Sharp's Zany Double Camera 

The Twincam seems like "The Homer" of camcorders. Some senior person at Sharp had a relative that had been begging to design a product and they did whatever that person said no matter how dumb.

Open one of the broken ones and see if it’s littered with Sharp references inside!

That was a great demo of the poor dynamic range of those cameras. Shooting in noon sun meant the person's eyes would be black holes and their cheeks would be overexposed. They made you appreciate the flat even light of cloudy days.

"greebled" is EXACTLY the word that came to mind, holy shit

I find it amusing that the NTSC one has an 'color viewfinder' while the PAL one has a 'colour viewfinder'.

1. The design looks a little like japanese minidisc and hifis from sharp, so it might be targeted to their market. 2. The reason they built it is the same as today's multi-lens feature on modern phones. But back then it was the other way around. Everybody wanted to shoot from distance so zoom with a long focal length was a must. On the other hand this usually ruled out extra wide angle which is much more practical in Japan or Europe where spaces are tighter. If you wanted to have all the family in the frame it was either the wide converter or... this.

"It's really ugly" You take back those words, you charlatan! You knave! That is the most single perfect specimen of camcorder to ever possibly exist! Your mere mortal mind cannot comprehend it's forward looking aesthetic!

This thing looks like you have to tactically reload the batteries/tapes.

Actually, the more you rag on the camera’s aesthetics,… the more I’m starting to really appreciate it’s aesthetics. It’s kind of wild that it made it through production in the first place.

That's also the same technique used in 3D Modeling... By adding Details the occlusion effect is more noticeable therefore looking much more photorealistic when rendering.

Well, now we have smartphones that feature 4 to 6 cameras and nobody laughs at that. Sharp made it long before it become mainstream.

Nice that it has a line input option. I hear that was quite a common feature elsewhere in the world, but it was a feature that was removed from nearly all UK versions. To do with the import tax I believe - if the camera had input sockets it was classed as a VCR, which meant more import tax had to be paid on it. Result - none but the most expensive UK camcorders had video input sockets.

The Sharp actually looks like they were trying to take design cues from professional TV cameras. The aesthetics of it look really similar to the one I operated for a while when I helped with the TV broadcast for a church we attended.

This is SOOOOO a Sharp "high end" product. Literally matches their TVs from the era

Dude you cover some of the most interesting niche video tech on RU-vid, thanks for taking the time to share this stuff. Still incredibly envious of that WVHS deck bruv, but happy it is in good hands.

As someone who was a young adult in that time, the purpose of the different look is to make it look like fancy equipment, and the reserved look of the other camcorders resembled "Cheap" products. You want fancy stuff, make it look fancy with all the "Different" "Metals", and gaudy designs. Basically, it was nothing more than a status statement of the times.

They "experiment" a lot of concept consumer products in Japan. Some are specific to the Japanese customer market. I have seen cell phone models that were never sold outside of Japan back in the 90's.

Exactly what I needed to brighten up a tough, disappointing, tiring day. I find your voice really relaxing, as well as the content interesting.

Growing up in the tail end of the DV era, i like the look of a silver camcorder with way too many buttons lol

I *had* one of these when I was in high school! It was amazing. So many edit-in-camera options. The audio quality on the thing was astounding. I had the opposite reaction to the aesthetics at the time. :)

come on now, we all know this just some very clever VFX, as if any company would release such a bizarre product (secretly I want one just so I can take it apart and strap the bits to my head then run around pretending to be a Borg)

I remember having a go on one of these way back when they were a thing & the process of lining up wide & tele lenses “ on the fly” seemed much like spinning plates whilst unicycling.Kudos for thinking outside the box even if actual use was insanely awkward. Love your video. Very best wishes.

8:53 - curious P in P function: The only reason I can think of why this might have been useful is that back in the day, some of us (old guys who used to own camcorders and sometimes used them in a more advanced manner) used to occasionally set up an ad hoc studio at home, taping something while monitoring it on a TV set attached to the composite jacks. In such a setup, a PiP that showed a close-up of the focal point of the video and could be moved from left to right, could almost make sense with the video in progress being monitored on a bigger screen. Still, I have to admit, it's a barely useful and underwhelming implementation of PiP. It really smacks of a feature added mainly because someone was trying to figure out what to do with an otherwise unused spot on the side of the camcorder.

