Beware of counterfeit camcorders on eBay! 

I used to be Technical Manager for JVC(UK) and these were all over eBay when camcorders were much more popular that they are now. I actually wrote the warning that you showed in your video. There were around 30 fake JVC models. eBay were good at removing them and I had a VeRO account where I could report any fakes and they would remove them pretty much instantly. I don't think anyone does that job now, which is one reason why there are so many.

I've once saw in a pawnshop a fake Canon printer under the brand name of Cumon. I wish I was joking.

I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see one.

"It's a Fony" *_Ding!_*

For a moment I thought these were fakes made recently. I was like “wait, they’re making counterfeit camcorders of 20+ year old models???”

When all the electronics showrooms like Best Buy close & you can't shop & buy in person with real products, getting scammed online is what becomes commonplace.

Ah yes, the very well known brand of Canosonic.

I remember many years ago, a popular RU-vidr, Dr. Ashens, reviewed a Toshiba Camilio. it was like a few weeks after the upload he added an annotation(remember those) saying that the camera was counterfeit, and he fell for it. This guy is a retro gaming enthusiast so he is very familiar with electronics. It can happen to anybody.

8:52 - I always wondered how in a world where the cheapest Android phone has HD video & stabilization, we still get the _worst_ quality UFO and bigfoot videos. Now I know.

I don't understand why you don't have upwards of 500k subs by now. For me, your channel is a staple in vintage electronics. You get shout outs from a bunch of RU-vidrs that have millions of subs. I think your content is very underrated. Keep up the good/honest work!

Always stick to reputable brands: Awai, Somy, Pioner, Mangabox, Teak, Technix, Kenbook, etc. Even generics, like General Electonic and Reelistic are at least known quantities.

I used to manage a camera shop and felt sorry for people who brought these things in, usually purchased in Tenerife etc. Names like Cannon, Roniflex, Nokin etc, often as you describe with no electronic viewfinder and crappy resolution. Sometimes they wanted the 'optional' battery pack and memory card which cost more than they had paid for the camera. Other times they insisted we honour the international warranty the guy had assured them it came with.

I am amazed at how deliberately deceptive the Mitsuba is designed. It's literally built to rip unsuspecting people off. A fake lens to draw attention away from the cheap early noughties webcam and a completely useless compartment for 8cm DVDs that looks like a disk drive. This is more of a prank than an actual device.

The 4 telltales of a bad copy: 1 - The clumpiness of the design, usually roundy and cheap looking. 2 - If you look at the copys lens, they are usually covered by a flat piece of glass made to look like a lens behind a pinhole camera. 3 - stickers that exaggerate specs to unreasonable hights. 4 - more stickers that pretend to be features.

In the early 2000s, in a shopping center near me, they sold these fake SONY cameras. Knowing this, I bought one, emptied it completely of electronics once home, returned it, and got my money back! I used the electronics for one of my many projects.

Finally someone has finally talked about this, i see these all over amazon too.

It would help consumers if companies would keep legacy product webpages up instead of taking them down. The info there isn't hard to maintain, it isn't going to change, and some very simple CMS would keep it secure and up to date.

Thank you for making this video. Because of it I just realized I had a fake canon camera for sale on eBay. It looks exactly like one of your examples of fakes. I am kind of embarrassed that I did not realize it was a fake. Of course I took the listing down and I will give myself a talking to later on.

I remember a friend of mine buying one of these fake "sony" ones (and later on, one of my students also bought one). When I pointed out it was fake he was completely denying it. I also remember funny company names in other counterfeit devices, like portable radios. My favorite one has to be "Panashiba", obviouly a co-op between panasonic and toshiba :D

Seeing the last clip i would’ve never thought that i would feel nostalgia for a mk5 GTI

That was a fantastic video. The camera with the fake lens was wild! Coming from a broadcast background, I knew about cheap consumer cameras to avoid - but never counterfeit cameras! I remember when my kids were younger, they would sometimes play with those cheap camcorder like toys with the lenses that were merely pinhole cameras shooting VGA resolution.

