Support this channel on Patreon: / 8bitguy1 Visit my Website: www.the8bitguy.com In this episode, I take a look at the Fisher Price PXL-2000 video camera. Its most unique feature is that it records video to an audio cassette tape.
@Joe Duke Oh so you're told. Go on to one of these dumb corporate news sites and find a "liberal" that is showing up with the "highest votes", and see if you can get them to respond to you. Because the vast majority of them, aren't people, they're bots - which is why they don't respond to anybody. People aren't as dumb as the establishment makes them out to be.
Got one of these Christmas morning in1988 when I was 12. Was super excited until I filmed something. Dad noticed it was crap, noticed I was faking satisfaction & gratefulness. Pulled me aside and said hey look I wanted to get you a compound bow and your mom said no. We can take that camera back to hills tomorrow then go get a bow if you want to. So that’s how I got my first compound bow.
Very cool dad. I was actually thrilled when I got a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 a few years prior to that (Dad said I turned white with shock when I opened it), but then a few years later the magazines arrived announcing the Color Computer 3. I wanted it so bad but I didn't want my parents to think I wasn't grateful for and enjoying the CoCo 2 I already had so I actually went to them and told them I didn't want the CoCo 3. They didn't see thru my act and I never got the 3.
I would love to see someone try to re-engineer this idea today. With codecs that are so much more efficient, it would be interesting to see just what cdould be stored on cassette in real time.
It is really interesting idea BUT... Cassette heads, availability of higher quality coder of this format is non-existent. It's the same reason why every modern walkman is terrible. But HDD is honestly pretty similar solution ;)
I calculated that a 120 minute ferrite oxide compact cassete (since it has maximum frequency of 32 Khz), can store up to 30 Megabytes. Using both channels for digital compressed audio/video, we can have a better video quality.
A couple examples of people trying this recently: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-p9I7T08LFQA.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-D5zV1mC4E3w.html
I'm old enough to remember when this was the bee's knees. My parents worked for Fisher-Price which meant we got a discount on it. Real video cameras were still financially out of reach at the time, so this was awesome for us.
Me after 15 seconds: My God! Why didn't I have one of those when I was a kid? This thing should have been a massive hit back then and a must at every home!!! Me after 4 minutes: oh... I see...
I had one of these when I was a kid, and it was great! When I was 7, I didn't care about video quality, so being able to record any sort of video was amazing! It would eat through batteries, so my father ended up hooking it up to a car battery on a skateboard that I would push around.
@Shufei Sure they have : it's called a smartphone. Every kid today has one, and they upload directly to RU-vid! When I watched kids tv as a kid, it was old geezers and hags doing it. When my little sister watched it it was 20-40 year olds doing the tvshows. Todays kids watch videos made by kids 2 years their senior...
Brandon Freeman 12V car battery we all used on the old cassette tech, great way to film too, the skate board was the gyroscopes glide cam! You still have any content? Remember the open Cabel TV shows, or pirated home video shows on the cable networks, we were watching kids too! or old people that did kid shows at home... Today, GoPro kids do the same, producing better content! easy software to make it creative and good!
Wow!!!!!! I had one of these when I was a kid. Late 80's / early 90's. :) As a 8-10 year old, I didn't even know to expect better video quality. The parents camcorder was better quality, but even as a kid I didn't expect my Fisher Price toy to rival my Dads camcorder. I absolutely loved it and made videos of my friends and me playing basketball, jumping in the swimming pool, etc.... regular kid stuff. As a 9ish year old, I even made a "movie" where I wore a cowboy hat and shot my stuffed animals (tied a string around the stuffed animal and had my friend pull the string when I 'shot' it). Pretty awesome for a 9 year old in 1989! Unfortunately, I have no idea where the camcorder is, or where the cassettes are. But I can certainly say it was in the top 5 best toys I've ever had. Thanks for sharing!