I always had the feeling that 1990s Sharp (and Casio) had products that, instead of being released, just escaped from the R&D department. Like someone from Marketing walked in to the R&D department, saw something fancy but very unfinished and demanded a working marketable product within three months. Maybe they bought an OEM shell (modified for two lenses) and crammed their tech in it? This idea, given a bit more thought, would be quite nice. It could have become a nice digital sports finder, where you had a wide angle view of the whole scene and a pip view of the actual frame, so you could see things happen out of view without getting your eyes off the viewfinder.

I'm 46 and think it looks cool and from the future lol a lot better than the boring black thing.

The big TwinCam looks like a Panasonic product with that swinging viewfinder.

Twelve-year-old me was obsessed with this camcorder when it was advertised on the Home Shopping Club (now HSN). I distinctly recall a demonstration video in which a boy was batting in a baseball game. The wide shot showed him standing at the plate, while a close-up shot of his face was superimposed. I found this _incredibly_ cool. My recollection is that the unit cost only about $100 (about $200 in today's money) more than an otherwise-similar single-lens Sharp camcorder.

dude i love your channel. this is the real spirit of youtube. what it always was meant to be. broadcasting yourself and the things you like to talk about. beeing yourself no matter of audience size, and talking about things that matter to yourself are qualities that are rare these days. instead of pandering to the audience to encurage growth you just do what you like to do. i envy you, bravo!

Point of reference: $1,700 USD in 1992 would be the equivalent to over $3,300 USD in "today's money". I'd play with it at Circuit City or Incredible Universe, but that's about it.

I worked for a Sharp service agent in the UK between 1993-1994, just as the Viewcam range was launched.. We had lots of MX7's come in for warranty repair, and also the cheaper VL-M4 that had a tiny B&W CRT viewfinder and a built-in video light in place of the second lens. I still have my old VL-H400H Viewcam in the loft somewhere. Thanks for the memories!

10:00 A PiP input would require a digital frame sync, and those were very expensive at that time. The two sensors in the camera are already genlocked, so they don't need a frame sync.

I bought one of these in the 80's and I still have it. It was pretty interesting the way you could do wide angle to zoom fades with the two cameras.

That camera is a modern art masterpiece.

That chunky "greebling" looks cool. It'd be at home in any cyberpunk dystopia, especially with the extra lens too.

I remember this one when it came out - it managed to impress me back in the day. BTW, this was styled to look like 8mm film gear. And it does look quite bit like a bolex-paillard film projector, although much cheesier.

External PIP would have been hugely complex due to synchronising the video signals. PIP between two CCDs was easier because they would have been running from the same timing source.

I reflexively clicked the Like button 2 seconds in, because I was so excited to be among the first people to see a new CRD video! :D I've now seen the whole video and it was delightful. Thank you.

I love you man, you're the most wonderful nerd I've ever had the pleasure of consuming the content of. I hope you continue to be as excellent far into the future!

Oh man, seeing that Sharp camera takes me back! My mom had a unit like that, and being able to hold it up and tilt the screen down was awesome when you needed an eagle eye shot. A lot easier than the handicam, even the models with the side screens.

I'll be honest, I like the look of it.

This is the type of camera you'd see in 90's anime. It fits the time period from that perspective.

BFG9000 was the very first thought I had when I saw it on screen. Great review, love the content!

I really enjoy the editing you do on these, like at 8:03 when you say "I never really liked the look of zooming" and instantly zooms out ^^

Gotta love VWestlife is his treasure trove of random older vintage electronics!

According to the New York Times article "When TV Is A Snap" from 1992, it was $1699 at launch. "A notable innovation in the ever-popular camcorders is Sharp's 8-millimeter Twin-Cam (Model VL-MX7U). Unlike other video cameras intended for home use, it has two separate lenses instead of the usual single lens. The dual-lens feature brings to home video advantages long enjoyed by photographers using interchangable lenses. The options for pictorial composition -- and thus creative expression -- are thus considerably expanded. One of the two lenses is a zoom lens so powerful (12x) that it can take extreme close-ups even from a distance. The other is a wide-angle lens that produces panoramic images. If desired, images from both lenses can be taped simultaneously, with a close-up appearing as an insert in a wide-angle long shot. Further refinements, like stereo sound and a color viewfinder, make the list price of $1,699 seem almost reasonable." (NYT, "When TV Is A Snap", 9/27/1992)

the p-in-p seems "useful" for sports; zoom in to see the individual player, while recording the entire field of play on the wide.

Please keep making videos. Your videos are calming to watch.

