Glad to see Tim Hunkin referenced! For anyone unaware, he's started posting remastered copies of The Secret Life of Machines to his youtube channel, along with a whole series on his knowledge on components for tinkerers from his viewpoint of making arcade machines. :)
As he began discussing the difference between linear recording and helical recording, my first thought was, "I wonder if he'll demonstrate how a video head works the same way Tim Hunkin did."
I came down to say the same thing. Been loving the better quality versions. I mean they are still 1980s BBC quality but still better than the ones I downloaded years ago!
Two real standout memories from my childhood are visiting the Secret Life of the Home exhibition in the basement of the Science Museum in London, and that weird arcade on Southwold Pier in Suffolk. Only realised a couple years ago that they were the work of the same person. As CRD was talking about the VCR heads I remembered the demo from the musem and was pleasantly surprised when he brought up Tim's TV version. It's absolutely criminal that this channel doesn't get more views :)
When you look at those old videos, Tim Hunkin was basically the first RUclipsr before RUclips. Demoing how things worked with semi-dangerous experiments.
i remember each of these versions of video, i never really thought about what machines were capturing the images to begin with and just felt like our tvs and vcrs were getting better. super cool to see the rest of the story. i was engrossed in the video lol it was quite interesting well done
My school had this unit in the 70’s. We had the camera and external mic on a 20 foot cable. I remember the mic sounded really good when it was used close to a person speaking. I also remember the tape getting creased a lot due to the crazy two level reel system. Tape likes to stay straight. All those tilted rollers twisted it. I never got a perfect picture. There was always dropout bands in the video. This thing was loads of fun because it was like having your own TV station.
A linear power supply is basically nothing more than just a gigantic transformer and a rectifier, and in this era I wouldn't be all that surprised if half the machine was running on AC anyways. Neat that it still works after so long, but pretty expected!
The “rods” on the hand grip were used to tilt the camera for capturing titles made on a4 paper with the lens in micro mode according to the manual This was common at the time even on local and some networks
In the Videorover II ad seen in the forgotten history of home video video, it looks like you would (also) use it to sit and review your recording on the camera's CRT viewfinder hands-free.
@@ScottGrammer 1. Video tape is not back coated. 2. SSS has nothing to do with back coating. SSS is connected with substrate material made using lubricants derived from whale blubber during the early 70s oil crisis (instead of oil derived). Some Sony tapes are affected including quad video tape but I've not come across any 1/2 inch helical scan tape that is affected.
@@absinthedude At least one manufacturer, namely BASF made back-coated VHS tapes, it was advertised on the case of the cassette. And now, 25 years later, they are deteriorating horribly. No SSS, 'just' the back coating peels off, covering the whole VCR with black crud, and creating a lot of dropouts when the pieces find their way in between the tape and the video heads. I have a prerecorded VHS (also on BASF tape, but I think it isn't back-coated), and it suffers from SSS, believe it or not. It doesn't contaminate the heads too badly, it just sticks to the different rollers in the tape path so badly that the transport cannot make enough torque to play it.
when you pulled out the camera and were like "this thing is probably close to working, it just needs a recap, which is way beyond my capabilities", i went "what, really? a recap is really not that difficult, just time consuming" ... and then you opened it, and i understood why you said that.
Was thinking exactly the same thing "Well honestly a recap can be fine, stick on a TV show and work away at it" But trying to tackle that thing... no....
no, it does not necessarily need a recap!! they dont always fail, they last much longer than many seem to think, and replacing is not a magic cure all or prevention of further failure!
I used to use this exact camera/recorder back in the early '70's at school. My social studies class allowed it to be used to make student "documentaries". They were laughably bad, but it was great fun. By far the biggest users of this equipment was the football team. The coaches had an obsessive desire to record and analyze games. I think a lot of the impetus to record games was that the other teams were doing it, so they had to as well.
We had some flavor of this kind of machine when I was in school in the late 70s, I remember using it to record drama club rehearsals so the actors could review their performances from the audience's perspective.
For your Vidicon video: It’s very fun to consider that all of those glorious photos from the Voyager 1 and 2 missions (and I think photos from the Viking Orbiters) are from digital vidicon still cameras.
This thing is really significant, IMO, because it demonstrates bare-bones video recording without any complications. Show people this video and they’d instantly understand how VHS works, without all the extra moving parts and complications.
"The Secret Life of Machines" was one of the greatest series for someone who wanted to learn about basic engineering of household devices. It did not need any special production values and the host was so low key that you felt comfortable listening to him instead of being distracted by some bombastic loud-mouthed host. For those who honestly wanted to learn, the series was the greatest. Too bad there were so few episodes made. I especially enjoyed Hunkin's homemade contraptions.
I may date myself, but I actually used one of these in high school. We had one in our high school television station and used it to do on location interviews and for making commercials for local businesses. Thanks for sharing, brought back some cool memories of running a small high school tv station using 1/2” open reel tape machines.
The Portapak was an incredibly important piece of equipment. It revolutionised the art world. Andy Warhol, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik were all Portapak users. It put video in the hands of artists like no other equipment before.
I had no idea this even existed. I figured they were using U-Matic. After all, that hit the market not too long after this, IIRC. With all its faults, the equipment was so robust. I took a video production course at a community college when I was like 11 or 12 (back in the land before time, like 1992), and that's what we used. I loved those decks; they were mighty. ;-)
I'm from the era of this camera and recorder setup. Our high school A/V department made the one at Hawkins School in Stranger Things seem feeble. We had two of these cameras and decks and a switcher setup. We did a school news show that we would feature in the cafeteria on Fridays, (shown on an a 25" monitor in BW) and we had a video yearbook for 1978, so if you had Beta or The Great Time Machine by Quasar (VX format), we could maybe dub a copy for you. 1978 was just when the first RCA Select-A-Vision VHS decks came out but it was a little late for me, as I graduated that year. Our setup worked well as the school acquired ours around 1975, It didn’t hurt that my A/V teacher was married to a broadcast engineer at the local NBC affiliate, so if the decks or cameras needed service, he was ready to assist. The thing you failed to mention was the price. $1,650 MSRP in 1972. Pretty steep. The first Betamax in the console with a Trinitron TV, the LV-1901 was $2,495, and the first standalone Betamax, the SL-7200 was $1,295. This was in 1975-76 money. I think The Great Time Machine (also ‘75) was $1,299 but I can’t find confirmation of that. Very interesting video.
Tons of schools, cable TV local access channels, and corporations used Porta-Paks. I used them all those ways, and never thought of them as a home format.
Sony marketed 'em as a home format in every ad that I've ever found; they *wanted* this thing to be the Betamovie, but yes, I think almost nobody actually bought one outside of institutions who had needs that made the quality and convenience factors moot.
@@CathodeRayDude I found ads and numerous editorial mentions of the Porta-Pak in a quick search (at www.worldradiohistory.com) in Broadcasting Magazine, from 1967 on. Note that a Porta-Pak cost $10-12000 in today's dollars, not really affordable by average consumers of the time. Sony may have wanted them to catch on for home recording, but the market was schools, new media creators and corporate AV. Later, there was considerable excitement in TV broadcast circles when a primitive timebase corrector was developed that allowed its EIAJ tapes to be broadcast in compliance with FCC Regulations. It was part of an important movement to democratize media creation and put it into the hands of individuals, small groups, and schools, cable TV and documentarians. The Porta-Pak was truly a revolution that with a bit more research, would be revealed to you.
You are such a great talent, very intelligent and interesting. You deserve way more subs than you have now, but I’m sure you will get there in no time at all.
Tone and delivery so natural, Unlike so many of the recent croup of youtubers who try too hard to fit a mould instead just being themselves. Thanks for reminding us of how natural sounds.
You're a great presenter, I love watching your detailed takes on obscure video and camera stuff no one but you and apparently me, and the rest of your audience seem to care about. Really look forward to your future productions. Those little flip out rods on the pistol grip are only to be used when the camera is off. Its so you can set the camera down in an upright position so you don't accidently damage or dislodge many of the haphazardly designed circuits and tubes inside if you were to just lop it on its side. If you were using this camera in situ you had to be very gentle, lol.
Based on ads from the time, the rods were also used so that you could watch back recorded footage on the viewfinder - that's why the ocular can be flipped up.
