Using a 𝐍𝐄𝐖 VHS-C Camcorder! JVC SXM250 from 2003 

I cannot explain how much of a mindfreak it is to see this VHS footage. Like conceptually I understand that it was filmed in 2023, but without the context of the video I would be 100% convinced it was from the turn of the century

There's something special about filming modern stuff using an old vhs camcorder. It's like a visitor from the past came in the future and tried documenting it.

Yes, the digital zoom was so bogus. I remember my family got a camcorder with 700x digital zoom... have you ever seen the space between pixels?

no better way to welcome a cold rainy/snowy November morning with a crisp LGR unboxing

I feel like you could use VHS footage as era-appropriate B-roll every now and again.

Man the video quality made me incredibly nostalgic for the late 90s early 2000s. Getting my license, 87 cent gas, video taping my friends playing UT, Quake 2, martial arts etc. It's hard to believe that it was 23 years ago.

As a massive fan of things like analog horror, I have to say that you just futzing around with this camera around town already looks a thousand times better than the junk analog filters everyone runs their video through during editing. More amateur creators need to invest in a new-old stock camcorder like this. They were so common and popular that there has to be a deep supply of such things still out there for cheap-ish.

I donno if its just because of the conditioning we went through in the 90's; but going through old camcorder footage feels oddly personal and intimate. It feels super slice of life-y

With vintage video and photography equipment, you're not capturing a perfect replication of real life; you're creating art. The imperfections add texture and leave more to the imagination.

i love clint going into his history with a similar camcorder because it really goes to show that you don't need to shell out so much money on-top-of-the-line tools to start creating something worthwhile, or even to start a creative career; what you use always comes second to how you use it. don't let not being able to afford the latest and greatest stop you from doing something you love

Something I noticed with both this camera and old footage I have from my old video cameras: We take “clips” now with our phones, but with a camcorder it felt like you immediately fell back in to how videos were taken in the past - lots of random footage with talking (ooo squirrel, pumpkin etc), and so much *longer* shots. Having all of that storage really helped capture so much!

Ah man, I forgot how... cozy VHS looks. I never had a camcorder, but it's still nice to be reminded of those first generation RU-vid videos. I think it would be kinda neat if you made the occasional video with it. Sort of a throwback kind of thing.

There’s something very nostalgic about that raw camcorder footage like watching old family videos

That 80s smooth jazz track you played during the retail demo is unironically amazing and very authentic sounding despite it being royalty free music. Sounds kinda like Grover Washington and John Klemmer like my Dad used to listen when I was a kid. You have fantastic ears. I can tell you put in effort into finding the right music

It's honestly enough to trick me and send me back all the way back to the 90s... You just can't replicate the authentic 90s video experience with modern technology.

Thank you for properly deinterlacing your footage and rendering at 60p. Too many people miss this crucial step for preserving camcorder fluidity.

There's something about that less sharp VHS aesthetic that really looks good.

There’s something just right about seeing Clint through a VHS camcorder. Brings me back 😄

I'm getting heavy "Dad recording on family holidays" nostalgia

Hard to beat that era of JVC. Miss them in the US market these days. They were always my go to for bang for buck.

That late-90s, early-2000s Weather Channel music at 12:10

Time traveller jumps 20 years into the future and brings back disappointing evidence for hoverboard and matter transporter futurists.... Loved this video, Clint.

This was a fun little throwback to the early days of your channel. It's sure cool how The Blair Witch Project defined that creepy nighttime forest VHS aesthetic. I think most of us went right there mentally when you were shooting at night in your backyard. Great video as always, I love to watch you having fun with the topic!

Its amusing how easily you can go back in time just by looking to something recorded on a cam and displayed on CRT. :D It really felt like it was shot 20 years ago. Love it! Also, LGR Witch Project was perfection :>

Woah! Your LGR startup camera is the SAME camera my dad used to capture all of our childhood memories. I'm currently converting all of our tapes to digital and I pulled it out to test it with a new battery and it still works flawlessly. Great camera.

Yup there's nothing like LGR on a rainy day. ☕😌👍🌧

i love your videos. im 38 so its all nostalgia rides for me. 14+ years of LGR. never stop.