90`s tech assimilated by the Borg

Me and my brother used a Sharp ViewCam when we were kids for making lots of dumb videos. But it gave us experience to later create our (mildly) successful youtube channel in 2009. I loved that thing even though it was weird lol

I absolutely love how this thing looks!

In my work back in the day we loved the viewcam form factor. You could even use it like a mini LCD TV since the AV cable worked like in and out at same time. It was sad day when Sharp exits the country.

my cat loves your videos; he always wants to attack your hands while you're talking

oh the engineering meetings regarding having PinP must have been a fun

thank you for the glorious two of them reference

I am learning so many new words from this guy!

It's a work of art.

I love the design of the twincam SO MUCH. 😂❤️ It's so extra!

I cheered when you said “greebled” because it was the first word that came to mind for me as well

6:37 The picture took me back to a very cool time in my life, reminded me of home videos with the old man and his mates when they just discovered camcorders. We would film fishing, the beach trips (which damaged the cams because of sand).

This video inspires me! Thanks for posting!

Glue some nonfunctioning gears to it and call it steampunk.

The other issue with zooming was that if you were using the built in mic you almost always had to suffer through several seconds of very loud motor noise recorded on the audio track.

Ooh, take it apart, the caps will tell you who made it. Panasonic uses panasonic caps, Sony uses Elna caps, etc.

It's funny that you threw out that toy company theory. When you introduced the camera I was reminded of the Talkboy from the 90s.

One of the companies that made a similar cam to the Sharp Viewcam, was Sony with the very limited SC series which includes CCD-SC55, CCD-SC65, and sort of the CCD-SC55, which really IMO where really based on the Mavica floppy series cameras they made around the same area.

Actually I'm capturing a video made in the 90's with this camera and transferred to S-VHS, from some friends that played rock music and I have to say that, besides the poor quality of the video 8 image, the camera had the ability to change between the lenses in real time, and have one of them focusing the whole scene, while the other could be offering a close shot of it, which you could monitor previously through the viewfinder, and make the change, say, when the guitar solo began, and have the guitarist instantly on close-up, even allowing some kind of basic graphic transitions between both images. And the built-in mic sounded pretty good too, with a surprising stereo image. I borrowed it from a friend and I have no clue what happened to it, but it was a nice toy that has brought me nice memories...

The Slim Cam series definitely had capacitor issues. Like early to mid 90's Macintosh machines these things used SMD caps and of coarse they are starting to leak. I guess I was lucky that at least 2 of the ones I got worked. I got 3 of them. One I got without a battery or charger. Second I got was to get one paired with a charger and third one for the cable you need to connect the charger to the camera. Unnecessary way of obtaining these parts yes but it was actually cheaper then trying to find them on their own at the time. The VL-L53 (I think it was a VL-L53, don't recall. But it was definitely a L5x series) doesn't even power on and one of the capacitors fell off the board while I was swapping it's shell with other internal parts. The L63 seems to work fine but has some slight interference in the camera scene that is noticeable in certain lighting conditions and a L64 appeared to be fully working and doesn't have the interference issues the L63 has. So that's the one I got lucky on. (it happened to be the first camera in the bunch I acquired too!. The others just happened to come included with the accessories I was trying to obtain. :P ) Long story short they are indeed plagued with capacitor problems. There is currently another on eBay right now that has most of it's original accessories. (even the carry bag! 2 of mine came with them). You could try and acquire that one. Contact the seller and ask him to test it. He says untested because dead battery but he doesn't realize the charger can be used to test the camera and he does have the connecting cable for it (seen bundled with the av cables in his pictures). So it's at least possible to convince the seller to attempt testing the camera. It's just a matter of letting him know how to connect the charger to it. Might be worth the effort in case it's a working instance of the camera. It's a bit pricey (around $98 or so) but for an untested camera that's too expensive I think. Given that he does have means of testing it, definitely try to convince him to give it a go. Don't need to get him to find a VHS tape. If the CCD/board works you are good. I can provide the VHS deck from my dead l53 if by some long shot there is an issue with the one that one has. I can almost guarantee the VHS decks are compatible. The VHS mechanisms on them seem to be pretty rock solid though so you probably won't need mine. :P They don't use belts from what I can tell (aside from what kinda looks like a small belt that drives that swing gear that drives the tape reals, but it's got some teeth on it and doesn't appear to be made of rubber) and all 3 VHS mechanisms I've gotten (even the one in the dead L53) seemed to work fine after testing one of the working boards from the L63 or L64 with them. I want to try and find someone to recap mine. But that's gonna be a real chore. The boards on these cameras has a forest of SMD capacitors on them. So having them recapped isn't gonna be cheap it looks like. It's only a matter of time before my L64 goes from perfect working condition to having some kinda of issue. :( Had they went with through hole ones I could have done these myself. But I don't have decent enough soldering equipment to trust working on SMD boards with so I'm not gonna touch them.