I'm sure I remember seeing a camera with that sort of look in the film, Apollo 13 both for the press on the ground and for the astronauts to do their broadcasts during the flight. It'll be interesting to see how these first examples of small video cameras worked at the time!
The Apollo TV cameras were speciality designed by RCA and Westinghouse for the Apollo missions. I think their similarities come from the similar need to be low power and light weight. The Wikipedia article on them is fascinating though.
My father went back to college in the mid 1970s for his masters program. I had to occupy myself in the Central Washington University library for 5 days a week. I think I was 7 or 8. I remember going through their catalog of lectures on this format. I was asking the Librarian so often to change the tape that she showed me how and left me to it. I dont know how many lectures I watched or even what they were about, but I had the power to choose a tape and start and stop it at will....... I think I spend as much time watching the reels spin as what was on the videos. Thanks for the memories.
@@CathodeRayDude as long as you don’t burn a whole pile of TVs at the end of one of your videos lol. (He actually did a video on his channel I think where he reflected on that moment)
Omg, PLEASE make that video about those reverse CRT recorder doohickeys! My smooth little brain can’t even begin to try to imagine how that technology works but I am fascinated and I need to know more but I don’t want to look it up myself because I’d rather hear you explain it to me first lol. No rush tho, I know you’re busy and I love all the content you’ve been coming out with 😌
From what I remember, the tubes in vintage studio cameras were huge, whereas by necessity, the portable cameras had much smaller tubes. And I think I'm right in saying studio colour tube systems had a tube each for red, green and blue, which again, you couldn't replicate on a portable - just a single tube mushing all the colours together, doing the work of three tubes, and getting a much lower quality image, on a lower bandwidth tape.
The tube were bigger for MUCH better quality. The lens was also huge to gather as much light as possible for a high depth of field. Some portable color cameras used only 2 tubes, but pro cameras used 3 tubes but they were smaller because the lens was a barrel type lens and wasnt thay great of quality. Professional portable cameras DID use 3 tubes like the Norelco PCP-90
@@rty1955 Yup, the studio cameras had three tubes, about an inch across each sensor pickup, for the red, green and blue. The dynamic rage was far superior to what you see in these videos by Cathode Ray Dude and his older B/W tube cameras. You would be hard pressed to discern them from the early CCD studio cameras in quality, unless you pointed them at some studio lights or a very bright object, then you would get trailing streaks that were typical of tube cameras. The longer the streaks, generally indicated older, more used tubes, i.e. more hours on the tube. The CCU or Camera Control Unit would allow you to color balance the studio cameras to each other, so skin tones matched, etc. This was usually done once a day, and sometimes before each show, especially with older cameras. But once CCD came along, the stability of the solid state pickup generally meant you only had to color balance them occasionally, and a white and back balance was enough to get them close.
@@marcusdamberger until the advent of Plumbicons tubes in professional cameras which Norelco used on the PC60, PC70 and the portable PCP-90, most of the pickup tubes were the RCA design. CBS and ABC quickly adopted Norelco cameras. The Carol Burnett show was shot at CBS using these cameras. Since NBC was owned by RCA you had to use thier cameras. And the RCA design would go out of balance & registration during a show! Plumbicons were much more stable and you had way more control of each tube than a CCD. When you set up the cameras you had to set up each camera, not only for registration but for color linearity as each tube responded differently to different colors. Inside there was dicroic filters to split the image into each primary colors then each color had a separate path to each tube. To setup each camera you would have the camera pointed at a "chip" chart, which are two a b&w scales that ran opposite each other on an 18% gray card. You placed the green channel on a waveform monitor and adjusted it to give a perfect "X" On the scope with the center of the "x" being in the center of the scope. You then turned on the red channel and overplayed it with the green one and adjusted the controls (gamma, blk, & gain) to match the green one. U shut off the red and did the same fir the blue channel. You then had to adjust ALL the camera to be the same. This is why color drift was a major PITA during a show. Often you would see in a studio a "chip" chart odd to the side so during commercial breaks and even during a shown you would see a camera swing icer to the chart to correct it. Plumbicons also had a warmth to them which the RCA tubes didnt I restore Ampex 2' Quad video tape machines
I've never seen one that was personally, owned. But it was used by schools. Yeah, it may be horrible, but compared to what? Super 8mm didn't get sound until 1973, and you still had to send it out for developing. Short of going to a real TV studio, this was the only way you could see yourself or something you were involved in. The whole idea of the portapak was to go out to the action. I've used later versions of that model. As I recall, the 5" reels were good for 30 minutes. 20 minutes if you used the self-threading version. There was an optional adapter that would allow it to record in color. To playback in color, you needed a docking station. I'd say this created the start of what later became the community channel on cable. Allowing induvial and small groups to bring their work to a wider community.
Gravis is such a lovable, relatable, good humored human. I enjoy his commitment to the truth, personal honesty, and especially his sense of humor! Thanks for the dope videos that I rewatch on an embarrassingly regular basis ! Awesome content. Can’t get enough.
I always see these things and want to run out and buy one then I think to myself - I would never have a purpose for this. I have a 90s Canon Point and shoot that takes amazing pictures for a point and shoot from that era - it was $600 when it was new so I guess. But even then I rarely use that. :/ At least I can live vicariously through you.
That size lead batteries were still used in buglar alarms around the turn of the millennium. Well stocked parts resellers should still be able to supply them.
As I said before, this is like LGR Oddware but even better. Outstanding presentation, insanely interesting and enjoyable to watch. Thanks for the video!
Love that TEAC! Great machines those are. The early 80s models are super cool because the have the SYNC mode for recording, meaning you can actually record new material in real time with something previously recorded on a different day! Great video btw, I learn so much about things when i watch these because of how well researched they are. I think these 30 min to an hour long videos hit the sweet spot of information vs pacing, so i'd stick to that format. Would love some more PC Mag streams as well because those were so much fun!
Yeah, but the strange thing is, you would get a LOT of things that many people these days start nagging about their 'videocamera' does not have (read: photocamera that happens to be able to take videos as well). What really strikes me is how many youngsters just don't even know how to use a real camcorder these days (and no, I'm not talking about the old ones working with a cassette, but modern ones that just record on SD-cards). They don't know how to start recording, even though that record-button is at the most logical spot you can imagine if you were born in the eighties as EVERY camcorder had that button at the same spot, just like the zoom-rocker: every camcorder has had the zoom-rocker in the same place for decades, but they just don't know it. Even a friend of mine, who is 5 years younger, could not figure it out, not even when I said 'do you feel that seesaw kind of thing under your middle- and index finger? That controls your zoom.' We didn't know better back then and people who have had their days as a kid (or adult of course) recorded with devices back then and managed to preserve those recordings, should just cherish what they have. We tend to look back on old technology and only look at their drawbacks, while basically they enabled us to do something we couldn't before. And to put this into perspective: many people with a smartphone still record videos that are just videos as being taken with a plastic brick with buttons. 4K or not, it's just as un-interesting to watch most of the time as when back in the days many families had camcorders.
The tripod stand on the pistol grip wasn't for positioning the camera while recording. The camera had playback capability as well, displaying the image on that teeny, tiny crt in the viewfinder. You could open up the tripod legs, place the camera on a desk at the perfect viewing angle, flip up the viewfinder, and check out your recorded footage without the need to hook the deck up to a monitor.
@@graealex I shot hundreds of dissections for the University Anatomy Department in the 80s. There's a high-tech solution called turning the lights on! It did make the studio rather smelly but the ventilation cleared it fairly quickly. I'll never forget one day we finished shooting a dissection pretty late and rather than taking the body back down to the Dissection Lab we stowed it in the workshop off the studio (as it was always quite cold in there). We were shooting part 2 the next morning. First thing the next day, one of my technicians wandered into the workshop without turning the lights on to collect something or other, tripped over the corpse and landed flat out on top of it. I always thought you had to be dead to turn the colour he was for the next hour or two! It's very strange, but he always turned the lights on after that. Happy Days!
Maybe, maybe not. The spinning drum had little grooves on it that let air in between the drum and the tape and reduced friction - it sorta floated on air. My guess is the tape scraping over that much fixed drum actually caused more friction, and that the heads smacking into it might have had more impact on the fixed drum design.
