The audience for this was not really people in their bedrooms. They were for people who needed to do a physical print of a frame of video. Think people who made games for box cover screenshots or reviewed video games for magazines and many other uses. The hard way was trying to take a 35mm picture of a TV screen for those screen shots. The easy way was using something like this.
I would say this was a smaller cousin of the CRV disc that was used mainly in medical equipment but was also used by some TV stations for transmitting idents and repeatedly used programme captions. The CRV disc was a recordable laserdisc which came in a 12" heavy plastic caddy, but the disc itself was about 10" wide. I have a machine of this format at home.
@mbvideoselection - yeah the CRV discs were cool 'as. I have seen them in action but alas I don't own one, more the pity, you need deep pockets to play with that stuff. The BBC used a modified version of it here for playing idents etc. Thanks for the comment mate, I'm going to look in to some medical imaging stuff :)
I got to play around with one of these in school! We had an entire rack full of these because we produced broadcasts for the entire district, and I would be one of the kids responsible for pulling stills for localised productions. Either "commercial" breaks (basically stills of kids from the district who wanted a shoutout or did something noteworthy) news shorts, sometimes I'd be pulled in for helping with the PTA meetings. We did all kinds of things with these and they were pretty fun to play around with. I got to keep an entire stack of disks when they started phasing these out and I wish I still had those. They're long gone in a landfill or on someone's "wtf is this ish" retro collection shelf by now. Most memorable event was the time we got a kid suspended because he was caught in a still looking at a... nono site on a classroom computer while some stills were being recorded. He was able to quickly switch to another screen but there were plenty of frames to get a clear picture of what he was looking at. The girl who was cutting the stills started HOWLING with laughter and caught everyone's attention, so our producer, not knowing what she was laughing at because she couldn't speak, put up her deck on our main display for everyone to see. It was blurry but there was enough there that you could clearly see what the two were doing on the monitor.
Ah I'm so cool to hear that it has jogged some memories for you! It's great to fill in another peice of the puzzle as to what these were being used for. Thanks for sharing that @kitbuny! Andy
In elementary school in the early 90s, I got to use a Xapshot camera that used these disks. I don't remember much about the project, aside from my pictures being edited into a video with analog-video editing equipment (beige boxes with lots of buttons and controls). But yah, "still video cameras" that saved pictures to these disks were used in video production.
Just for clarity, now this may be seen by a more international audience. 00:34 *Susanna Hoffs* 00:35 *Belinda Carlisle* 00:39 *Whitney Houston* They're all pretty self explanatory. 00:42 *Kim Wilde* 01:03 *Belinda* (again) 01:05 *Lizzie Webb* aka. "Mad Lizzie" - that's very much a UK thing, she was a general irritant or pioneering exercise instructor who appeared on the UK's original _Good Morning Britain_ when it was TV-am in the 1980s. Famous for being slightly bonkers and doing some odd interpretative dance exercise routines at 0730 in the bloody morning... Little has been heard of her since, but she's still a household name. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Nov2tY1GSzw.htmlsi=3S_gXO4Gcxl4rCa- 01:09 *Bob Holness* , (late), the fatherly yet kind host of major ratings winner and daily gameshow 'Blockbusters', the saxophone bit will be known by Brits, there's a whole story about an urban legend that Bob Holness played the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty's _Baker Street_ which of course he didn't, but it's a rumour that still doesn't die. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HcQ63_MD1Zk.htmlsi=LBiMTCXOm8DYbhQg 01:14 Soo! Yep, general funsponge and foil to Sooty and.... 13:25 *Sweep* legendary puppet dude-dog who communicated through bizarre squeeks. He's been on British TV since 1956 and has played a big part in the life for generations of kids. He was naughty but kind. Soo used to try and spoil his fun as much as possible. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MqcinlOYIyc.htmlsi=I9tANVppxQgysE0f
I first encountered this system in around 1988/89. it was the canon one. Then again in 1997. Up until the late 90's/early 2000's, UK Auto Trader used to send an agent out to see your car and take photos for the advert in the magazine. They were using Canon Ion Video Still cameras when i joined. They moved on to Mavica's with 3.5" floppy disks and then to "normal" digital cameras. Once digital cameras became ubiquitous, Auto Trader stopped using agents and the advertisers would send in their own pics. When i first saw it in the 80's it blew me away. it was a company my sister worked for that were on the cutting edge of tech at the time and they used to get all the cool toys in!
