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In later years, a digital frame buffer would
grab a snapshot of whatever you were playing

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so that there could be a nice clean still
frame, but a time lapse VCR that’s RECORDING

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footage, how does that work?

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Now I could do some research and try to find
out exactly how a time lapse VCR is doing

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all the magic stuff it does, but it sure would
be great to just have one that I could poke

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around with.

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Oh right!

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This is a Sony SVT-3050.

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You can tell that this is a legitimate piece
of A/V equipment because of its two-tone beige

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and brightly colored transport buttons.

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Oh yeah.

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Matte black?

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Heh, this is where it’s at.

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Seriously, why was so much professional A/V
equipment from the this time period made in

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this particular color scheme?

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It’s like it’s trying its best to be plain.

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From the front, this looks like any normal
VCR save for its relatively few buttons

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(most are hidden behind the door)

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and surprising
omission of the VHS logo even though this

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uses VHS cassettes.

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Are we bitter about something, Sony?

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We’ll get to that in a minute because there
is some mystery as to why the label’s missing,

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but what gets weirder is when you come ‘round
to the back.

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For starters, you won’t find standard coaxial
jacks for a television tuner.

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Nor will you find standard RCA jacks for composite
video.

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Instead, you’ll find BNC connections, which
were and are to this day very common in

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security camera applications.

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You’ll also find a bunch of screw terminals
for various things like timers and alarms.

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For example, the unit can send out an alarm
signal if the tape becomes jammed or it runs

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out of tape.

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And it can also accept an alarm input to start
recording.

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When I got my hands on this, the first thing
I did (as would anyone, I presume) was to

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open the case.

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I wanted to see just what’s inside this
thing!

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Oh.

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There’s a circuit board in the way.

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No matter, we’ll just pop that up, and look
at that!

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There are little pegs made specifically for
holding the board up and out of the way for

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servicing.

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That’s neat.

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Under the board was a completely normal looking
VHS transport.

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Real talk, if you are into old VCRs like I
am, you actually should open them up before

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you test them to make sure nothing is stuck
which might cause it to eat a tape.

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This one indeed had something preventing the
take-up spool from turning, and after exercising

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it a bit the problem went away.

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But, had I not checked, it may have ruined
a tape.

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These are the sorts of life changing tips
you can find only here on Technology Connections!

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One of the more curious things in here is
the use of a modular power supply.

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You probably noticed the standard IEC C13/14
connector on the back, and it’s clear that

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it wouldn’t be very difficult to swap out
this power supply for another.

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This not only makes repair easier, but it
also means that the same chassis could be

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used in many markets.

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OK, so with it operational, I popped a tape
in and starting messing with the playback.

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On any speed but the normal 2 hours, the tape
simply juddered forward one step at a time.

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Is that really it?

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I had imagined that maybe the head drum would
spin at a slower speed, or that the machine

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would behave in some other strange way, but
it appeared that this was simply stepping

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forward one frame at a time.

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Lots of VCRs can do that… so what makes
this special?

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Well, keen eyes may notice that the quality
of that still frame is perfect.

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There’s no snow, there’s no jitter, and
there isn’t even any sign that that’s

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a digital frame buffer.

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To be sure that this wasn’t playing tricks on
me, I touched the spinning head drum while

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watching the screen of the TV, and sure enough
the picture was distorted along with my touch.

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So, this picture is coming live from that
tape.

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That alone isn’t so surprising, as many
high-end VCRs with four heads can do that.

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But what is a little more interesting is that
it not only has to do that when playing a tape,

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but it also has to do it when recording.

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After much searching, I found a great source
describing how time-lapse VCRs work, and one

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of the more remarkable things about them is
how precisely they can move the tape itself.

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See, in normal recording and playback, the
tape is continuously moving at a rate of about

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1.3 inches per second, or 3.3 centimeters
per second.

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This means that with each sweep of the recording
or playback heads, which happens 60 times

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a second on an NTSC machine, the tape has
actually moved roughly half a millimeter.

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That means that the end point of the sweep
is about half a millimeter to the right of

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the beginning, imparting a slight angle to
the track.

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That’s why a two-head VCR can’t display
a nice still frame.