Enjoyed it man. I love vintage tech. I have subscribed to your channel. Great seeing a 1969 video recorder. I was surprised it had a microchip board in it. I didn't think that technology was being used then I thought it was the late 70s. Makes me wonder how many other machines had it in as they transitioned over from cathode ray tube metal monsters to the micro tech/nano tech mini devices we have today. It blows my mind how I can film a HD+ video on my phone?!?-and upload it onto the Internet in minutes now over the internet. How advanced technology is now and how it's changed. I remember the big clunky consumer tech from the 80s where it was a novelty if someone had a video camera at a family gathering, otherwise people just didn't own one or use them. It was a company thing not a consumer thing back then. 😉😊😎😍
I used one of these in college and it seemed pretty revolutionary to me. I made and edited my first experimental videos on two of these. I still have a few reels of tape somewhere.
This video is fantastic buddy, you really make great content and it gives us a look into where we have been and how far we have come. Please keep up the awesome work and thank you for your effort!
I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you went to all the trouble of hooking up a bulky 1960s camcorder and the first video you played on it was Hank of the Hill.
I just noticed. "Bandwidth" means " Bandbreite" in German. The German word "Band" can be translated as "Ribbon" or "Tape". So "bandwidth" in German literally means the width of a tape.
A lot of the forerunner formats to the ones that reach mass adoption are Friggin weird. I love that it is open reel, which sort of seems like a bridge to the cartridged formats that made it big. I hope to one day need a spool like this from Thingiverse.
14:47 ...I just have to appreciate an old King of the Hill YTP being used to demonstrate this thing hahaha That REALLY caught me by surprise. Kind of *boggled* me if you will... ....I'll show myself out
How about the Akai potable 1/4 inch VCRs? In early January 1973 I made history with my Akai VT110 quarter inch reel-to-reel video recorder (explained later). This Sony 1/2inch recorder was the forerunner of the Akai I had. Also, this RUclips video was terrific and very educational even for someone who was 25 when the product was released and into video as a hobby. Great job Cathode Ray Dude!! Anyway, in January 1973 I was on a flight from Madrid Spain to New York City returning from a whirlwind trip to Europe. We were flying on a TWA 747. About an hour and a half out of Madrid, the captain made an announcement that our flight was the target of a terrorist bomb threat. It seemed if the Basque Separatists ransom demands were not met, the bomb on the plane would explode when the flight went below 3,000 ft. This was regarded as a valid threat by the authorities and we went through many scenarios including flying to Denver Colorado, altitude about 7,000 feet. Obviously, the threat proved benign but not without some tension on board. As I said earlier, I was returning from a pleasure trip that included Landon, Paris, Rome and Madrid over a two week period. For that trip, I had my newly purchase Akai "portable" VCR with me that I used to document the trip on board as my carry on. The RUclips (link below) is edited footage taken on that flight including interviews with several of the passengers on the plane. Interestingly, when I got interviewed on WCBS and WNET TV, my father recorded those interviews on a TV VCR that was part of a console TV in the appliance store he worked in. Later that week, I transferred those interview to my Akai machine to preserve them. My machine was stolen in 1974 but I have had the original tape in my garage until 2006. I found a service provider in Maine who had a working Akai VT110 who transferred that tape to an MP4 file for me. I then edited the file into the RUclips video you can view here ( ruclips.net/video/DYgAfYtplHw/видео.html ). As a postscript, Akai also sold a color version of the machine about a year later but that was too expensive for me at the time.
OH ya....the memories....at college, they had a 'video club'..... you could 'sign these out' for a day or weekend.... you didn't mention how much it weighed, I think the recorder itself was about 35 POUNDS.... I also remember the cameras cable 'breaking' just at the entrance to the camera, I cut off and resoldered at least 5 of them during my membership. I think I still own a tape that I recorded at a dorm party... too bad I can't watch it.....oh, and I think those tripod legs of the camera are for 'field viewing' of the taping because it could playback on that built-in viewfinder.....just my 2 cents....
In Jr high (early 80s) - I used to run one of these (same camera, later, larger tape deck) for taping basketball games in a dimly lit, 30s era gym with incandescent lights. You can imagine what those looked like. The cable would frequently flake out and need repair.
As for the heads, large spinning masses create large gyroscopic forces. Camera would "fight" any movement forced to it, if it had traditional head. I think. I wonder. What would be output with the tape of a vhs?
These were always used in schools and colleges in the early 70s. The only likely other buyers of these back in the day would be the wealthy. Even the portable video camera, portable video 're orders made prior to this would have been advertised as domestic. Domestic meaning not in a professional film studio. Just someone who had in today's money about 15k spare to buy one, like a school college or movie star. The first video recorder I saw in a private house was in 1974 and the guy owned a Chain of shops
I remember using one of these when I was in grade school I ran the thing (so much fun). Its called simply "Video Tape Recorder" or VTR for short. Great video, never thought I would see one of these again.
High School memories late 70's wow I was into electronics but one of my friends was in the TV production program I was always fixing their cables and so was he they had a couple of real to real black and white video recorders I found one years later fixed it played with it a couple days and lost interest sorry I didn't keep it but I have so much old electronics junk at this point. Fun video thanks for the memories😇
Unspool and thread a prerecorded VHS tape through it. It’s the same tape width right? Will it play just fine? Will there be an alignment issue or format problem? Will the color information in a modern VHS tape interfere?
It is said that Bob Crane used equipment like this to capture some of his private tapes in the early 1970's, the twin legs on the pistol grip for the camera would come in handy to help give good camera placement for such videos.
Never expected to see Tim and Rex "secret life of machines", and DurhamrockerZ YTP in a video about obscure reel to reel video tape deck from the 60's, let alone in the _same_ video. _This is recorded on sticky tape and rust!_
That drum design might be for portability. Like you say it is easier to balance, because it has a much lower rotating mass. In a portable player the gyroscopic effect of a large spinning drum might have adverse effects on recording. This design might also be lighter since you can make it thinner since the drum is only there for aligning the tape, if it was spinning it would have to be stiff enough to not wobble or warp at high speed. No idea if this is the case but feels like it could be the reason they chose to go this route.
Very interesting and fun! I just discovered this channel and love it! Its kind of like an american version of techmoan from the UK in the style tho not the least fun. Its great! Time to go watch a lot of stuff on here. :)
I have no knowledge of the detailed workings of this machine (other than what I learned from this awesome video) but as an amateur astronomer I can say that the three pairs of screws under the lens mount sure do look like the sort of push-pull system used for optical alignment in certain types of telescope.
Nice video! P.S, you can use the same cable you used to get video into the VTR to get a clean video signal out of it. There is a switch between "CAMERA" and "TV" right next to the EIAJ plug, and when it's TV mode it will send a video signal on the same pin that's used to input video. This was so you could review your footage on the camera's built in CRT viewfinder, or hook it up to a TV using an adapter cable that adapts the 10-pin EIAJ plug to an 8-pin multi connector that would plug into a TV (If I'm correct, the TV would use it's own internal tuner and send video from the tuner to the VTR using the same 8-pin to 10-pin cable and use the trigger pin to time recordings) Of course, tapping into the baseband signal before it's sent to the RF modulator is another way to do it, and the signals should be the same. I don't own a EIAJ VTR to test this, but I have do have a Panasonic portable VHS recorder and it uses the same EIAJ plug, and it sends composite video to the camera to be reviewed on the camera's CRT viewfinder. I also owned a General Electric (made by Panasonic) TV tuner/timer unit from 1981 and it actually uses the same EIAJ plug to connect to the VCR. I would assume you can use the EIAJ plug with a tuner,.
The description and animated demonstration of helical recording was so cool. I had no idea that's how video was stored on magnetic tape. It really is genius. Also I'm glad you decided to record youtube poop on a 1960s camera. You're probably the first, last, and only person who will ever do that.
I was part of an engineering club at university and we were located in the basement next to the dumpster area. We lived off of the discarded office furniture and computer supplies. I graduated in 2016, and most of the stuff there was pretty uninteresting; your typical filing cabinets, broken chairs, and dividers from the '90s and early 2000s, actual garbage, and discarded construction materials. But, every now and then, there'd be seriously interesting items such as old Apple computers and peripherals from the '80s to '90s, recorded media, and both consumer and professional A/V equipment from the '60s-'70s. At some point, the administration caught on to students taking this stuff and using it in clubs or bringing it home, and erected a cage around the entire area with a locking door. Right as the cage was being built, there was a stack of professional-grade equipment using the tape format in this video over in the e-waste section. I was seriously tempted to take one of the machines, but couldn't reasonably get away with it. I regret not having at least tried, BUT, I was able to get a tape reel, sealed in box. It's yours if you want it.