Fake product trick names are a running joke between my uncle and I and this video was full of some great ones! Some cameras to use with your Bollex watch!

2:22 I actually saw that same exact listing for that Canon DDV-C330 counterfeit camcorder on eBay exactly three months before you uploaded this video. I politely told the seller that the camcorder's a counterfeit camcorder and I asked them to either remove their listing or change their listing's title stating that it's a counterfeit camcorder. In response, the seller cussed me out, claimed that the camcorder wasn't a counterfeit camcorder, and blocked me.

I used to watch fake camera reviews. (Including yours) These things have disappointed many people especially the customers that they don’t even know about the brand’s existence and when they bought the thing (Like the one you showed) not even realized that they got ripped off. (Just like me, But with the headphones) Oh, And I’m also a camcorder user and lover too. (Speaking of a camcorder comeback. 😅)

I never knew there were knockoffs of old cameras until I went looking to buy an old Pentax and saw a bunch of fakes. Blew my mind.

That Mitsuba is the perfect quote unquote "digital versatile camera" if you ask me

The "Sony $789.99" is fun. It has an EAN barcode, not UPC. EAN is used in Europe. And the 4 at the beginning means it is for the German market (entre outre). So there would not be $ as currency ;-)

This is why I don’t like buying cameras on eBay, because they can mislead people into buying a counterfeit with using the same logo like JVC or Sony! At least you were able to report some of those counterfeit camcorders, eBay needs to be more clear with online listings of vintage camcorders!

my favorite historical irony is that these "counterfeit" 35mm cameras formed the basis of what we now call lomography

The background music at 10:12 was giving me serious _Portal_ clock radio vibes. As to the cameras, it really was remarkable how poor the quality of that knock-off was. So much so that the brand on the side ought to have read "Russet", "Idaho" or "King Edward", rather than "Mitsuba". Thanks for making the video - I hope it saves someone from making a mistake and losing money.

0:39 - Er, you didn't just _visually_ rickroll us, did you?!

Well, one advantage to the fake camera is that you can't hear the DVD mechanism making sounds _while it's recording, SONY!!!_

I had a friend here in Hungary, who bought a camera from a street salesman, which was made out of wood, with some used camera lens stuck to the front, and a dead camcorder battery stuck to the back, fooling the buyer, saying that it only needs to be charged to work. After purchase, the seller was gone. I also came across a "Li-Ion" battery pack, which had to be opened, and it used AA batteries. But it said on the battery, that it is a 900mAh Li-Ion pack.

I love it when you include those funny endings at the end of the video.

Ah… the mitsuba makes its fates return to the channel

I remember I used to like to buy counterfeit camcorders because it was fun to see what kind of crap they were. Sometimes you'd get lucky and salvage parts out of them and add it to my parts bin. But yeah, if you're older/non-technical _AND_ you're in another country buying electronics you might be screwed. If you know what you're doing you might be a little better off. Having said all that I found the fake DVD (DVC) hilarious lol

It's a Sonya ! I lost it at the memory card ! LOL

My favorite knockoff product name was a set of alkaline-ish batteries labeled PanaSony.

My dad gave me one of them fake camcorders in 2018, it never worked for him so passed to me to see if I could revive it, I did, battery had puked cos it was a re-used one, but the thing was just as decribed here, fixed focus, lump of metal inside for "added value", recordings were worse than my Nokia 6260 flip from 2005, software was janky, and it just felt crap, I took it to bits permanently, no point trying to polish that turd... :S (I'll reply to this with an insta link to the pic I took of it alongside my Panasonic HC-V110, given youtube sends links to the spam trap, it's a "convincing" fake, but not to someone who used a real camcorder!)

"I know it's not fake, it was my grandma's!" LMAO

I got burned on a fake Minolta video camera. They used the bundle trick to make it look even better and everything you say is true. It was as bad as anything you demonstrated here! There was no way to be sure it was fake -- except the price was so low. There were fake RU-vid videos about it making it look really good. I returned it and got hit with a $35 re-stocking fee! And this was from Amazon! Sheesh, let the buyer beware!