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Without getting too deep into explaining analog
video, each head is responsible for one half

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of the frame, or one field.

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With a two head VCR, if the tape stops, then
the heads are suddenly misaligned a little bit.

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One head will start showing the correct thing,
but it will drift into the adjacent track.

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The same thing happens when the next head
sweeps.

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In essence it’s always reading the wrong
thing for at least some part of the frame,

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and the result is a noisy, incomplete picture

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But a 4 head VCR actually has two heads passing
by with each sweep.

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It’s capable of reading either the odd or
even fields at any time, and can switch between

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them on the fly.

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This allows it to perfectly display either
the odd or even field without noise bars.

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There’s a great link in the description
if you’d like to learn a little more about

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the specifics here.

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Anyway, that’s all fine and good, but what’s
most interesting here is how the machine records

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onto the tape.

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It needs to get that correct angle otherwise
the signals will be completely out of spec

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from VHS, and it won’t be able to play them
in fast motion for the purpose of searching

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for the moment that your restaurant was robbed.

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Or whatever.

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And that is what makes this more advanced
than your average 4 head VCR.

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When recording, the heads are completely inactive
except for when they write that single field

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onto the tape.

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Most of the time they’re simply spinning
for the fun of it.

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And here’s the kicker.

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The writing action is perfectly synchronized
so that it happens just as the tape is being

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advanced to the next position.

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This means that the machine actually is recording
in a completely normal fashion.

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But, it is able to start and stop the tape
with such precision that although it’s recording

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up to 86 times slower than normal, the signals
on the tape are unaffected.

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Take a look at this slow motion footage.

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I’ve placed a marker on the tape so that
we can see it advance.

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The tape is completely stationary, but the
moment that head is aligned with it, it moves.

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And as soon as the next head is in position,
it stops.

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This extremely precise control of the tape’s
movement, along with the idling of the recording

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heads until the moment that next frame is
to be recorded, enables the machine to make

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intermittent, single-field recordings onto
the tape.

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Pretty neat.

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Now here’s where things get a little weird.

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Keen viewers will have noticed that there
is an audio input on here.

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If you’re familiar with how audio is stored
on a non-HiFi VHS tape, you’ll know that

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it’s recorded linearly on the edge of the
tape, just like a normal audio cassette.

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How would audio work if the tape is moving
in steps?

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Well, the machine can only record audio in
the normal 2 hour mode, and the 12 and 24

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hour time lapse modes.

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It can’t record audio in the slower speeds.

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But, this means that when recording in the
12 and 24 hour modes,

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the tape isn’t advancing in steps.

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Instead, it’s continuously moving very slowly.

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The images are still stored in a reduced frame
rate, but the continuous motion of the tape

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enables sound, albeit very very terrible sounding
sound.

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So, the same thing happens.

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The heads only write in individual bursts
for each frame, but we get an odd consequence now.

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See, if I want to play the tape back with
sound, it can’t play the tape back very well.

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It’s certainly not awful, but there are
noise bars and other anomalies.

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If we want perfect quality, we need to switch
the sound off, and then it returns to the

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stepping mode that it was using before.

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And this may give us a clue as to why the
machine is missing a VHS badge.

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Technically, the format specifications aren’t
being broken if it is recording in steps like this.

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It is recording a normal SP signal on the
tape, it’s just doing it intermittently,

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one field at a time.

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But this weird extra super duper slow speed
doesn’t conform to that standard.

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Is this THE reason?

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I can’t say for certain.

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The S-VHS variant of this machine, the Sony
SVT-3050P, does have an S-VHS badge on the

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front, and it, too can record audio in 12
and 24 hour modes.

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So… the missing logo may remain a mystery.

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But we’re not done yet.

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Did you notice that “Faroudja laboratories”
mark on the back?

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Yeah, that got me curious.

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Who are they and what do they want with my
VCR?

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Well, Faroudja Labs was quite famous for analog
video processing technologies, in particular

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devices called line doublers.

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These could take a low resolution image, and
double the number of horizontal lines of resolution,

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to give it an apparent resolution bump.

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This device would really benefit from a line
doubler, because it records just one field

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at a time.