If it has not already been said, the reason that this machine doesn't have a large spinning drum is because of Gyroscopic errors. If you think about it, you have a large metal drum spinning at high speed, this drum is moved around and indeed carried sideways over the shoulder. A normal head drum couldn't cope with being moved around, so you have a spinning disc with the heads mounted on it, with no actual moving drum as such. I have had this problem with a U-matic portable that was being carried and not held still enough (swung around) recordings are useless. BTW I used this machine for many years for location recordings. Tapes suffer from sticky shed syndrome , so may need to be baked.
I was introduced to The Secret Life Of Machines by a very very good friend with impeccable taste. It is one of my favorite things, in line with the David McCauley type of learning I had growing up.
I think it was 1974 when my video direction and technics school bought one of these. Prior to this, we had been using the Akai 1/4" B/W video tape recorder, don't remember the model. It was fun, learning the intricacies of video signals, recording, etc...Carrying it around was something for strong people, but we were young. Nice video
Fantastic video. I bought one of these setups at a thrift store for $30. Unfortunately, the VTR only worked very intermittently. I couldn't justify keeping something this big with only partial functionality, so I had to let it go. Such a shame. I still use the matching camera though. It's cool because it's a piece of history, but virtually indistinct from any other black and white vidicon camera I've used. Did I really read somewhere that this machine actually only records half the scanlines, and then a doubles them to produce a 30FPS “progressive” signal? Maybe I’m getting confused with Cartrivision. I think the only color tube cameras that put out a good image are the 3-tube behemoths. I use an Ikegami HL-79E these days, and it produces a beautiful picture.
Oh wow, it's a bummer that your machine doesn't work but great that the camera does! What do you use it with? I've been wondering if it requires the H and V signals or if it can work without them. I believe you're right, that it only does 240 lines - called "skip-field" - and I assume that, yeah, it's functionally 240p30 instead of the very common 240p60 of later "double strike" video like game consoles use.
@@CathodeRayDude The camera doesn't require any external sync signals. It just works like any other 10-pin camera that I've used. I have a little box that supplies power to 10-pin cameras and outputs video and mono audio. Since my VTR didn't work, I stole the 10-pin jack out of it to make a portable power supply/video out. I'm in the process of trying to make everything I have portable. Side note: All black and white tube cameras are worth opening up and fiddling with in my opinion. You can adjust how much auto-exposure there is (I like none), and there's a trim-pot that changes the tube sensitivity at the cost (benefit) of making the comet-tailing super extreme.
Wow ... I really had thought, that Betamax, Video 2000 and VHS where the first ... which in fact they were, if you look at the number of sales, but not at all from a technical standpoint. You really filled a gap there! The expanation of the tilted drums and why it was sodesperately needed is the first I ever understood! I also didn't know about the Vidocon. I thought later Camcorders just had the advantege of having the recording mechanism inside. But it was obviously more about the image capturing method. Outstanding work!
Yep. That's why I always had a blast taking apart old TV's and videorecorders. Now I have to say that I had the luck of doing so in the nineties and zeroes, (I was born in 1988) and thus had the internet at hand to search for all those parts I wanted to know something about, so I could really do figure out what their function was, as opposed to the before-internet era which required expensive data-books from basically every series of semiconductors out there if you wanted to do the same. Can still remember the big old Phiips VHS machine from my dads sister I got to take apart. It was a full mechanical thing: the only that did work electronically was the lid, that popped open on the press of a button, but required a ton of solenoids and switches to get going (and once opened, you'd have to push it shut manually) The rest of the switches were all mechanical and took a serious amount of force to operate, just like me and my sister had trouble pussing REC ánd play on a audio-cassette recorder at age 5 or so, which (on the smaller portable machines like many were at the time) was a fully-mechanical operation as well. I still think that every youngster that has never seen a VCR from the inside in working order, should see it at some point, because it just boggles you to see all those arms, rollers and what not operate in perfect sync to reel the tape in. I can still remember it: my dad, who worked in the AV-industry somewhere from the end of the seventies till somewhere in the eighties and is quite the electronics guy. They had the equipment at hand to fully repair Sony U-matic machines, including all the hard adjustments one would have to make after replacing some critical part. Thus, when our VCR broke down halfway through the nineties, opening it up was normal. I was 7 or so but still remember seeing that thing with the lid off and all those mechanics and electronics working together...
You can't even simply sit the camera upright on a table or chair to record something, due to the power cable placement. I bet they put the power cable at the bottom to force you to buy either the pistol grip, or the tripod.
I'm excited for this potential future video on vidicon tubes, I understand nothing about them except that they're how we got pictures back from the Voyager probes
Glad to see Tim Hunkin referenced! For anyone unaware, he's started posting remastered copies of The Secret Life of Machines to his youtube channel, along with a whole series on his knowledge on components for tinkerers from his viewpoint of making arcade machines. :)
As he began discussing the difference between linear recording and helical recording, my first thought was, "I wonder if he'll demonstrate how a video head works the same way Tim Hunkin did."
I came down to say the same thing. Been loving the better quality versions. I mean they are still 1980s BBC quality but still better than the ones I downloaded years ago!
Seconded! Really pleased to see Tim and the show mentioned here. - I was watching that particular episode only the other day.
Two real standout memories from my childhood are visiting the Secret Life of the Home exhibition in the basement of the Science Museum in London, and that weird arcade on Southwold Pier in Suffolk. Only realised a couple years ago that they were the work of the same person. As CRD was talking about the VCR heads I remembered the demo from the musem and was pleasantly surprised when he brought up Tim's TV version. It's absolutely criminal that this channel doesn't get more views :)
When you look at those old videos, Tim Hunkin was basically the first RUclipsr before RUclips. Demoing how things worked with semi-dangerous experiments.
The "It sounds like this" when you played the crunchy tape audio killed me lmao, amazing vid!
IT DID
I want more of the this that it sounds like to be honest.
analog YTP voice
I liked it he sound. It was like the daleks from 1960s Dr who tv show lol maybe that's what they used? It would be a cool effect. 😊😉
Same here. Immediate thought: this could be fixed with some resistors, as soon as you'd know how many volts the reduction need be.
i remember each of these versions of video, i never really thought about what machines were capturing the images to begin with and just felt like our tvs and vcrs were getting better. super cool to see the rest of the story. i was engrossed in the video lol it was quite interesting well done
My school had this unit in the 70’s. We had the camera and external mic on a 20 foot cable. I remember the mic sounded really good when it was used close to a person speaking. I also remember the tape getting creased a lot due to the crazy two level reel system. Tape likes to stay straight. All those tilted rollers twisted it. I never got a perfect picture. There was always dropout bands in the video. This thing was loads of fun because it was like having your own TV station.
Consistently interesting content! Keep it up man :)
A linear power supply is basically nothing more than just a gigantic transformer and a rectifier, and in this era I wouldn't be all that surprised if half the machine was running on AC anyways.
Neat that it still works after so long, but pretty expected!
Is it the same type of device as the Akai VT-100 VTR Tape Videorecorder ? I found a cheap one (150euro in a second hand shop in France)
i love how the machine start slow an gain speed
The “rods” on the hand grip were used to tilt the camera for capturing titles made on a4 paper with the lens in micro mode according to the manual
This was common at the time even on local and some networks
In the Videorover II ad seen in the forgotten history of home video video, it looks like you would (also) use it to sit and review your recording on the camera's CRT viewfinder hands-free.
it also looked like a bracket on the grip would flip open and you cold rest it back on that to change the angle some.
Does open reel video tape of this age suffer from "sticky shed syndrome"?
@@ScottGrammer 1. Video tape is not back coated. 2. SSS has nothing to do with back coating. SSS is connected with substrate material made using lubricants derived from whale blubber during the early 70s oil crisis (instead of oil derived). Some Sony tapes are affected including quad video tape but I've not come across any 1/2 inch helical scan tape that is affected.