I had one of these, I loved it, made tons of silly movies with my friends. Yes, it went through tapes and batteries like crazy. But we tried to plug in the power cable to an outlet when possible, since at 50% battery, the picture starts breaking up like crazy. It was fun to own, I transferred some to VHS tapes, and used to make credits on my C64 which we also stuck on the tape. Good times.
Nowadays, when we, both adults and kids, have access to all kinds of devices with video recording capabilities, this device might seem ridiculous, but back then, this could very well be the ONLY video recording device in the house, so even with its terrible quality, it could be cool to have for a kid.
@@OMA2k Indeed! There was no way in HELL my parents could have afforded an actual camcorder (or even a separate video camera & VCR system like my rich grandparents in Florida had) back then... Heck, even though I wanted one of these things pretty bad when I saw them advertised on TV, my parents probably wouldn't have even got this for me as a Christmas present, due to $100 being about half a week's pay for my dad back then, but even as crappy as it was/is, I would have been over the moon to have something like this! Or even a working super-8 film camera (although those things were an order of magnitude more expensive than even these were).
@@DJ_Bonebraker my grandparents also had a very and camcorder that I'm like 99% sure my parents stole for my birthday because my grandparents lpved it and wouldn't even let anybody touch it but then it vanished and a few days later the exact same one shows up on my birthday
I got one of these Christmas 1989, it was the best Christmas I ever had. My cousin and I spend years making home movies with them. While the quality is bad, I know for fact it wasn't as bad as you see in the video, i the the hardware aging has something to do with it. As David mentioned, the lenses fogged up over time and deteriorated which made the light sensitivity even worse. As far as usable footage, it all depended on the quality of batteries you used and the quality of tape. We used rechargeable ni-cd batteries and my parents bought the chromium tapes, maxell branded from Costco so it wasn't that expensive to own. I have many many childhood videos on this camera. You have to appreciate a toy camera for kids. It was cheap enough and durable enough to kids to make memories with. And I think from that perspective it was a slam dunk. No parent in their right mind would give a 1000+ camcorder to their kids to make videos with, but for a hundred bucks, why not? You have to keep in mind those days kids didn't have iPhones and access to cameras easily, so making videos and memories was a very rare thing for kids, I have really really fond memories of this thing. It has a special place in my heart, many summers spent making news casts and other movies with my cousins. Good times.
Yes, the quality was good, like a cheap security camera. I had good results with mine, even indoors. You had to clean the tape heads constantly! I always had a large package of Q-Tips and a quart of rubbing alcohol handy.
I still have mine! when I was a kid, my dad made me a battery pack out of a 12V Gel battery that fit in a little shoulder bag and hooked up to the DC of the camera. I could record for hours, just as long as I had enough tape.
Great idea! I used an AC adapter and a long cable to run the RF out to the family VCR. The indoor lights were bright, so with all the lights on and the blinds open the video quality was good. To make music videos, I would run the sound from my boom box into the stereo inputs on the VCR, and the video would come from the camera. I wish things were that simple in the digital world!
The Obsolete Geek my Cannon 490 eats batterys I thought it was bad but this 1987 camera makes my Cannon 490 look like the best camcorder in terms of battery life and quality
I'd be very much guessing that battery life would be a lot better when using some of those new-fangled NiCads, or nowadays, Eneloops - IOW, cells with much lower internal resistance. Turn-off threshold might be too high for those altogether, of course, but in the world of power-hungry digital cameras at least, the difference to alkalines tends to be night and day.
I had this camera as a kid and I used the hell out of it. The recording mechanism died after some time and so I then used 100' of speaker wire to run it to a VCR on which I recorded, and another 100' of speaker wire to run to a 9v power supply to power it. Even with the noise my unshielded RF cable picked up, it was still considerably better than the defunct audio cassette recorder. You forgot to mention the lenses selectable silver "outdoor" filter - which was a definite requirement to film in direct sunlight if you didn't want an over exposed white square (I don't think this camera was able to adjust shutter speed much to meter exposure, and it sure as hell didn't have an iris) To this day I have a stack of VHS tapes which I recorded misc junk on. The experience this camera gave me left me with a real appreciation for the quality camera equipment we have in such excess today. I would have killed to have had even a VHS camcorder at that time. On the note of vintage video cameras, I think 1980s CRT type cameras (with the VCR backpack) produce video with a unique look and are interesting to play around with these days.
