Hitachi's 1997 Videotape Killer (Not Really) 

This is an ideal camera for capturing the foggy, detail free scenes of Bigfoot, UFO's or lake monsters. In fact, I believe this video standard is mandatory.

Now I’m imagining a building that makes poor quality bricks.

18:55 honestly the Oneplus > MPEG encoded video just looks like an early RU-vid video, whereas the MP-EG1 looks like a camera made to capture sasquatch footage

"The consumer electronics industry, who are cowards nowa days..." absolutely agree

Again an excellent video! These cameras are downright fascinating for the time, despite the limitations, and I’m glad the EG1 has now been covered so thoroughly. On a related note, the M2 was sold as the MP-EG10W once it launched in the US! I've only seen it referred to as the M2 in certain marketing and press coverage hyping up the product.

This looks like the precursor to those "Disposable Camcorders" they sold at CVS back in 2005 that had like 2 hours of storage and they would rip it off for you onto a DVD when you were done. They weren't actually disposable, they would just wipe them and repackage them for the next customer. They were super hackable because the product was made by a 3rd party that had all the drivers and docs for it online, you could just grab a "Disposable Camcorder (maybe it was called a One Time Use Camcorder?)" for $20, wire up the pinout to serial using an old Palm Pilot cable and rip the recordings off it as you pleased. You got a $200 camera for a 10th of the price. Then the "Flip Video" came out which was basically the same camera but reusable with a USB port on it.

“Built like a shit brickhouse” 🤣 had me on the floor

love the crunchy mpeg compression on display here. as someone who regularly watches video at low bitrates because of crappy internet my brain is shockingly adept at subconsciously decompressing the artifacts into information and it takes real effort to really examine the clips and notice the macroblocking and DCT artifacting for what they are

Addendum and corrections: • "It doesn't look that bad to me" - This is actually my fault. The biggest problem with the raw video out of this device is the egregious, sharp-edged macroblocks, which are just as visible on its direct composite output as they are on a PC. However, I converted all the test clips to MP4 before including them in this video, and didn't think to compare them side by side. Transcoding to MP4 *at 352x240* causes a significant change in the texture of the image, eliminating the blocking artifacts, so I'm realizing now that it took a lot of punch out of the quality comparisons. This can be avoided by first upscaling to HD res before reencoding as MP4, demonstrated here: gekk.info/videos/mpupscale.png I will be releasing a followup to this video, because I got the second model in the series, and it answers a lot of the questions I had. I will reencode the clips correctly for that one. For the time being, you can download some of the raw footage here: gekk.info/videos/mpegcam/mpeg1/ • "This isn't that bad if you know what video at the time was like!" - I do. I was there when MPEG was king, I lived through the Realmedia era as well. It sucked, but it didn't suck this much. When I downloaded a video in 1998 that looked like this, I deleted it. • The reason I say the converted cellphone video "looks almost like a good quality VHS rip" is because at the time, I was referring to a clip I'd made that DID look that good - and then I realized it contained a large area of smooth tones that was probably giving the bitrate a break. I recorded and converted a new clip that was more realistic, which you see in the video. That one definitely shows the hallmarks of heavy compression, but I just couldn't reshoot the dialogue to soften my praise. • I forgot to point out the white speckles and streaks that show up in the MPEG footage. I don't know that much about video compression but I've never seen anything like this, and all I can guess is that the compressor is outright buggy and occasionally produces invalid encoding. • The 16GB CF card you see in the video *was not* the one I tested with. I used a 256MB WD Silicondrive, which are designed to be highly compatible. The camera recognized it, acknowledged it had the free space, but refused to go to video mode, while other modes worked. My hypothesis is that Hitachi's devs had no time to make the firmware tolerant of inconsistent user-provided drives, so they coded it to refuse to go to video mode unless it detects the precise model number of the HDD they were shipping, probably the only one they had a chance to test against. Hitachi's documentation on the later M2 model implies that it is far more tolerant of different media. It shipped with a 16MB flash drive and could be used with both the 260MB and a 1GB drive they provided, and that makes me think they had implemented better latency testing and compensation. Again, something that I'm positive would have been in the first model if it had not been rushed to market.

You haven't seen low quality video until you've recorded on a Nintendo DSi camera.

I am weirdly nostalgic for this era of digital video. The shit colors just hit right.

26:08 "Ability to modify the date and time" "I feel that its only possible use would be fraud" There is actually a very practical use for that feature when travelling between timezones. It takes just one slip forgetting to change the timezone while in transit, and then the time and sometimes even dates are screwed up. Had to change exif data on a few occasions because of that.