@@absinthedude At least one manufacturer, namely BASF made back-coated VHS tapes, it was advertised on the case of the cassette. And now, 25 years later, they are deteriorating horribly. No SSS, 'just' the back coating peels off, covering the whole VCR with black crud, and creating a lot of dropouts when the pieces find their way in between the tape and the video heads.
I have a prerecorded VHS (also on BASF tape, but I think it isn't back-coated), and it suffers from SSS, believe it or not. It doesn't contaminate the heads too badly, it just sticks to the different rollers in the tape path so badly that the transport cannot make enough torque to play it.
when you pulled out the camera and were like "this thing is probably close to working, it just needs a recap, which is way beyond my capabilities", i went "what, really? a recap is really not that difficult, just time consuming"
... and then you opened it, and i understood why you said that.
Was thinking exactly the same thing "Well honestly a recap can be fine, stick on a TV show and work away at it" But trying to tackle that thing... no....
the same series of thoughts passed through my head as when i opened an old ham radio for repair... like what the FUCK is happening in this magic box
its not so bad once you have it apart though.
@@jhoughjr1 It's the getting it back together that's fun. :)
no, it does not necessarily need a recap!! they dont always fail, they last much longer than many seem to think, and replacing is not a magic cure all or prevention of further failure!
nothing could've possibly prepared me for how literal "pistol grip" was
i was deadass serious, there is no better name
@@CathodeRayDude I bet they wanted the cable to go in it as some sort of lame strain relief. Or it was designed by 2 different divisions at Sony.
@@ntsecrets It looks like the plastic strain relief ring is doing double-duty and stopping the pistol part from rotating.
i was expecting some sort of joke after he revealed it, but no he was serious
This was common before, specially with super 8mm cameras
I used to use this exact camera/recorder back in the early '70's at school. My social studies class allowed it to be used to make student "documentaries". They were laughably bad, but it was great fun.
By far the biggest users of this equipment was the football team. The coaches had an obsessive desire to record and analyze games. I think a lot of the impetus to record games was that the other teams were doing it, so they had to as well.
Me too in college!
We had some flavor of this kind of machine when I was in school in the late 70s, I remember using it to record drama club rehearsals so the actors could review their performances from the audience's perspective.
I want this guy and LGR do an episode together, they would complement each other so much.
Imagining turning CRD loose on LGRs collections like a machine that only knows how to contextualize the shit out of everything
Or Technology Connections. Top 10 anime crossovers
And 8-Bit Guy, and Techmoan, and Nostalgia Nerd, and This Does Not Compute...
techmoan is a nice niche as well
I don't
For your Vidicon video: It’s very fun to consider that all of those glorious photos from the Voyager 1 and 2 missions (and I think photos from the Viking Orbiters) are from digital vidicon still cameras.
ooooo, good thinking, I'll try to remember that when I do a deeper dive on these.
Its from iphone
The audio reminded me of the bad guys on the original Half Life.
pickup that can
This thing is really significant, IMO, because it demonstrates bare-bones video recording without any complications. Show people this video and they’d instantly understand how VHS works, without all the extra moving parts and complications.
"The Secret Life of Machines" was one of the greatest series for someone who wanted to learn about basic engineering of household devices. It did not need any special production values and the host was so low key that you felt comfortable listening to him instead of being distracted by some bombastic loud-mouthed host. For those who honestly wanted to learn, the series was the greatest. Too bad there were so few episodes made. I especially enjoyed Hunkin's homemade contraptions.
I may date myself, but I actually used one of these in high school. We had one in our high school television station and used it to do on location interviews and for making commercials for local businesses. Thanks for sharing, brought back some cool memories of running a small high school tv station using 1/2” open reel tape machines.
if that was what was before Beta, then this is the one and only true Alpha from SONY :D
Isn’t Sony Alpha that interchangeable lens camera series?
Nah, you're thinking about Sony's U-Matic system, which beta was heavily based from.
The Portapak was an incredibly important piece of equipment. It revolutionised the art world. Andy Warhol, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik were all Portapak users. It put video in the hands of artists like no other equipment before.
I was about to say, Portapak was a huge innovation for video art, and early independent TV.
Ringo Starr had one at the end of the 60's, as seen in the new Get Back film. There is footage of them in India 😁 in colour 😁
I had no idea this even existed. I figured they were using U-Matic. After all, that hit the market not too long after this, IIRC. With all its faults, the equipment was so robust. I took a video production course at a community college when I was like 11 or 12 (back in the land before time, like 1992), and that's what we used. I loved those decks; they were mighty. ;-)
I'm from the era of this camera and recorder setup. Our high school A/V department made the one at Hawkins School in Stranger Things seem feeble. We had two of these cameras and decks and a switcher setup. We did a school news show that we would feature in the cafeteria on Fridays, (shown on an a 25" monitor in BW) and we had a video yearbook for 1978, so if you had Beta or The Great Time Machine by Quasar (VX format), we could maybe dub a copy for you.
1978 was just when the first RCA Select-A-Vision VHS decks came out but it was a little late for me, as I graduated that year. Our setup worked well as the school acquired ours around 1975, It didn’t hurt that my A/V teacher was married to a broadcast engineer at the local NBC affiliate, so if the decks or cameras needed service, he was ready to assist.
The thing you failed to mention was the price. $1,650 MSRP in 1972. Pretty steep. The first Betamax in the console with a Trinitron TV, the LV-1901 was $2,495, and the first standalone Betamax, the SL-7200 was $1,295. This was in 1975-76 money. I think The Great Time Machine (also ‘75) was $1,299 but I can’t find confirmation of that. Very interesting video.
Tons of schools, cable TV local access channels, and corporations used Porta-Paks. I used them all those ways, and never thought of them as a home format.
Sony marketed 'em as a home format in every ad that I've ever found; they *wanted* this thing to be the Betamovie, but yes, I think almost nobody actually bought one outside of institutions who had needs that made the quality and convenience factors moot.
@@CathodeRayDude I found ads and numerous editorial mentions of the Porta-Pak in a quick search (at www.worldradiohistory.com) in Broadcasting Magazine, from 1967 on. Note that a Porta-Pak cost $10-12000 in today's dollars, not really affordable by average consumers of the time. Sony may have wanted them to catch on for home recording, but the market was schools, new media creators and corporate AV. Later, there was considerable excitement in TV broadcast circles when a primitive timebase corrector was developed that allowed its EIAJ tapes to be broadcast in compliance with FCC Regulations. It was part of an important movement to democratize media creation and put it into the hands of individuals, small groups, and schools, cable TV and documentarians. The Porta-Pak was truly a revolution that with a bit more research, would be revealed to you.
You are such a great talent, very intelligent and interesting. You deserve way more subs than you have now, but I’m sure you will get there in no time at all.
Tone and delivery so natural, Unlike so many of the recent croup of youtubers who try too hard to fit a mould instead just being themselves. Thanks for reminding us of how natural sounds.
You're a great presenter, I love watching your detailed takes on obscure video and camera stuff no one but you and apparently me, and the rest of your audience seem to care about. Really look forward to your future productions. Those little flip out rods on the pistol grip are only to be used when the camera is off. Its so you can set the camera down in an upright position so you don't accidently damage or dislodge many of the haphazardly designed circuits and tubes inside if you were to just lop it on its side. If you were using this camera in situ you had to be very gentle, lol.
Based on ads from the time, the rods were also used so that you could watch back recorded footage on the viewfinder - that's why the ocular can be flipped up.
The first shows I made in 1971 were made on these. The editing was caveman tech. Thanks NFB. Retired now (on paper)
I'm sure I remember seeing a camera with that sort of look in the film, Apollo 13 both for the press on the ground and for the astronauts to do their broadcasts during the flight. It'll be interesting to see how these first examples of small video cameras worked at the time!
The Apollo TV cameras were speciality designed by RCA and Westinghouse for the Apollo missions. I think their similarities come from the similar need to be low power and light weight. The Wikipedia article on them is fascinating though.
New Cathode Ray Dude video is always a pleasant surprise.
My father went back to college in the mid 1970s for his masters program. I had to occupy myself in the Central Washington University library for 5 days a week. I think I was 7 or 8. I remember going through their catalog of lectures on this format. I was asking the Librarian so often to change the tape that she showed me how and left me to it. I dont know how many lectures I watched or even what they were about, but I had the power to choose a tape and start and stop it at will....... I think I spend as much time watching the reels spin as what was on the videos. Thanks for the memories.