This camera was used extensively to record UFO sightings. Unfortunately, the image is still too clear and requires smearing vaseline all over the lens.
Thanks for doing this video! I've read about the PXL-2000 several times with all of its limitations but always wondered what the video quality was like in practice.
Those cameras were not too bad, it was a toy camera, my cousin used it because it was small and you didn't need to use 8mm film which had to be developed. Also battery life didn't bother him because he had rechargeable ones. It's outdated, but he recorded fun videos at a mall.
my sister got one for xmas in the late 80s for a kids toy it was pretty cool and we found we could cheat by using the power adapter and running it through the vcr and just recording on it it was a lot of fun for the day
Hey, I just want to thank you for amazing videos. I found your channel by coincidence and since then I'm regular client. You're showing amazingly interesting things. Thanks man.
I think it's because he puts actual journalistic effort into everything he makes rather than just speaking out of his behind over random gameplay footage, and he has spent decades of hard work developing skills in electronics maintenance and light repair, as well as music and video production. And he collaborates with people rather than scaring them away.
ReviewTechUSA IT'S OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR!! WHY DOES HE LINGER IN AROUND THIS CHANNEL?!? Actually, I'm happy to see you watching i-Book Guy's (aka 8-Bit Guy) videos :-D
Spot on. Got one for Christmas in 1987 and it was a fun toy .... But definitely a toy. I think we *MIGHT* have copied some footage to VHS at some point (it'd be sitting at my mom's house if so) but I'm sure it wasn't very much. As for it's appetite for batteries ... I normally used it plugged into a wall (further limiting it's usefulness 😜)
I still have mine, I bought it on clearance brand new in the store and used it quite a bit. Great for outside recording especially on nice sunny days it has a good picture. Inside requires a lot of lighting behind the camera onto the subject. I was able to record my child's birthday party at showbiz pizza place and it came out well. For something that is over thirty years old now it works pretty well for what it is. Thanks for the video and keep them coming. Doug
My time on RU-vid has been exclusively dedicated to your videos and techmoan’s videos for the past month. They’re just so good and well put together on items and topics that interest me. I get to watch you guys tinker will all these electronics I’d love to buy, but can’t quite justify spending the money on
I had one of these as a kid- the camera came in a kit that included a small 6" black and white CRT television specifically for use with these. I have a feeling the camera sensor on these degrades over time, because so long as you used the proper high-bias cassettes- the image quality was decently acceptable; AND indoor filming was just fine. I did almost ALL of my filming in my parents home, in the basement usually, and there were no windows; with just average lighting. Nearly all my footage was good, and yes the motor hum was pronounced- but not loud enough to overpower somebody speaking at a normal taking volume. More than likely the cassettes back in '87 were of a higher quality- or at least the specific high-bias cassettes that were specified were of a higher quality back then. So yeah, I was 7 in 1987 when I got mine for Christmas, and I used it until it broke (before the next Christmas) lol. Ahh, we had way cooler toys back in the 80's!
Hey I got one these as a Christmas gift when I was a kid in the 80's & at the time it was my favorite thing in the world. You kept mentioning how terrible the A/V quality is. When you are a 10 or 11 year old kid in the mid 80's with your own video camera the audio/video quality is the last thing you care about. I still remember all the videos I took with this thing, especially on the day it was given to me, playing outside in the yard on Christmas day with my brother & my dog.
James Zee that’s a very good point. We are judging it by today’s standards. A kid of the 80s was less spoilt for technology choices and would try so hard to make this video camera work for him. And have so much fun with it.
Back in 87, for a kid, as a present? Absolutely fucking amazing. And that would have been the words I would have used and would have have earned a clip round the earhole for expressing my true feelings. However I would have hugged my parents to death in gratitude so almost all would have been forgiven.
