Panasonic NV-M7 VHS Camcorder - Daffodils 

Thanks very much I appreciate it. Panasonic I've noticed had completely different lines for the NTSC and PAL markets. Some of the models are similar but its difficult to tell what models correspond to each other if they even do at all. JVC and Hitachi seem to have had more of an approach of just doing the same basic models with an NTSC and PAL version.

I don't know of a difinitive source of info on the releases of tube camcorders. It would also depend on region. I know Panasonic made two full size VHS tube camcorders, the M1 and M3, these used Newvicon tubes, the next one they made was the M5 which was CCD. There was one made by Hitachi, the VM200 which used a Saticon tube. The Panasonic ones came out in 85 and 86 I think, not sure about the Hitachi. There were also a couple of VHS-C ones by JVC, the GR-C1 nd GR-C2 which used saticon and newvicon respectively and the 8mm VM-E1 by Canon (saticon). This is all PAL stuff, I don't know about NTSC. The transition to camcorders from separate camera and recorder units coincided with the transition to ccd sensors so there aren't that many tube camcorders really. There are many more tube based separate cameras. There's a lot of good information available from past issues of practical television magazine which can be downloaded from worldradiohistory.com but you do have to find it, fortunately you can search the pdfs on the site. If you want info about how they work I can point you to specific articles if you want.

@@nowt1002 Thank you so much! That site is going to be a great jumping off point in finding the camcorder I want to hunt down. Keep up the good work, I love the way these recordings look!

No problem. Thank you for the kind words.