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Each still frame is only half the resolution
of a normal television signal, and for something

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like security cameras where you might want
to be able to identify who is stealing your

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stuff, that’s not good.

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Now I’ll admit, you can’t get more detail
out of an image than was already there, so

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the extent to which a line doubler may help
with tasks like identifiability is up for

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debate, but it’s clear that this technology
is helping.

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Part of why these still frames seem remarkably
clear may simply be due to Faroudja’s video

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processing prowess.

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Now I can’t say for certain that there is
a line doubler in here, but knowing what Faroudja

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had done in the past, it seems very likely.

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At the very least, something of theirs is
making this a very sharp picture for what

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the raw signal is.

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So, that pretty much wraps up how a time-lapse
VCR works.

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It’s a lot less magical than I thought it
might be.

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More or less it’s just a standard VCR.

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There were some special considerations to
using it, however.

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With a normal video tape, the tape is only
touching the spinning head drum for a few

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seconds at a time.

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But with this machine, on the slower recording
speeds, it might be touching that drum for

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a few minutes at a time, and this could quickly
wear out the tape.

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For this reason, manufacturers would recommend
that you discard your tapes after a certain

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number of uses.

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Some would say to only use a tape twice if
it was recorded with the slowest speed.

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When these were in common use, you’d need
to balance the desired detail of the recording

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with your business hours and when the tapes
could be changed, and how long of an archive

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you need to keep (for legal purposes, usually
at least a month of recordings).

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So, you’d need to have something like 10
tapes on hand, use them in a rotation, and

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discard them after they’d been used perhaps
a dozen times.

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For a 72 hour recording, this would let you
use 10 tapes for perhaps a year before needing

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to replace them.

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And of course, a 24/7 duty cycle for a VCR
isn’t the kindest thing.

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It was recommended that you replace the video
heads on this at least every 10,000 hours

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(which works out to pretty much every year).

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You can still find the drum, the 2N4N-Q, for
sale from people who specialize in security

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equipment.

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And it looks like this machine has had its
heads changed at least once.

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00:12:38,199 --> 00:12:43,470
Poking through the menu shows that it’s
been powered on for 25,716 hours, but the

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video heads only have 314 hours on them.

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Now, it could be that this machine was set
up to only record in an alarm condition.

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This may be the original head, and it was
simply idle the vast majority of the time.

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There doesn’t seem to be a way to determine
if that counter has been reset, so I suppose

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I’ll never know for sure.

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But before I go, I haven’t answered one
particular question about these things.

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What happens when you have multiple cameras?

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Well, that’s a fairly deep rabbit hole so
I’ll be brief.

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One option was to use what’s called a quad.

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This splits the incoming signal of four cameras
into a single display showing all four at

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one time.

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The major disadvantage here was the very poor
resolution of the recorded video, as each

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camera only got one quarter of the screen.

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Another option was a switcher.

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This would simply cycle through each of your
cameras one at a time, showing Cam 1,

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then Cam 2,

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then Cam 3

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and so on.

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You’d get a full resolution image, but you
couldn’t see what was happening on any of

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the other cameras when one was being shown.

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It also makes reviewing recorded footage a
little…

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nauseating.

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The coolest solution, albeit the most expensive
one, was a multiplexer.

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These would combine the signals from all of
the cameras, and send them over a single wire

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by rapidly switching between them, and using
the vertical blanking interval to signal which

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camera is which.

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When you want to see just one, the multiplexer
would use a frame buffer to show only that

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one camera at a reduced frame rate.

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The beautiful thing was that this also worked
with a time-lapse VCR like this one.

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But, you’d have to synchronize the multiplexer
with the VCR (using the switch out terminal),

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and you’d also have to deal with an effective
frame rate that’s even worse than what the

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VCR is natively recording.

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See, if the VCR is recording 4 cameras, and
it’s recording at a rate of 4 frames per

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second, those four frames are split between
the four cameras, meaning that each camera

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only gets a recording once per second.

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So, while you did get to record four cameras
on one tape with the full resolution, you

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would get a seriously reduced update frequency.