Some of the people who sell these products on eBay (or similar sites), aren't even aware that they're selling a knock-off goods. Usually people who are not tech savvy. Of course there are genuine scammers. They usually tend to sell bootleg music CDs and DVDs (CD-R & DVD-R). And then there are people who make a really lousy quality image where you can't figure out is this genuine item or a prop. Or a really lazy that couldn't be bothered to make a photo of their goods, take stock one from the internet and be "it's good enough".

Who doesn’t love the quality of a genuine Magnetbox?

Awesome video man. I like that you speak slow and very clear and because of this, i understood everything you said in your video, i liked the samples of video and audio comparison between fake and real camcorders. By the way i am impressed about the quality of the audio of this old sony camcorder. I just saw one of the best made videos in the whole youtube. For real man, i liked your content a lot , so you deserve a subscribe. I am impressed of how clear you speak and the rest of the video is perfect made. Man you are very, very good at this👍

I live in Europe and i always saw these cameras and mobile phone shops alongside other fake goods. I have relatives in Lithuania and counterfeit electronics were common there after the fall of the iron courtain. In Vilnius there is this really ugly brutalist shopping centre which looks like a prison (they still haven't torn it down). There was a shop, which only sold fake electronics and clothes. The shop also had a chemical smell so bad, i still remember it. Eastern bloc people had no experience with outside brands and it was less than easy to fool them.

My neighbor had the infamous DV7000 and rather demanded I but it from him, to prove to his wife that it had been a good investment. After looking it up, it seemed worthless but I offered him $20 just for the novelty. He agreed, but only if I told his wife I gave him $100 for it... whatever! What amazed me about this device is that it actually functioned as a camcorder! Decades earlier when you bought a product like this, you just got a box of rocks!

omg we had a sony at one point I think. I love that theres a community of people using these because not only does the footage looks nice, but the devices themselves look both really cool and fun to use

i laughed so hard with this one. Especially your "does this look hd to you?" Take care

Oh, that last part is spot on! Yet as you said, some people are so non-tech-savvy, they won't notice nor care about aspect ratio and audio channels. So, ... maybe there's a market for those sketchy cameras afterall. Too bad they just could not help pretending to be something else.

i have an old digital camcorder says its made by sony bought in 2012 the font and everything is the same the sticker is the same as what you find on sony point and shoots of the time your video made me go back and look at it again and i tried to google the model number i find nothing it records in asf format with M4S2 codec so i think its fake

I also own a panasonic which I ve been using it with my husband a lot. They do have a very nice type of feel to the video which I wasnt quite able to replicate with the smartphone. Besides I also enjoy the look and ergonomics of it plus having a dedicated video and picture device! I love having retro stuff like that! I cant wait to be able to afford to get more technologies which are just nice like that. Thank you for making an awesome video!

Well if somebody hasn't posted it. Those Traveling sales would go around to different towns sold them to. They also sold refurbished stuff. Plus Cell phones that was a cell phone but would not work in the USA. I can't remember the last time I saw one of those shows in this area.

It's now apparent that we can no longer trust the very brands many of us grew up to respect and purchase. I told my son not too long ago. It will get to the point where you will have people paying top dollar for so called "real products". Even parts will be very high priced, and individuals will be buying old and broken models to simply make one good working until. It reminds me of the storyline from the Sci Fi show "Serenity". Its said that when the Earth started sending out starships to colonize other worlds, the precious few items or "Earth relics" people took with them are worth huge prices on the so called Black Market. It's a bit of a competition among the wealthy to have the most "Earth relics" and be the talk of their planet. Is that where we are headed? Because of such horribly cheap and low quality products people scour for old but much better quality items? And paying the price of course?

It's fascinating how the market for vintage camcorders has brought about a market for _fake_ camcorders. I love having dedicated devices for things. Phones are super convenient, but they're still jack-of-all-trades. This video is so important because camcorders are still the best way to shoot video!