I really liked the ranty part of the video, and if you ever feel like you want to do something like this, please do it!

A lot of capacitors from the 80s-90s died very rapidly because the original recipe for them was lost and an incorrect copy of it was used by manufacturers for a while until the original concoction was rediscovered

I learned a new word in my native language today! "Greebled" is so fun to say! Thank you! 😊

It looks like something made for the japanese domestic market, but was somehow sold in the rest of the world. They really used to like that kind of weird robot buttons everywhere kinda design.

that lens cap pop is spicy . I could imagine it being a focus point of tv ads at the time

There was a camcorder for sale here in Japan a few years ago that had a separate inward pointing lens with its own sensor for putting a pip of the dad filming with camera while reacting to his child enjoying a birthday cake or running around at the yearly sports festival.

You're a great narrator. I could listen to you read the back of a shampoo bottle and be wholly entertained for hours.

"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

I faintly remember seeing this camera for sale in 1 or 2 issues of the Damark catalog (Remember those?) circa 1993 or 1994. Don't remember the price though.

Honestly i love this camera i think its truly beautiful

Love the dog show b roll for the pip!

Oh, man. I remember "shooting kids" with a VHS-C Sharp Viewcam. It was the only VHS-C recorder we had as everything else we used was Hi-8 and thus Sony. People LOVED how the Viewcam looked, whether it was the kids being shot or their parents. Everyone had to see what was on the Viewcam screen. BTW, love the manicured nails. lol And your channel ... but man. Even when I get manicures my fingers look nothing like the models you got. :D

Darn, I love how the AV connector flap is just held shut by that round sleeve popping onto the white chinch plug…

Looks like "twin cam" is only good in engines.

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing!

I get a strong impression that this was designed by Sharp to be a prop for Kevin McCallister, like the weird Talkboy in Home Alone 2. (But Sharp made a weird twin boombox also called a Twin Cam so I dunno.)

The little Twincam *screams* Sharp to me. The brown gold color and that font are the EXACT ones on my Sharp CRT. All those fiddly extra and the cyborg toy look? That's because it's SUPER PROFESHONIL

Have you considered sending the other twin cam to Mr Carlson's lab or bigclive as a collab to get it working? A collab like that would be awesome 😎

Holy crap, that DS9 Romulan senator clip took me _waaaaay_ back

Can you open the twin cam and see if there are any factory markings on the circuit boards? Perhaps see if the boards have the same style of silkscreen and routing?

My bet is they put one of their bookshelf stereo industrial designers in charge of the aesthetics. There was a lot of "make it look powerful and futuristic" design posturing starting to happen at that time.

8:40, but the white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. There is no stopping in the red zone!

Wasn't aware of any camcorders on the consumer market with two cameras that record simultaneously other newer phones from Crapple or Sadsung... Quite interesting and thanks for the video, outstanding as always.

No freaking way, I just bought one of these, and its on the way. Cant wait to geter goin

Those crazy ideas from the 90s .... I remember the double deck walkman with dubbing capability and one of the most bizarre thing, the triple deck boombox by National. This sense of adding things without any sense.

Endlessly pleased at "greebled". Just perfect

I like when you say things are things on things in trench coats.

1:23 it looks neat, could use it as a prop in some sci-fi movie ha 1:49 ha

This design reminds me of mid-90's to mid-2000's hi-fi systems that looked like spaceships! I love it because of that!

It makes me think of that 80s vhs camcorder from the paranormal activity movie with a crazy amount of features and controls.

it was a top of the line model for gadget lovers of that era that had to have the latest, smallest model - some first hand info from '91 :)

The only camcorder I've ever seen that looks anything like this is the fictional one Laserbeak turns into in Transformers Armada

if we're speculating, what if the weird one was made to fund the proper one? i think you may be right about a foreign market, and they may have released a cheap version to figure out the kinks and then patched it. after it proved itself to be a successfull product they could have used the revenue to redesign it for the american market, which was already common practice for asian companies like nintendo with the famicom/nes.