This dude is doing Techmoan better than Techmoan and VWestlife better than VWestlife, step it up youtube algorithm
32:57 At least now you have an easy way to get a late 90s/early 2000s first person shooter radio chatter filter.
Crazy that for a lot of things, Tim Hunkin still rules at the best visual demonstration of how something works.
Tim Hunkin was an absolute genius. I aspire to his level of somewhat-un-self-aware but incredibly effective and down to earth teaching.
@@CathodeRayDude Still is, for anyone who hasn't check out his RUclips channel and new series "The Secret Life of Components".
@@CathodeRayDude as long as you don’t burn a whole pile of TVs at the end of one of your videos lol. (He actually did a video on his channel I think where he reflected on that moment)
21:31, that magical moment where suddenly, bam, *it becomes the ‘90s out of nowhere*
Pro tip: reverse one set of connectors so that it is impossible to connect with the wrong polarity.
Omg, PLEASE make that video about those reverse CRT recorder doohickeys! My smooth little brain can’t even begin to try to imagine how that technology works but I am fascinated and I need to know more but I don’t want to look it up myself because I’d rather hear you explain it to me first lol. No rush tho, I know you’re busy and I love all the content you’ve been coming out with 😌
it's REMARKABLY simple, like upsettingly so. I'll get started on a script.
ur the bomb dot com, thank u so much 🙏
21:30 Woah, that camera angle took me back to Zoom or Bill Nye the Science Guy.
(And I mean the PBS show, not the video-conferencing software)
Great machine. First decent portable for industrial production, no one used this for home work. Super 8 was the way.
From what I remember, the tubes in vintage studio cameras were huge, whereas by necessity, the portable cameras had much smaller tubes. And I think I'm right in saying studio colour tube systems had a tube each for red, green and blue, which again, you couldn't replicate on a portable - just a single tube mushing all the colours together, doing the work of three tubes, and getting a much lower quality image, on a lower bandwidth tape.
The tube were bigger for MUCH better quality. The lens was also huge to gather as much light as possible for a high depth of field. Some portable color cameras used only 2 tubes, but pro cameras used 3 tubes but they were smaller because the lens was a barrel type lens and wasnt thay great of quality.
Professional portable cameras DID use 3 tubes like the Norelco PCP-90
@@rty1955 Yup, the studio cameras had three tubes, about an inch across each sensor pickup, for the red, green and blue. The dynamic rage was far superior to what you see in these videos by Cathode Ray Dude and his older B/W tube cameras. You would be hard pressed to discern them from the early CCD studio cameras in quality, unless you pointed them at some studio lights or a very bright object, then you would get trailing streaks that were typical of tube cameras. The longer the streaks, generally indicated older, more used tubes, i.e. more hours on the tube. The CCU or Camera Control Unit would allow you to color balance the studio cameras to each other, so skin tones matched, etc. This was usually done once a day, and sometimes before each show, especially with older cameras. But once CCD came along, the stability of the solid state pickup generally meant you only had to color balance them occasionally, and a white and back balance was enough to get them close.
@@marcusdamberger until the advent of Plumbicons tubes in professional cameras which Norelco used on the PC60, PC70 and the portable PCP-90, most of the pickup tubes were the RCA design. CBS and ABC quickly adopted Norelco cameras. The Carol Burnett show was shot at CBS using these cameras. Since NBC was owned by RCA you had to use thier cameras.
And the RCA design would go out of balance & registration during a show! Plumbicons were much more stable and you had way more control of each tube than a CCD.
When you set up the cameras you had to set up each camera, not only for registration but for color linearity as each tube responded differently to different colors. Inside there was dicroic filters to split the image into each primary colors then each color had a separate path to each tube.
To setup each camera you would have the camera pointed at a "chip" chart, which are two a b&w scales that ran opposite each other on an 18% gray card. You placed the green channel on a waveform monitor and adjusted it to give a perfect "X" On the scope with the center of the "x" being in the center of the scope. You then turned on the red channel and overplayed it with the green one and adjusted the controls (gamma, blk, & gain) to match the green one. U shut off the red and did the same fir the blue channel. You then had to adjust ALL the camera to be the same. This is why color drift was a major PITA during a show. Often you would see in a studio a "chip" chart odd to the side so during commercial breaks and even during a shown you would see a camera swing icer to the chart to correct it.
Plumbicons also had a warmth to them which the RCA tubes didnt
I restore Ampex 2' Quad video tape machines
I've never seen one that was personally, owned. But it was used by schools. Yeah, it may be horrible, but compared to what? Super 8mm didn't get sound until 1973, and you still had to send it out for developing. Short of going to a real TV studio, this was the only way you could see yourself or something you were involved in. The whole idea of the portapak was to go out to the action. I've used later versions of that model. As I recall, the 5" reels were good for 30 minutes. 20 minutes if you used the self-threading version. There was an optional adapter that would allow it to record in color. To playback in color, you needed a docking station. I'd say this created the start of what later became the community channel on cable. Allowing induvial and small groups to bring their work to a wider community.
Gravis is such a lovable, relatable, good humored human. I enjoy his commitment to the truth, personal honesty, and especially his sense of humor! Thanks for the dope videos that I rewatch on an embarrassingly regular basis ! Awesome content. Can’t get enough.
I always see these things and want to run out and buy one then I think to myself - I would never have a purpose for this. I have a 90s Canon Point and shoot that takes amazing pictures for a point and shoot from that era - it was $600 when it was new so I guess. But even then I rarely use that. :/ At least I can live vicariously through you.
34 dense-packed minutes, unlike other *ejem* youtubes, cannot take my eyes off it, great, funny. So much work to make this. Thanks!
That size lead batteries were still used in buglar alarms around the turn of the millennium. Well stocked parts resellers should still be able to supply them.
I did watch your documentary, and it was bloody brilliant.
New CRD! I'm here for IT!!!!
As I said before, this is like LGR Oddware but even better. Outstanding presentation, insanely interesting and enjoyable to watch. Thanks for the video!
Love that TEAC! Great machines those are. The early 80s models are super cool because the have the SYNC mode for recording, meaning you can actually record new material in real time with something previously recorded on a different day! Great video btw, I learn so much about things when i watch these because of how well researched they are. I think these 30 min to an hour long videos hit the sweet spot of information vs pacing, so i'd stick to that format. Would love some more PC Mag streams as well because those were so much fun!
14:50
...this fucking guy put Hank Of The Hill onto his tape to demonstrate his ancient camcorder
I always love seeing this early stuff. I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s and camcorders were fun, but they were just plastic bricks with buttons.
Yeah, but the strange thing is, you would get a LOT of things that many people these days start nagging about their 'videocamera' does not have (read: photocamera that happens to be able to take videos as well).
What really strikes me is how many youngsters just don't even know how to use a real camcorder these days (and no, I'm not talking about the old ones working with a cassette, but modern ones that just record on SD-cards).
They don't know how to start recording, even though that record-button is at the most logical spot you can imagine if you were born in the eighties as EVERY camcorder had that button at the same spot, just like the zoom-rocker: every camcorder has had the zoom-rocker in the same place for decades, but they just don't know it. Even a friend of mine, who is 5 years younger, could not figure it out, not even when I said 'do you feel that seesaw kind of thing under your middle- and index finger? That controls your zoom.'
We didn't know better back then and people who have had their days as a kid (or adult of course) recorded with devices back then and managed to preserve those recordings, should just cherish what they have. We tend to look back on old technology and only look at their drawbacks, while basically they enabled us to do something we couldn't before.
And to put this into perspective: many people with a smartphone still record videos that are just videos as being taken with a plastic brick with buttons. 4K or not, it's just as un-interesting to watch most of the time as when back in the days many families had camcorders.
The tripod stand on the pistol grip wasn't for positioning the camera while recording. The camera had playback capability as well, displaying the image on that teeny, tiny crt in the viewfinder. You could open up the tripod legs, place the camera on a desk at the perfect viewing angle, flip up the viewfinder, and check out your recorded footage without the need to hook the deck up to a monitor.