I was approached by a guy that wanted to sell me "genuine" Sony camcorder. Brand new, in the box. The price was 50€ but I asked to cut it down because it was fake. After negociations, for 20€, I ended up with a beautiful webcam of good quality (it did VGA video in 2012 when a similar priced webcam only had CIF or QVGA resolution) and a nice device to reccord videos on the go on a standard SD card. I still have it and it kinda work; it have tripod mounting point, a LCD preview on the door and a simple menu. And for the batteries, it had 3xAA but I modified it to a 2000mAh rechargeable Lithium cell. And to not forget, it also have FM radio built in. A beauty.

Fortunately a lot of old camcorders (especially old ones that take cassette) have a barrel jack for 12v car adapters. you know what else is 12 volt? cheap drill batteries at harbor freight. 12 dollars for a rechargeable lithium drill battery, all you have to do is make an adapter to plug it in either the barrel jack or the original battery terminals.

when I saw the beginning of the video with the plain white background I was worried you got rid of your iconic table lmfao. There's something about your usual set that just feels right...

Great point! Those of us that enjoy using and collecting them probably don’t expect counterfeit camcorders

I love this channel!! Never disappoints!!!!!!!

Great job! I’d seen some of the bogus models on Wish, Alibaba, and other shopping apps and wondered what they were like.

Thanks for bringing this up. I was looking into buying another one soon. That's so wild that it comes with a fake sd card telling you it doesn't have one when they could have put it on paper but made a fake sd card and why even make a fake place to hold a mini dvd 😂

A few years ago I was trying to get a full size VHS camcorder. Every single one was destroyed beyond repair by leaking electrolytic capacitors. No joke, I went thru 6 broken camcorders before I found a repairable one. These more modern camcorders you show in the video always refuse to power up for some reason. If you trying to buy a camcorder in this day and age: Prepare to go thru 10 broken ones before you find a single working one!

If Sony used the clip @ 9:40 of Kevin comparing a Sony’s camcorder’s recording quality to the fake, it would make a great ad for Sony.

0:58 I had a Hitachi camcorder very similar to that, but shot on 8cm DVD discs. I traded it in and remember getting quite decent money back then. I remember going out the shop thinking they made a mistake or something but it was a good camcorder. The DVD format was a bit annoying, because you had to initialise the DVD's before they could be played back, and the 8cm DVD-RW discs were quite expensive if you don't plan on keeping everything. Still pretty cool going from camcorder to DVD player to watch back.

Nice to see my home city (Glasgow) mentioned. Another top video👍🏻😉🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The problem with modern kids using these camcorders is that they put zero effort into properly capturing that footage on a PC. I've seen even some quite pro looking RU-vidr who's made the mistake of capturing footage from a miniDV camcorder via RCA composite video cables as well as a probably questionable capture device as well. The result being that our homie VWestlife, with a much more modest production value, gets much better quality footage out of these old camcorders than these higher budget RU-vidrs.

almost 14 years ago, some Argentinian accent guys tried to white-van scam me, first asked me for directions to some random place, then they offered me a sony camcorder, the name Sony was written in cursive, I ran like hell.

The last advice was so specific! 😅

Wow Kevin, that was great! You're just like John Stossel but without the moustache.

A lot of music released today has heavy inspiration from the late 90's, with many music videos even being purposely shot in 4:3 rather than 16:9. These camcorders give that warm aesthetic that's lost in a lot of modern smartphones, which with heavy HDR and processing means video is perfect, but lacking that charm. Similar to what happened with the 80's trend, the 90's trend is making a lot of portable cassettes, consoles, CRT's, disposable cameras and camcorders more popular.

9:35 When you realize that there was actual music playing in the background when switched to the original Sony.

People will fake just about anything it seems if they can make a profit...

(11:47) That really reminded me of some RU-vid channels I've seen that do what you mentioned with old archival footage they'd include in their video essays.