2:15 SCREENSHOTS!!! That is one obvious usecase. Security cameras. Imagine being the prosecutor and you get to hold up a printout of the very frame where the murderer fires his gun at the target. There are many, many professional uses for this.
@@robustreviews really looking forward to seeing some of the VTRs in detail. My dad bought a video camera in 1982 (maybe?) it was a tube camera with a long umbilical to a VHS-C deck. I was 10. Hooked. Set up a studio in my bedroom. Curiously I self taught myself things that were production techniques. I would have given my right arm for a genlocked edit deck and vision mixer. Waited a long time to play with the real stuff. I work in high-end TV now (dramas for the streamers mostly). Keep the work going bruv. If you set up a Patreon I will support you.
Wow, what a great quality yt content :) great stuff man. I’m really happy that yt recommended this to me this evening. Anyways, curious to see how it actually saved to disk… won’t be googling this out i’ll wait for part 2. Cheers from Poland.
Thanks so much @bajerle - this video was made about 2 years ago and uploaded to my old channel. I’ll get it again and make part 2 as it’s actually more interesting than I thought. Thanks for the positive comments mate 🙏
Honoured! Remarks like that truly mean a lot to me, I’m learning and I’ve changed my style and improved a lot since then but I’m flattered by remarks like this. Pleasure to have you on board @WhatALoadOfTosca!
Back in 1995 we invaded Bosnia to stop the war and in 1996 we were issued Sony Mavica cameras and a bunch of floppies so that evidence of mass graves could be collected. That's all I remember now when I hear or see a "Sony Mavica". Decaying bodies.
Great video as usual. So much I didn't know. I've never heard of the format. Never even heard of those Sony cameras or boxes. Love the '85 big hair on that woman. LOL. I watch all your videos, but if I didn't, a Susanna Hoffs thumbnail would have pulled me in (she was on display at the end).
Aww cheers mate, normal service will resume soon - I’m away again with work this week but the Radtel video will be up shortly. Ha, well she’s still looking rather lovely even in 2024 and she was very, very pretty. But, I’m a Belinda fan boy at heart 👌 thanks as always mate.
I can see a use for it. In retail it could be used to display a slideshow. Also in a theatre, for example. In business you could load it with a PowerPoint.
I was curious about these after seeing a VF camera in a photography class, judging from the comments it sounds like it was pretty common for education? Nowadays it’s Canon DSLRs, or phones if you’re in a pinch. They look good enough in a yearbook if you don’t crop too closely or blow them up, occasionally better than DSLR shots because people kept messing up white balance and exposure on those. Thinking about it now, the photography and yearbook classes should really be more integrated, in yearbook you sat through a slideshow about settings and then they sent you out with cameras. In photography we dove much deeper into that.
I used that format for a project in school once in the late 90s. I had a Canon camera and a Mac with analog capture capabilities. I could thus do some rudimentary desktop publishing despite lacking a digital camera. I saw another comment hinting at me not being the only one doing something similar. The best thing is that I have a feeling that I may even have the pictures captured archived somewhere (yeah, digital hoarding at its best). I still have the camera somewhere in the parents house. I do wonder if there’s anything readable left on those disks.
That does make good sense @jhonwask - I know they did see a bit of use in lowly-broadcast stuff but that could be a brilliant use for them and I suspect that's where they could have ended up. Thanks for the comment :)
Ah it doesn’t, it kinda cheats. It is like a quasi-SECAM thing that’s re-heterodyned under the luma. That’s what I need to make part II about but that’ll be a more techie video. It used alternate colour that’s FM modulated so it’s kinda (if you squint) more like SECAM. Good spot though!
@@robustreviews You should definitely do another video on this. You can tell just by looking at it there's a really clever trick being used for it to work.
Ugh, I kick myself for passing on one of these cameras for cheap at a pawn shop in the early 00's. I also like how this is kinda like laserdisc in a way.