The bipod kinda makes sense in the context of health science use. Maybe they filmed dissections or something else needing tabletop macro 🤔
@@graealex Not if you had good lighting.
@@graealex Well, if a university bought the camera, they very likely bought the lighting system to go with. j/s.
@@graealex 🤷🏻 See prior point. They didn't buy it to not use it. To use it, and properly, we can gather that the lighting was on hand. Lmao stop.
@@graealex I shot hundreds of dissections for the University Anatomy Department in the 80s. There's a high-tech solution called turning the lights on! It did make the studio rather smelly but the ventilation cleared it fairly quickly. I'll never forget one day we finished shooting a dissection pretty late and rather than taking the body back down to the Dissection Lab we stowed it in the workshop off the studio (as it was always quite cold in there). We were shooting part 2 the next morning. First thing the next day, one of my technicians wandered into the workshop without turning the lights on to collect something or other, tripped over the corpse and landed flat out on top of it. I always thought you had to be dead to turn the colour he was for the next hour or two! It's very strange, but he always turned the lights on after that. Happy Days!
For best results, read EIAJ in the E A SPORTS voice
I kindof like this design better than a spinning head: it probably means less wear on the tape.
Maybe, maybe not. The spinning drum had little grooves on it that let air in between the drum and the tape and reduced friction - it sorta floated on air. My guess is the tape scraping over that much fixed drum actually caused more friction, and that the heads smacking into it might have had more impact on the fixed drum design.
But you also have to touch the tape with your hands, meaning considerably more risk
Enjoyed it man. I love vintage tech. I have subscribed to your channel. Great seeing a 1969 video recorder. I was surprised it had a microchip board in it. I didn't think that technology was being used then I thought it was the late 70s. Makes me wonder how many other machines had it in as they transitioned over from cathode ray tube metal monsters to the micro tech/nano tech mini devices we have today. It blows my mind how I can film a HD+ video on my phone?!?-and upload it onto the Internet in minutes now over the internet. How advanced technology is now and how it's changed. I remember the big clunky consumer tech from the 80s where it was a novelty if someone had a video camera at a family gathering, otherwise people just didn't own one or use them. It was a company thing not a consumer thing back then. 😉😊😎😍
I used one of these in college and it seemed pretty revolutionary to me. I made and edited my first experimental videos on two of these. I still have a few reels of tape somewhere.
CRD is the US version of TechMoan…. Well done video!
Thank you, that is an enormous compliment, he is a great inspiration. Thanks for watching!
This video is fantastic buddy, you really make great content and it gives us a look into where we have been and how far we have come. Please keep up the awesome work and thank you for your effort!
Not many consumers had them because they were very expensive. 2500 in 1969, and that was more than a new car
I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you went to all the trouble of hooking up a bulky 1960s camcorder and the first video you played on it was Hank of the Hill.
DALLAS
@@CathodeRayDude SALLAD
I just noticed.
"Bandwidth" means " Bandbreite" in German.
The German word "Band" can be translated as "Ribbon" or "Tape".
So "bandwidth" in German literally means the width of a tape.
A lot of the forerunner formats to the ones that reach mass adoption are Friggin weird. I love that it is open reel, which sort of seems like a bridge to the cartridged formats that made it big. I hope to one day need a spool like this from Thingiverse.
14:47 ...I just have to appreciate an old King of the Hill YTP being used to demonstrate this thing hahaha
That REALLY caught me by surprise. Kind of *boggled* me if you will...
....I'll show myself out
"I'm surprised it doesn't have zerk fittings" - now that's an idea... Shame it's a collector's item...
Vidicon tubes are art. They are so beautiful if you look a the tube itself. I have one sitting on my mantle.
Hahah I have 3 Plumbicon tubes here
It’s utterly useless but it’s exactly the sort of thing I want
How about the Akai potable 1/4 inch VCRs?
In early January 1973 I made history with my Akai VT110 quarter inch reel-to-reel video recorder (explained later). This Sony 1/2inch recorder was the forerunner of the Akai I had. Also, this RUclips video was terrific and very educational even for someone who was 25 when the product was released and into video as a hobby. Great job Cathode Ray Dude!!
Anyway, in January 1973 I was on a flight from Madrid Spain to New York City returning from a whirlwind trip to Europe. We were flying on a TWA 747. About an hour and a half out of Madrid, the captain made an announcement that our flight was the target of a terrorist bomb threat. It seemed if the Basque Separatists ransom demands were not met, the bomb on the plane would explode when the flight went below 3,000 ft. This was regarded as a valid threat by the authorities and we went through many scenarios including flying to Denver Colorado, altitude about 7,000 feet. Obviously, the threat proved benign but not without some tension on board.
As I said earlier, I was returning from a pleasure trip that included Landon, Paris, Rome and Madrid over a two week period. For that trip, I had my newly purchase Akai "portable" VCR with me that I used to document the trip on board as my carry on. The RUclips (link below) is edited footage taken on that flight including interviews with several of the passengers on the plane.
Interestingly, when I got interviewed on WCBS and WNET TV, my father recorded those interviews on a TV VCR that was part of a console TV in the appliance store he worked in. Later that week, I transferred those interview to my Akai machine to preserve them. My machine was stolen in 1974 but I have had the original tape in my garage until 2006. I found a service provider in Maine who had a working Akai VT110 who transferred that tape to an MP4 file for me. I then edited the file into the RUclips video you can view here ( ruclips.net/video/DYgAfYtplHw/видео.html ).
As a postscript, Akai also sold a color version of the machine about a year later but that was too expensive for me at the time.
OH ya....the memories....at college, they had a 'video club'..... you could 'sign these out' for a day or weekend.... you didn't mention how much it weighed, I think the recorder itself was about 35 POUNDS.... I also remember the cameras cable 'breaking' just at the entrance to the camera, I cut off and resoldered at least 5 of them during my membership. I think I still own a tape that I recorded at a dorm party... too bad I can't watch it.....oh, and I think those tripod legs of the camera are for 'field viewing' of the taping because it could playback on that built-in viewfinder.....just my 2 cents....
In Jr high (early 80s) - I used to run one of these (same camera, later, larger tape deck) for taping basketball games in a dimly lit, 30s era gym with incandescent lights. You can imagine what those looked like. The cable would frequently flake out and need repair.
As for the heads, large spinning masses create large gyroscopic forces. Camera would "fight" any movement forced to it, if it had traditional head. I think.
I wonder. What would be output with the tape of a vhs?
These were always used in schools and colleges in the early 70s.
The only likely other buyers of these back in the day would be the wealthy.
Even the portable video camera, portable video 're orders made prior to this would have been advertised as domestic.
Domestic meaning not in a professional film studio.
Just someone who had in today's money about 15k spare to buy one, like a school college or movie star.
The first video recorder I saw in a private house was in 1974 and the guy owned a Chain of shops
I remember using one of these when I was in grade school I ran the thing (so much fun). Its called simply "Video Tape Recorder" or VTR for short. Great video, never thought I would see one of these again.
High School memories late 70's wow I was into electronics but one of my friends was in the TV production program I was always fixing their cables and so was he they had a couple of real to real black and white video recorders I found one years later fixed it played with it a couple days and lost interest sorry I didn't keep it but I have so much old electronics junk at this point. Fun video thanks for the memories😇
Unspool and thread a prerecorded VHS tape through it. It’s the same tape width right? Will it play just fine? Will there be an alignment issue or format problem? Will the color information in a modern VHS tape interfere?
It is said that Bob Crane used equipment like this to capture some of his private tapes in the early 1970's, the twin legs on the pistol grip for the camera would come in handy to help give good camera placement for such videos.
Never expected to see Tim and Rex "secret life of machines", and DurhamrockerZ YTP in a video about obscure reel to reel video tape deck from the 60's, let alone in the _same_ video.
_This is recorded on sticky tape and rust!_
That drum design might be for portability. Like you say it is easier to balance, because it has a much lower rotating mass. In a portable player the gyroscopic effect of a large spinning drum might have adverse effects on recording.
This design might also be lighter since you can make it thinner since the drum is only there for aligning the tape, if it was spinning it would have to be stiff enough to not wobble or warp at high speed.
No idea if this is the case but feels like it could be the reason they chose to go this route.