11:40 I wasn't expecting a CBBC cameo but alas there it is! Also I had another cheap camcorder that I got from Goodwill that also had metal plates in it to make it feel heavier. The video quality was pretty bad and the audio was out-of-sync. I still have it but it doesn't really work because the battery cover's spring is broken and it won't stay shut.

yep. man living in manhattan during the 2000s i saw so many of these things sold in cheapo goods stores all over the city. there were actually some *really* accurate looking fakes being made by the mid 2000s and it could be hard to tell them apart from just appearances. it's always important to buy from a reputable seller!

that fake... excuse me *Sample* memory card is hilarious 😂

I love your videos keep up the amazing work

Pro tip: No manufacturer places a price on the bar code. Not with camcorders not with any other product...

Great video, really informative and interesting. I can spot the fakes a mile off but the everyday consumer might get scammed. Thing is, all the counterfeit models look….like cheap knock offs.

My grandad got sold something similar to this in a supermarket car park in the 2000s. None of us could ever get it working, and I was the techy one

I still have my Panasonic NV -GS17E which I bought in the 90s. I also have batteries, chargers, cassettes ac adapter and computer interface/grabber to upload to my laptop. It works perfectly.

I own a Sony Handycam CX-405. It's a fairly "outdated" model by today's standards but for a compact 1080p camcorder I quite like it. I have some experience with cheap Amazon camcorders as well and if you spend just a little more on the real thing the difference is incredible.

That "Mitsuba" camcorder had about the same quality as the 1984 Sony BMC-220 Betamovie camcorder with its singe stripped Vidicon (Trinicon) sensor and mono linear sound.

Another note on that very last part, ADJUST THE GODDANG PICTURE ON YOUR CAPTURE STICK if you're digitizing analog formats like VHS-C or Hi8, cause the default settings on those $20 USB capture dongles are trash and almost every capture software lets you adjust the chroma, luma, gamma, saturation, etc. on them to get a halfway decent picture even outta worn-out EP-mode VHS. Nobody wants to see a super-dark and washed out image and there's only so much improvement Davinci Resolve can do in post when the output is a compressed mpeg2 video. Also, CLEAN YOUR TAPE HEADS IF IT STILL LOOKS LIKE TRASH, cause I guarantee the previous owner never did and with sold-as-blank media a lotta the tapes are degrading and gunking your head drum up.

I never stopped using a traditional camcorder. Glad to know I'm cool again 😎

Dang... thanks for posting this. I've actually been on the hunt for a camcorder lately. I'm trying to set up an overhead camera for making youtube videos.

Wow, I am so glad I don't buy cameras based on price. The last camcorder I had, which I gave to my daughter, was the Canon VIXIA HF G50. I did record great 4k/30p but required too much color correction in post to match my Black Magic Cine cam.

Another great video. Yes, stretched 4x3 is an abomination- or just plain lazy. Seeing it more often on RU-vid. Grrrr...

Insightful video! I recently bought a Canon HF G70 for recording my wedding and future home videos. Cost me roughly 1k, but it definitely shows in the video quality.

I know what you mean about loving camcorders. My first was a Sony TRV818, very very basic model. Didn't even have a side screen, but it did have a color viewfinder which was good enough. I loved learning how to make short films with little to no editing tools.

I am glad you got to mentioning Vivitar. They are just not what they used to be. Kinda harks back to your _Heartlands America_ video.

Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks! And thanks to everyone for reporting fakes and counterfeits to eBay!

I remember about 13-15 years ago you used to warn us about these crap fake camcorders. Surprised that they're still being made!

It pisses me off that ebay allows counterfeit junk on their site. Items like the fake Sony clearly violate their TOU, they don't include keywords like "reproduction" or anything like that.

Very nice

Have that same rainbow mug! Found it at a Goodwill about 25 years ago.

Though I was born in the 1970s, I (nor my immediate family) never owned a camcorder. The closest I’ve ever had was a Kodak Zi-8 (digital 1080p video recorder that came out in 2009). Ive used a number of VHS recorders and recorded hundreds of tapes up until the 2010s, but I’ve never had any love for SD video. But I do like record albums and appreciate your videos!

Thank you for this video. You literally just saved me from buying a fake JVC camera online.

You're telling me my grandma wouldn't watch my RU-vid videos in 2005 because I didn't deinterlace like she always told me?! I just assumed it was an old wives tale.