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00:14:46,209 --> 00:14:51,410
That was a significant trade-off, but it was
cheaper than having a dedicated VCR for each camera.

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If I ever get my hands on a multiplexer, I’ll
revisit this video because I’d love to see

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how it all works.

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I’d be curious to know what exactly it stores
in the blanking interval, and it may be fun

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to set up a CCTV system using vintage equipment
like this.

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00:15:05,380 --> 00:15:09,360
But for now, I hope you enjoyed this video
on the time-lapse VCR.

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00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:14,050
It’s a lot simpler than I thought it might
be, although it ended up being far more mysterious

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than at first it seemed.

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00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:19,600
As I’m sure you know by now, I end my videos
with a thank you to my amazing patrons, but

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00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:24,459
this time I have more than one reason to thank
them, and someone else to thank, too.

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00:15:24,459 --> 00:15:26,779
This video topic was a viewer suggestion!

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00:15:26,779 --> 00:15:30,649
A friendly gecko named Torrance reached out
to me and wanted to know a little bit about

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00:15:30,649 --> 00:15:32,329
these time-lapse VCRs.

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00:15:32,329 --> 00:15:36,610
I’ve always been curious myself, and thanks
to the people who support the channel on Patreon,

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00:15:36,610 --> 00:15:39,680
I was able to go and buy one and poke around
with it.

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00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:43,360
And in addition to their generous financial
support, this time around the Patreon crew

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00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,959
came to my rescue by helping me figure something
out about this machine.

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00:15:46,959 --> 00:15:51,830
I was under a very mistaken assumption about
how this thing was making such a great still-frame,

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00:15:51,830 --> 00:15:56,310
and thankfully you sent me some great resources
(including one linked below) that made me

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00:15:56,310 --> 00:15:59,130
realize I was really overthinking this!

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00:15:59,130 --> 00:16:03,040
So, if you’d like to send in a video topic
suggestion, please do!

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00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:07,660
You can leave them here in the comments, you
can reach me on Twitter @TechConnectify, or

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00:16:07,660 --> 00:16:10,740
you can check out the Technology Connections
subreddit linked below.

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00:16:10,740 --> 00:16:14,000
Down there you’ll also find a link to my
Patreon page.

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00:16:14,019 --> 00:16:18,070
With direct viewer support, this channel has
really taken off and there are very exciting

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00:16:18,070 --> 00:16:20,269
changes coming pretty soon.

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00:16:20,269 --> 00:16:24,189
If you’d like to make a pledge of your own
and get perks like early video access, occasional

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00:16:24,189 --> 00:16:29,440
behind the scenes footage, and general updates
before anyone else, please check out my Patreon page.

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00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:32,160
Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time!

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00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:35,560
♫ violently smooth jazz ♫

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00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:41,139
...because of its two-tone beige and brightly
colored transport (unintelligible babbling)

287
00:16:41,820 --> 00:16:42,520
Hu huh!

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00:16:42,980 --> 00:16:43,480
Huh huh!

289
00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:44,880
[And other weird noises]

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00:16:47,420 --> 00:16:50,540
...to make sure nothing is stuck and might
cause it to eat a pa…

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00:16:50,540 --> 00:16:52,560
(laughs)

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00:16:52,560 --> 00:16:54,019
Eat a pastry!

293
00:16:54,019 --> 00:16:57,339
Did you notice that Faroudja Laboratories
mark on that back?

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00:16:57,339 --> 00:16:58,449
Well that got me…

295
00:16:58,449 --> 00:17:00,460
Is it laboratories or technologies?

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00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:03,500
It’s both!

297
00:17:03,500 --> 00:17:04,540
OK…

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00:17:04,540 --> 00:17:06,420
With a normal videotape, the tape

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00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:07,720
(pauses)

300
00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:09,400
Yeah, dang it that was right.

301
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:10,380
Mmhmm!

302
00:17:10,380 --> 00:17:11,760
Say the lines as written, please.

303
00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:15,600
It’s a lot simpler than I thought it might
be, although it ended up….

304
00:17:15,820 --> 00:17:16,820
(sigh)

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00:17:18,540 --> 00:17:21,780
[very high pitched squeaky sounds]