Very interesting and fun! I just discovered this channel and love it! Its kind of like an american version of techmoan from the UK in the style tho not the least fun. Its great! Time to go watch a lot of stuff on here. :)
That is the very first Video recorder I used in 1985. Editing was really hard to do with two machines.
I have no knowledge of the detailed workings of this machine (other than what I learned from this awesome video) but as an amateur astronomer I can say that the three pairs of screws under the lens mount sure do look like the sort of push-pull system used for optical alignment in certain types of telescope.
Nice video! P.S, you can use the same cable you used to get video into the VTR to get a clean video signal out of it. There is a switch between "CAMERA" and "TV" right next to the EIAJ plug, and when it's TV mode it will send a video signal on the same pin that's used to input video. This was so you could review your footage on the camera's built in CRT viewfinder, or hook it up to a TV using an adapter cable that adapts the 10-pin EIAJ plug to an 8-pin multi connector that would plug into a TV (If I'm correct, the TV would use it's own internal tuner and send video from the tuner to the VTR using the same 8-pin to 10-pin cable and use the trigger pin to time recordings) Of course, tapping into the baseband signal before it's sent to the RF modulator is another way to do it, and the signals should be the same.
I don't own a EIAJ VTR to test this, but I have do have a Panasonic portable VHS recorder and it uses the same EIAJ plug, and it sends composite video to the camera to be reviewed on the camera's CRT viewfinder. I also owned a General Electric (made by Panasonic) TV tuner/timer unit from 1981 and it actually uses the same EIAJ plug to connect to the VCR. I would assume you can use the EIAJ plug with a tuner,.
Absolutely incredible! Awesome vid!!
The description and animated demonstration of helical recording was so cool. I had no idea that's how video was stored on magnetic tape. It really is genius.
Also I'm glad you decided to record youtube poop on a 1960s camera. You're probably the first, last, and only person who will ever do that.
I was part of an engineering club at university and we were located in the basement next to the dumpster area. We lived off of the discarded office furniture and computer supplies. I graduated in 2016, and most of the stuff there was pretty uninteresting; your typical filing cabinets, broken chairs, and dividers from the '90s and early 2000s, actual garbage, and discarded construction materials. But, every now and then, there'd be seriously interesting items such as old Apple computers and peripherals from the '80s to '90s, recorded media, and both consumer and professional A/V equipment from the '60s-'70s. At some point, the administration caught on to students taking this stuff and using it in clubs or bringing it home, and erected a cage around the entire area with a locking door. Right as the cage was being built, there was a stack of professional-grade equipment using the tape format in this video over in the e-waste section. I was seriously tempted to take one of the machines, but couldn't reasonably get away with it. I regret not having at least tried, BUT, I was able to get a tape reel, sealed in box. It's yours if you want it.
"Hank of the Hill" RUclips poop on media from 1969 is its own aesthetic.
If it has not already been said, the reason that this machine doesn't have a large spinning drum is because of Gyroscopic errors. If you think about it, you have a large metal drum spinning at high speed, this drum is moved around and indeed carried sideways over the shoulder. A normal head drum couldn't cope with being moved around, so you have a spinning disc with the heads mounted on it, with no actual moving drum as such. I have had this problem with a U-matic portable that was being carried and not held still enough (swung around) recordings are useless. BTW I used this machine for many years for location recordings. Tapes suffer from sticky shed syndrome , so may need to be baked.
Already subscribed and also a patreon contributor :). Hope the YT algorithm blesses this amazing work 😊👍
Fantastic stuff as per usual, keep up the excellent work 🙂👍
DurhamrockerZ Hank of the Hill references arent something I expect in my retro tech videos, but damn if it isn't appreciated.
Oh heck yeah new CRD!!
Also was NOT expecting to see The Secret Life of Machines mentioned here. I watched that show growing up!
I was introduced to The Secret Life Of Machines by a very very good friend with impeccable taste. It is one of my favorite things, in line with the David McCauley type of learning I had growing up.
There was similar looking machine in our school in 1970's. ( In Finland)
21:26 very curious what word you censored there... 😂 "Fucking" maybe?
Is there anything that would prevent the recording of color signals other than bandwidth of the tape?
This guy out here putting Durhamrockerz Hank of The Hill on 1960s video equipment
That is a cool and informative video, you've just got yourself a new subscriber. :-)
I think it was 1974 when my video direction and technics school bought one of these. Prior to this, we had been using the Akai 1/4" B/W video tape recorder, don't remember the model. It was fun, learning the intricacies of video signals, recording, etc...Carrying it around was something for strong people, but we were young. Nice video
Fantastic video.
I bought one of these setups at a thrift store for $30. Unfortunately, the VTR only worked very intermittently. I couldn't justify keeping something this big with only partial functionality, so I had to let it go. Such a shame. I still use the matching camera though. It's cool because it's a piece of history, but virtually indistinct from any other black and white vidicon camera I've used.
Did I really read somewhere that this machine actually only records half the scanlines, and then a doubles them to produce a 30FPS “progressive” signal? Maybe I’m getting confused with Cartrivision.
I think the only color tube cameras that put out a good image are the 3-tube behemoths. I use an Ikegami HL-79E these days, and it produces a beautiful picture.
Oh wow, it's a bummer that your machine doesn't work but great that the camera does! What do you use it with? I've been wondering if it requires the H and V signals or if it can work without them.
I believe you're right, that it only does 240 lines - called "skip-field" - and I assume that, yeah, it's functionally 240p30 instead of the very common 240p60 of later "double strike" video like game consoles use.
@@CathodeRayDude The camera doesn't require any external sync signals. It just works like any other 10-pin camera that I've used. I have a little box that supplies power to 10-pin cameras and outputs video and mono audio. Since my VTR didn't work, I stole the 10-pin jack out of it to make a portable power supply/video out. I'm in the process of trying to make everything I have portable.
Side note: All black and white tube cameras are worth opening up and fiddling with in my opinion. You can adjust how much auto-exposure there is (I like none), and there's a trim-pot that changes the tube sensitivity at the cost (benefit) of making the comet-tailing super extreme.
Wow ... I really had thought, that Betamax, Video 2000 and VHS where the first ... which in fact they were, if you look at the number of sales, but not at all from a technical standpoint. You really filled a gap there! The expanation of the tilted drums and why it was sodesperately needed is the first I ever understood! I also didn't know about the Vidocon. I thought later Camcorders just had the advantege of having the recording mechanism inside. But it was obviously more about the image capturing method. Outstanding work!
I find the simplicity of this old tech compelling. When you're actually able to understand what everything does, it somehow makes it more intriguing.
Yep. That's why I always had a blast taking apart old TV's and videorecorders. Now I have to say that I had the luck of doing so in the nineties and zeroes, (I was born in 1988) and thus had the internet at hand to search for all those parts I wanted to know something about, so I could really do figure out what their function was, as opposed to the before-internet era which required expensive data-books from basically every series of semiconductors out there if you wanted to do the same.
Can still remember the big old Phiips VHS machine from my dads sister I got to take apart. It was a full mechanical thing: the only that did work electronically was the lid, that popped open on the press of a button, but required a ton of solenoids and switches to get going (and once opened, you'd have to push it shut manually)
The rest of the switches were all mechanical and took a serious amount of force to operate, just like me and my sister had trouble pussing REC ánd play on a audio-cassette recorder at age 5 or so, which (on the smaller portable machines like many were at the time) was a fully-mechanical operation as well.
I still think that every youngster that has never seen a VCR from the inside in working order, should see it at some point, because it just boggles you to see all those arms, rollers and what not operate in perfect sync to reel the tape in. I can still remember it: my dad, who worked in the AV-industry somewhere from the end of the seventies till somewhere in the eighties and is quite the electronics guy. They had the equipment at hand to fully repair Sony U-matic machines, including all the hard adjustments one would have to make after replacing some critical part.
Thus, when our VCR broke down halfway through the nineties, opening it up was normal. I was 7 or so but still remember seeing that thing with the lid off and all those mechanics and electronics working together...
You can't even simply sit the camera upright on a table or chair to record something, due to the power cable placement. I bet they put the power cable at the bottom to force you to buy either the pistol grip, or the tripod.
I'm excited for this potential future video on vidicon tubes, I understand nothing about them except that they're how we got pictures back from the Voyager probes
Find someone to fix that camera. It would be awesome to see it working.