A person sees an alien,Bigfoot and a ghost in their backyard all together at the same time.They run to their closet,their hand shakes in excitement as it hovers over a studio quality 4k camera,the newest smartphone and the Fisher Price PXL-2000.Take a wild guess as to which one they pick!
We had one of these as kids and we freakin' loved it. Yeah the quality was terrible but for a bunch of 6-10 year olds in the mid 80's, just being able to record video was novelty enough to be worth it.
Couldn’t find the right video but I’ve been dying to get my 6 month old nephew the MEOWsic piano that was featured on your channel. It’s been the highlight of my first Christmas gift buying experience so I’d like to thank you! I’d been teasing about getting one since my sister found out she was having a baby and i owe it all to you!
There might be a cause as to why your PXL-2000 has such a dark picture--there's a small square light-blue-colored piece of plastic about 1/8" by 1/8" square that is fitted over the camera's CCD pickup, behind the round movable daylight/indoor "faux-lens" filter. The blue square of plastic acts at a "cut" filter to optically attenuate natural ambient infrared lignt, since the PXL's CCD is a bit more sensitive to IR than most other CCDs (which are all sensitive to IR to one point or another). Over time, this blue cut filter outgasses a residue that builds up on its surface, and may be the cause of why the camera reproduces such a dark picture. To solve this, disassemble the PXL until you can remove the turnable daylight/indoor filter, then you'll have access to the CCD and it's microlens, and the light blue IR filter mounted in front of it. Carefully pry out the filter square (you can use a small tweezers or pin), and clean the cut filter with a glass cleaner like Windex. Let it dry, snap it back in, and bob's your uncle--you should get a brighter and better picture. Another cause of the dark picture is kind of an obvious one--the round turnable daylight/indoor filter is probably in the daylight position (the area of the filter that has a mirror finish). I've found that with my PXL that it's not necessary, that decent exposure is obtainable by using the clear "indoor" portion of the filter at all times.
I read an article about it some time ago. We may laugh, we may make jokes, but what we really need to remember is that Fisher Price had achieved something that everyone at that time thought was impossible - it was almost a "proof of a concept" that simple video can be squeezed onto a regular audio cassette (a bit like video vinyl records - look them up on Techmoan's page). And they achieved it, with price constraints set for the project. As the 8-Bit Guy says, it was 10 times cheaper than a "real" video camera. And it was a TOY. There was no aspiration to replace consumer market av equipment. They were available to play with in the shops, their parameters/limitations were clearly stated, so nobody tried to 'con' parents into thinking they are buying a real thing. Just like simple tape recorders or cameras you could buy in toy shops. We also need to put things in perspective and look at what was available in general at that time - like first hand-held 'affordable' ($500?) scanners, producing a tiny strip of 1-bit image... In late 80s the common and affordable way of capturing motion picture was still to buy Super8 cine camera which, when recording sound, would still set you back hundreds of dolars (not to mention cost of stock and processing) but was way cheaper than a real videocam. So, to summarise: HATS OFF to brilliant guys who did it!
I bought one of these back in 1988 because it was all I could afford when our first child was born and even with poor quality video it was better than nothing. We still have the camera and tapes but haven't tried to use it in many years. Thanks for the video about the camera.
My brothers and I had one of these when we were kids in the '80s. It was definitely a toy then, and easily one of the most extravagant toys we ever had. That being said... it was a toy, and even in the '80s, nobody considered it to be a real video camera. We actually used and enjoyed it for years. I do recall the quality being bad, but not quite so bad as being showcased in this video. I wonder how much of that is due to decades of degradation of the units used for this RU-vid video, or if I'm remembering the quality being better than it actually was. As for batteries, we mostly ran ours off a power adapter, and rarely used alkaline batteries in it. We may have used rechargeable batteries in it from time to time. I think examining the PXL 2000 as if it were ever considered a viable video camera does a disservice to what an awesome toy it was.