My father was always in to cam-corders since the 70's. I recall his first one which had a shoulder slung pack which housed the battery and a full sized vhs tape, and this plugged in to a camera which was about twice the size of the VHS shown here and it was _just_ the camera! He took it everywhere, it was like being followed by a film production crew. He bought a new camera every few years and we were all subjected to afternoons sitting around as a family watching back old tapes he'd made. Good times indeed, the nostalgia the VHS format induces is palpable. I miss those days with all my heart. I work in tech as an electrical/electronics/software engineer for the MoD and DoD, and I love where technology has gotten to, but I also think we've over complicated the world and by virtue we've lost a lot of the warmth and charisma that came with pre-social media and pre-smart phone days. They were simpler times, and things weren't as easy, but they were certainly more wholesome.

I feel like you posted this just for me. I've been watching your channel for years. This summer, I started to get into filmmaking and I'm literally sitting here now with a similar JVC SVHS-C Camcorder from 2001 trying to figure out how I could justify shooting with it. Thank you for this!

3:05 I have to say, this thing wrapped in wood grain, as well as being in the channel colours, also makes it look *phenomenal* man.

Would love to see your next video recorded on this beauty. Something nostalgic, with appropriate video quality to match. Imagine opening your video with a door wipe, into a corner wipe transition, then ending with a fade out finish.

This is why I have always respected and enjoyed your content throughout the years. This one hits really close to home for me. This is the same camcorder my mother got for me on my 17th birthday of 2003. Very special moment for me that was.

A beautiful camcorder, shiny, silver, and new. The 2003 aesthetics all over the camcorder. Clint's relaxing narration. Just when I thought it couldn't be any more of a satisfying video, boom, 12:10 with some smooth jazz over the camcorder demo. Heavenly

I wonder why the VHS just sounds, i don't know, more real? Crunchy, i just really adore how nice it sounds.

I had these batteries in a JVC Boombox remote, and they just would not die, and also not leak. I wish we still could buy such high grade batteries. Nowadays they start leaking even BEFORE the expiration date :(

The smooth jazz during the in-screen demo reel was perfect! 😂❤

An LGR Thrifts episode filmed with this camera would be so freaking awesome!!!

I don't know how closed captioning got turned on but ..... "Tree-rat related chuckle" is probably the best thing I've read in awhile!

I love old cameras and this is so cool!!! Thanks for reviewing this Clint

Watching with the captions, and I love this: [laid-back unboxing music] [general cardboard noises]

YES! I hope this is a start of an old camcorder phase. My favorite vids from vwestlife are the ones on old cameras and LGR's digital camera reviews are wonderful

Just adding how nostalgic your footage looks but also makes you understand why horror movies and games like to emulate all of that. Those night shots gave me goosebumps!

I just complained to my friend how I cant find inspiration. And then THIS masterpiece drops. Thank you mr Basinger!

What a great great video The combination of PS5, squirrels and random girthy objects through a nostalgic lens is absolutely heartwarming. Thanks for sharing

I bought an VHS-C Camcorder in the ship's store on board the USS George Washington in 2004. I used it to take photos on deployment and mail them home the same day. It was revolutionary at the time and my wife certainly appreciated it. #blessed

Honestly it looks like you're having so much fun and this video is just a pleasure! So cool!

I have to say that your choice of scenery looks rather era appropriate. :D Until you start playing PS5 I couldnt say for sure if you filmed it in 2001 or 2021.

TIL what JVC stood for. And omg you were a baby in that older clip! 😂

It's pretty staggering how far we've come in just 20 years.

That downvote at 1:21, nice. I really hope you take that feedback seriously though lol

There's something very wholesome about the fact that your career started with a VHS camcorder you got for 10 bucks from Goodwill.

Once again, carried back to my teenage years, selling these at Ultimate Electronics! From just a stupid logistics point of view, these boxes always stacked so neatly, and whenever one got returned I, of course, HAD to test it to see if it still worked. For total work purposes.

I remember using camera like these so vividly. Even the ramblyness of recording on VHS because you had the power of video and it was novel. Loved the video.

There is something so aesthetic about VHS camcorder footage. the artifacting and distorting, the subtle noise and the bad focus. It's nostalgic.

Rural NC filmed in VHS camera is honestly a time capsule, I grew up and lived here my whole life if look at old cars especially its uncanny :D

Clint slowly downvoting his own old video is a hilarious sight gag.

Not even going to comment on the camera, but that HR-S8000U is dropdead gorgeous!

Era-appropriate Cypress Hill was an awesome coincidence. Thanks for another great video Clint!

i love all the footage on the camcorder!! for some reason, simply being recorded on vhs makes everything look old and i love that! very nice video! thank you for reviewing this clint

[lightly amused chuckle] really appreciate your great captions. so often they are an afterthought for people, or autogenerated and impossible to read.