21:23 Come for the half-hour deep dive into an obscure AV device, stay for the one-second sight gag of text added to the wall in post changing angles and sliding out of frame. Your attention to production is masterful.

1997: Hey, wanna see this sweet video I printed out? 2021: Content is content.

You said Hypercard. My mid 90's nostalgia just kicked in.

Love the effort and research put into this video, including the hassle of bringing a DVCAM recorder to see its full picture quality and using 90's era computers to demonstrate the features, even to the point of finding a copy of Adobe Premiere 1.0! Still find it amazing that this was the great grandfather of the Flip cams that were so popular in early 2008-2012 RU-vid before Google sold out.

I really hope your channel pops off. I found you a few days ago and can't stop watching your videos. I like that your direct, yet can crack a joke at the right time to keep things interesting. Another interesting thing I notice is that you have a tendency to use really defined words. "Littlerly no one used these" "everyone used this" "I have absolutely no idea how this works". Its a nice touch and I like your style. Looking forward to the next episode!

I *can't* be the only person who read the title as _"Topless_ Video in '97" and thought CRD was getting spicy

Always great to have a new CRD video notification pop up on my phone!

They should’ve called it the “Shitachi Brickhouse” But seriously- this is crazy. I had no idea it existed 🤯

“MP-EG1” - I see what you did there, Hitachi

The DVD camera describes exactly how I feel whenever you upload. WOOO Also, good choice of phone. The last flagship OnePlus with a headphone jack.

There's something about that video quality, it looks like those videos that you would get in a email attachment in the early 00s, videos where incredibly fake shit always happened, it's really strange. Anyway, I wasn't aware of the existence of this device and as always it was a fantastic video!

Oh man great video. That state of the art hardware encoder got a beating from you. There just was no way to make it better at the time and fit it in one chip at reasonable power consumption. A marvel they did what they did at all.

I love learning about products that were simultaneously at the absolute razor's edge, but also obsolete at launch. "Now, you can do this!" "Why would anyone want to do that?" It's like a motorized unicycle...it's unique, but hardly useful.

The highest praise I can give to your presentation style is that you're a camcorder-fixated Technology Connections.

Dude, this already great channel continues to get even better. Really digging the background-aware titles, too.

I'm so glad I found this channel about a year ago. Nice growth and congrats on your success and yes I'm looking forward to the next one. Also commenting to feed the algorithm.

I had a terrible day at work, and I'm really happy to see you have a new video up.

I love how in depth you go with your information and research on these topics. 11 out of 10

These long in depth videos keep me going on bad days. Thanks for your work and enthusiasm

How amazing you got such a good batt pack on this lil freak of media history from your local store! Amazing! This is the content I am here for!

Once again, great video! Love seeing your channel growing!

Wow excited for the video. I just noticed youre almost at 45k subscribers. Congrats on the success!!

What a terrifically thorough video. Love it!

Recently subscribed, your videos are definitely up their with the 'best gems' of my subscription feed.

New visitor; 10:15 -- using the actual view through the camera + recorded vid to point out the information on the screen amused me to no end. That's clever!

I don’t like how RU-vid is JUST NOW recommending a video from you channel. I feel like I’m behind and now I have to binge watch.

Excellent video. This channel is so underrated it's ludicrous.

It’s always a treat when you upload! Hope you’re doing well! ✌️❤️

Thanks for making videos. Please don't stop. Interested in seeing the M2 comparison.

That stand functions a lot like many CRT monitor stands did, I wonder if that's where the inspiration came from.

I appreciate the detail of using real time footage to show the ui of the viewfinder with your hands! Caught me off guard and had to rewind a bit to pay attention to what you were saying lol

Wow you have excellent content friend. Thanks for making videos for us to enjoy.

GREAT VIDEO!!!! And great editing!

22:20 made my entire month; thank you for this wonderful gift, you own

Honestly, it isn't that bad for 97'. I was seeing portable digital video of this quality in 2007, the fact this was in 1997 is amazing.

Love, love, love what you're doing CRD! Congratulations on taking off! Platinum play button when?!

I love all the little things you add to your videos. Like the powerpoint presentation. Top notch as always dude 😁

Another in-depth video. Well done! ✌

Great video! Such an underrated channel!!!