You are currently my favorite RU-vidr. When I'm down I go watch one of your videos (I've literally seen all of them) even though I don't need to create a desk or have a Mac. Keep up the great work!
That's so cool. I never heard of a camcorder that recorded on audio cassettes. And yes, I remember when our family all chipped in around 1988 or 89 and bought an RCA camcorder. It was somewhere between $900 and $1000, as I remember. We still have all of the VHS tapes we took of the family, and our kids growing up, and I'm not in the process of transferring them all to hard drives, and backing them up to the cloud.
3 года назад
Hi from Brazil!!! Your channel is amazing!!! Congrats
Very cool, yup, it's amazing to see that someone has figured to record video on a audio tape regardless the bad quality. It seems to be one of those presents to your kids given by that distant uncle that decided to visit the family by surprise on end of the year holidays. Sound like a cool Christmas prank. LoL!
After barely 10 seconds, he says "Fisher-Price" - and that was all I needed to hear! After all, I've only ever heard that brand name in connection with kid's toys. Then I scrolled comments and.. yep: negative pre-judgment totally validated! I will say though, I think it's great that so many obscure, or even failed, music and video formates have been tried out over the decades.
Yeah, I was scanning through the comments to see if this had been brought up. That's a great film, and yeah, the Pixelvision footage in it is definitely interesting!!
I had one of these as a kid. It was the greatest. I wish I still had it, and the tapes. Would be crazy to see what stupid movies my friends and I were trying to make.
Oh man, I remember 1980 when father bought first VHS recorder. It was magic when I was able to record TV shows to the cassette. This has been so awesome time to live from 1967 to 2020. Almost all higher technology has been developed in this time period and I've been able to see and use part of that technology.
These were kind of an early "hipster" fad... when I was in film school in the 90's, a lot of film students used them to make their student films. They liked the style. I didn't get it at the time - I wanted the best quality possible, so went in a totally different direction - but you can make a really stylized lo-fi look with these and sync up external sound with it in post. Anyway I still think they're basically useless for real shooting, but they are interesting, and they make for an interesting retrospective too.
the point is you can always downscale / downgrade hi-fi to lo-fi quite easily but it's impossible to do it the other way around especially with something so darn low quality as this!
I can totally see the reasoning: "If I can make something watchable using the crappiest tools possible, then when I use top-of-the-line tools the things I make should be gold." It's probably not a solid argument, but a lot of great art stems from, sometimes severe, technological limitations, so it's not a bad idea to try it out.
I remember they were all the rage in the art student movie/and music video maker crowd and hard to find. There were as far back only as about 10 years ago film fests based on these.
all cameras give a look. the higher quality the equipiment the easier it is to change that look. if people want this look, or want to challenge themselves to working with the limitations of this camera, I think that's a great idea. I don't like calling it "basically useless". it's a tool that can capture video, that's all the use it needs to have.
Not far from the truth. That was slow scan video of 10 fps and 320 horizontal scan lines. It was then converted to normal NTSC by aiming a camera at a high persistence monitor due to the low frame rate.
I found one of these cameras at a flea market in the early 2000's, so I bought it because of the hype. The one I had (it might have been the second model, I really don't remember actually) still had all of the original tapes, which curiously enough had someone's home movies on them from the 80s. I'm pretty sure they ran longer than 4 minutes. Not a lot longer, but longer. Obviously you'll get more mileage out of say a 90 min. tape vs. a 60 min., and it's possible the PXL tapes were deliberately longer for that purpose. I recall us taking it to a party and trying to film (total disaster), so we might have used the high quality AA batteries or something, because the batteries lasted a few rounds. But ya- the microphone picks up the sounds of the mechanism, so every piece of footage has a grinding noise in the background. The home movies on the PXL tapes that were in the damn bag were filmed outdoors and looked way better than the footage we took on lower quality tapes. I feel like this product lead people to believe they could use any tapes, when in fact Fisher Price wanted them to buy the PXL ones.