Yeah they’re a bit of an odd one. I’ve got something similar (boxed new) to show in the next week or two that’s an odd duck that doesn’t really fit in any category. Thanks for the comment mate.
I have the Canon Ion Cameras which uses VF Disk and the Digitizer Board for (old) PC. It's interesting what you can get out of these Cameras, but I imagine that even bach than (my Set is from 1992) it was only usable if it must go really fast. With 1 Hour Photo development, or at bigger Companies, with own Darkrooms, 35mm was still the best Option with way better Picture Quality.
I've not used the cameras (expect the later digital Mavica) I would find it fascinating to use one to see what's possible with them. Yep, a field of PAL or NTSC was never going to equal 35mm (it's also in the 'wrong' aspect ratio. Have you got a video about your digitiser? I'd love to see it. Thanks for the comment :)
All magnetic disks are analogue, its what you do to the analogue signal that counts. Old dram is analogue too (modern ram has a digital interface built in)
I had the companion TBC unit for this system, the Sony MPU-F100 for use with a Video Toaster (the demo video on my channel actually uses it as a frame sync). All the references to "ProMavica" really threw me for a loop and why would it need a TBC/Framesync? Well silly me, because it was analog.
Hi mate! Yep that makes sense, I don’t have the frame sync’ but it would have been used in conjunction with one as you say on broadcast duty. I’d love to have a play with a VideoToaster system, that’s my kinda nerdy stuff. Thanks buddy!
80s video didn't look anything like that. People today believe, for reasons I do not understand, that the past consisted of really bad video. But it was being viewed in the medium it was meant for. Capturing analog tape digitally is extremely difficult. The video always looks way worse, though some people have it down. vwest-life can capture it correctly.
I know mate, and trust me, I know a thing or two about VT, and I can capture it properly, you’re welcome to come and see my racks of For.As, rare and exotic machines (not many formats I can’t capture) or several years proving digitised broadcast VT for several major broadcasters. But, I do see your point, it’s a cultural shorthand and it gets a bit of interest, and usually I don’t like it. That said it was a throwaway little bit of silliness. But I “know my VT” as you’ll see. I have lots of weird formats to show soon 👍 Thanks for the comment though mate, I do get where you’re coming from, but I don’t need to be told how to capture colour-under video tape in the “real world” 😂 Stick around mate, I do appreciate the comment,
@@robustreviews I wasn't trying to be overcritical of you. It's just that a lot of people believe that NTSC was extremely poor quality. I apologize if it was taken that way. I don't know, given your background why you fail to see its uses back then (I posted this in a different comment). One that jumped right out at me was game companies and game magazines. While Nintendo and Sega probably had something more advanced for doing this, the small production shops probably didn't. One problem CRTs really did have was poor brightness. You cannot even see most CRT TVs outside unless it is well shaded, definitely not in bright sunlight. Given most, especially in the 80s, CRTs were curved, along with poor brightness made them notoriously difficult to take a picture of (suitable for the magazine article or screen shots on the box), not to mention motion blur if it is not a still screen.
It’s cool mate, don’t worry! It was just one of those things, I was in agreement really. I actually did make a video years ago about real VHS capture (proper) vs overused VHS effects. It was just a bit of mirth though, no offence taken at all. Like I said, I find it a bit annoying too but it kinda is a shorthand that communicates the point. I hope you stick around mate, you’ve made some good points and I have lots of odd machines to show off 👍 Andy
@@christo930to be fair, there was a lot of poor quality video back then. Consumer level was awful, but you could tell the difference between something captured on film and something recorded on video. The lenses also seemed to be worse in poor lighting today, likely because the digital cameras today are so bad they have to use complex algorithms to make the output look half way decent. NTSC broadcast tapes might be good, but the end result after it's travelled through the air is not
wow .. never seen one of them before. seems like alot of effort for not much reward .. even back in the 80's .. then again. I got my first computer when I was 5 in 1978 and compared to today it was alot of effort for not much reward aswell .. commodore vic 20. but if not for that I would not be who I am today.. so maybe that machine help get someone into video production or something .. anyway I love old stuff and really love old tech .. so as you can guess I am all ways the life of the party .. lololo love ya brother.
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