Awesome channel brother. I thought I was alone out here in the world in love with vintage electronics. 🤗

Your videos are great! I never knew this existed and you going over this is important to preserve history, but also, it's just so cool seeing how these things worked. In terms of quality of the camera reasoning, I think you nailed it. Part of the reason is the encode methods for sure, but also another reason which you also mentioned, is lower resolution ADCs. With an ADC, you want the best possible noiseless signal before going into your quantizer. But even if you have a perfect signal you are limited by something called dynamic range. In simple words, dynamic range is just the max and min amplitude that your ADC can interpret and is expressed as the maximum signal to noise ratio. With something like video, you want the most dynamic range you can possibly get. Once this range is exceeded, oversaturation of lighter colors and dulling out darker ones making then look like a blob is what could happen. Dynamic range is a limit of the resolution of your ADC. An 8-bit ADC has ~49.93 dB and a 32-bit ADC has ~194.435 dB. Basically it boils down to this -> More resolution = More dynamic range. More bits, more fun! In terms of this camera, yeah it got the worst of both worlds. Cost and power savings yielded a choice for less processing power with a custom IC and once again cost, board space, and power budgets probably limited ADC/DAC choices and you end up with the worst of both worlds 🤣 less video information retention after encode and awful dynamic range so terrible adaptability to different lighting in scenes. Yikes. Awesome video! Loved it!

Intriguing little camera! Kinds of things I love to thinker with. New studio lightning? Nice!

You’re videos are so insanely detailed and well done. You have a new subscriber. I hope one day your channel blows up like clints did. Well done, and well deserved!

The greenscreen and text overlapping stuff is great work I loved it!

Another fantastic video! Thank you so much :)

Fantastic video as always. I don't remember if I have commented here before but I have been subbed for a good while now. I hope things are well for you. Loving the content! I can tell that you are putting some serious work into this and it is a joy to see an upload notification. Be well.

Hitachi seems to always be out there on the bleeding edge of tech, and almost achieved greatness many times over. It’s fun to see their experiments.

The first all-digital tapeless video camera was a professional camcorder by Ikegami. They stored video on hard disk drive "EditPaks" and I remember seeing it at the NAB show in 1995. Super rare, super high quality SD and super expensive but incredibly good for instant ingest of digital video for TV news stations. Way ahead of its time and file based video recording didn't really catch on for another ten years until Sony XDCAM professional disc and Panasonic DVCPRO on memory cards. Hitachi also tried out a professional hard drive pack recorder about the same time as this MPEG1 recorder but the first "proper" file based video recording was 25 Megabits/sec DV recording to hard drives and that sort of happened around 1999-2000.

Man I wish more things with small LCD screens came with a pop out hood. And I loved your reaching into the view of the camera to point out things in the display.

Great video, good information density!

the conpression going haywire on plantlife is something that Tom Scott made a video about i dont renember the whole video, but the gist of it is that moving green objects reak havoc on digital compression to this very day (our eyes for example have more green than other color receptors so we dont have that problem)

I actually paused and rewound to appreciate the little bit of editing at 21:22, I see you, that was clever

honestly, based on the body style, the swivelling head and the stand style, this thing feels less like a camcorder camera, more like a portable audiorecorder that can shoot scratch video at the same time. you can handheld get a scratch video and audio clip, or a tabletop interview recording, or selfrecorded scratch video and audio notes. it feels like something a very well paid and tech savvy journalist might have used in their toolkit.

29:17 that edited footage clip looks like something that would end up in a "top 10 unexplained and cursed yt videos" compilation. well done.

Thanks man, fantastic video again!

"Consumer electronics were madlads" Press e to pay respects for RCA, your vinyl video disc was a cool thing if only it was something other than that :-) Also anyone who presses f is invited to the wake.

Pointing to the parts of the on-screen display in-camera must have taken AGES to get right, I applaud your dedication!

Can't believe this video is almost a year old. Coming back to it with some context for the contact sheet. When it was inconvenient to just share a video instantly, and bandwidth wasn't cheap, having a contact sheet preview was extremely valuable from what I gather. You can see what the video is before commiting to downloading it.

I don’t think my opinion means much, but I think you make really interesting video’s. Your channel reminds me of something from the early Tech TV days.

That text transition at 21:23 is great. It’s the small things!

That old Fujitsu Tablet PC on the bookshelf brings back all of my inner nerd feelings.

Really knocking it out of the park with the super smooth and snappy B-roll this time! I think my old Sony (still) camera from 2003ish could record to different folders like that, including its tiny 640x480 MPEG clips. Speaking of, that battery looks suspiciously like an Infolithium M pack with the middle terminal missing.

I like that you have some understanding about the "why". It really makes the videos more fun to watch. All the research you do pays off for me. I get such a good view of the market at the time. Your script writing is really good! I like how you record messages on camcorders from out in the field as part of the video. It's a seemless transition as if you already wrote the script by the time you recorded footage. I'm curious what you did or do for a living that you have so much insight into electronics and videography.

They are great,The great part is that the camera will format and use a standard ATA flash card,Up to 2GB.You must format or initialize the Flash card in the camera & the menu calls it initialize the card with the camera.I done this with the MPeg1 and the two mp-eg10w's here.The audio from the internal microphone is top quality.And the .33 MP is as good as one of my 4 to 6 MP cameras here.The Sony NP-fm50 battery works in there with slight filing modification.Love it for nostalgia,Made in Japan.The resolution gets much better with the ATA flash Card for some reason.The MP-EG10w fixed many of the problems you stated,They added a macro short focus option,And fixed some of the video encoding problems.Thanks for your time and effort on this video,You did very well here,Good work for the people.

Every video you pull some new, great editing trick :')

I remember that proprietary Hitachi plug. Couldn't find the cord at the pawn shop but just connected it my old NTSC screen until I mapped the pins

PCMCIA was basically a miniaturized version of the 16-bit ISA bus. It was popular for storage because in the end, IDE was also that same ISA bus thrown on a cable, with the controller card being inside the drive. So by more dumb luck than wisdom, probably, PCMCIA is (almost) pin compatible with IDE and with an adapter it can take CompactFlash (which in itself is a mini version of PCMCIA/IDE). Evidence that PCMCIA and IDE are directly compatible is the fact that you can plug a CompactFlash card directly into an IDE port with just a physical adapter, and you can do the same plugging it into a PCMCIA slot. The only 'adapting' going on is electrical. The reason the flash card will not work, is probably because the camcorder does some weird way of addressing that IDE hard disk or has some transfer mode that the cards will not support. CompactFlash through that ISA bus is probably PIO only.

Great Video!! i love 90's consumer electronics, as you said it, back then companies had cojones to bring amazing tech, some were successful and other were just meh... Despite the crappy video quality, the camera itself is very nice. Greetings from Colombia.

this is exactly what id expect from an mpeg1 camera. its glorious

Also, the ui closeups are more reminiscent of contemporary MacOS. Who exactly was their target audience?

You have earned my subscription my boy

Pointing out the icons on the display by recording your hand is genius, haven't seen that before XD

awesome vid dude :)

Very interesting, I think the idea with the AV cables was that you would plug those into your VCR and record your video on VHS, I had a digital camera that told me to do that around 2005, and then use the VHS tapes to watch the videos at other people's houses and stuff. The thing I had to wonder at the time was if you are going to do that why not just get a camera that records straight to VHS.

This video got me to subscribe. I love seeing old archaic tech that tried to be ahead of the curve, even if the results seem crude by today’s standards.

Nice job on the on-screen text @16:29!

I wonder if the original owner bought a replacement battery more recently than 1997. When this item came out, I had a subscription to Videomaker, and I vaguely remember an article or advertisement about a hard drive based camcorder. Maybe this was it. With the results you got, it is no surprise that tape formats (Hi8, SVHS, and the new-at-the-time MiniDV) were still the preferred method of acquisition for video enthusiests. Regardless, nice find of a rare piece of gear, and you got the box! Great vid!

It’s competition was hi-8 camcorders. This camera set the benchmark long before you were born, and digital cameras were available. This was the first available. It was awesome for its time.

You really do just hold this thing to record as if holding a phone to record with its own camera, with a screen to look at and everything. Probably pure coincidence, but still cool. I think most Gen Z people would feel more at home using this thing to record video than any other camera you've showcased.

great video, very well explained! Probably on consumer CRT (not PVM), picture quality achieved that of VHS enough for the family videos, without the "inconveniences" of it, thus this was never targeted to prosumer market. Any chances of you explainig other sides of profesional video/broadcasting industry in the 80's-90's ? I'm still curious since your video titler video about what actual broadcasting stations would use for titles and overlaying their channel logos and test cards.

Great work

I spotted your Compaq Contura Aero in that video! My family had three (!) back in 1994, and mine saw me through university back in the day. Great machines - despite so many flaws! I hope you have the external PCMCIA floppy to go with it. At one point I had Windows, OS/2 AND Linux installed on it - all on the paltry 160 megabyte hard disk. Great times...

Damn it Dude, now I want an M2, it looks so cool. If the video is actually improved to the point that it's almost useable, I'd use the heck out of it.

Looks awesome through my.90's eyes. Home videos, in my computer!

I have an old mavica battery that still holds a proper charge. The original owner had content from 2002 and reportedly had it quite a while prior.

That battery pack is used in quite a few devices. Cameras and walkie talkies mostly. Some medical (not life supporting) equipment too. I worked at a battery store and sold a fair amount of them

That test composition you made feels so much like 2009's RU-vid!

Looks like the lens "tilt-back" (in the forward-shooting position) is to allow the shooter to place the unit on a table (on those oddly-shaped "rubber ridges" pads) without the protruding lens touching the tabletop.