I remember the first time I saw one of those opening side-door screens on a camcorder. I remember thinking it was the most futuristic thing Id' ever seen lol

This is such a cool video, the retrospective, and the footage that looks like it’s from 20 years ago. Takes me back to a time when it really was about capturing the moment on video, how magical that was. Our family had a full-size Sharp VHS camcorder in the ‘90s, lugged that thing around until about 2004 when we got a Panasonic MiniDV. The hand-sized camcorder with decent battery life was a game changer, could get out and about and not feel restricted recording all the various activities.

Been watching you for years and this video really hit me emotionally with the nostalgia for the same things I appreciate when it comes to older camcorders. Love it and love you dude. Your content is soul food.

The funny thing is: once you turned on the shot video, I was like I can't believe how bad it is and how much video is now, BUT THEN, after a few minutes, my brain started figuring out what it was doing to the scene, and it wasn't so bad. So, it's like where it went bad, is easier for the mind to correct that when digital goes bad. Fun review. Thank you.

Hahaha, loved this video, the pizza was the icing on the cake! Those visuals are so particular of the VHS time. Thanks mate.

That demo music matches the LGR aesthetic quite nicely.

This video is my new happy place. Thanks for the all the great vids over the years Clint, especially this full circle one.

Watching that screen load , with THAT music, complete relaxation. soothing.

Time to start the day with old tech.

I had a very similar JVC that I got in 2001 to replace my dad's aging shoulder-mounted Sharp from 1992. Sadly, the quality didn't come close to that of the Sharp. Mind you, the Sharp camcorder was about $2000 when he bought it, but it was amazing in low light, and the external microphone captured sound beautifully. The JVC sound always seemed muffled to me, and the colors were nowhere near as vibrant. And, yes, the Sharp was heavy, but when you have it propped against your shoulder it's surprisingly comfortable, and you don't have to worry about image stabilization.

That's interesting to learn that there were VHS-C adapters for VCRs that were battery powered. I still have my grandma's JVC GR-AXM341 from the early 2000s and the adapter it came with is all manual, where you slide the door shut to secure the tape.

From Clint arguing with himself on a sofa all the way to this, thank you VHS 💖

what a nostalgic overload this episode is! brought me back in time, my dad always recorded every family event on vhs, has a ton of vhs tapes still to this day. if you like clint being back lgr foods with a vhs recorded episode. that would be awesome!

that zoom is actually really impressive imo

Can't tell you the nostalgia this gives having used the VHS-C for school projects in highschool in the early mid 2000s. It brings back so many memories.

34.20 You look like the virtual tour guide we had on Hawaii airlines 20 years ago. Except a cheap lcd in the back of the headrest. Perfect.

Brings back memories of those absolutely giant VHS units. I had to lug one of those beasts around on rental through Disney World. At least this is a sane size.

You should film an entire old school LGR episode with this camera.

This video was incredibly well-made! Love your content so much. And seeing the VHS quality makes me wanna watch my old home videos again 😎

VHS in 2004 feels stupendously past it's prime though. DVD players had been cheap enough that I'd already had one in my room for a number of years by then. I haven't really watched any "amateur" VHS footage in the last 20 years and so it really took me back to my youth. My grandparents would drive around Canada and the US in the 80s and 90s and my grandpa would film basically anything of note and we'd be sat around his TV while he showed us what he saw on his trips. The shaky footage and half-incoherent mumbling describing what was going on. He was also a really early home computer adopter for my neck of the woods and he was the one that showed me the game Castle Wolfenstein 3D, really blew my mind. RIP

Some of the scenes look super sharp and honestly quite usable. Like the indoor scene of your Compaq AIO. I think the improvement in capture techonology really makes a difference compared to the early LGR days. I think you'd get some really usable videos swapping out the VHS-C there, much like when vwestlife makes videos occasionally on Hi-8 and such. Really the only things let down are when there's some high contrast areas with high details, like the brickwork in the buildings, or the closeups of leaves. The extra luminence bandwidth of SVHS would likely help a bit there.

Great stuff - those batteries still working was the most amazing thing, though :)

I have so many vintage cameras and camcorders. I have 3 1987 (ish) VHS cameras and one of them was new in case, another has the rare dual video head on it. I also got a 90s digital camera that takes floppy discs - they are some much fun to use. Its so fun when you film things fitting of the era but its also interesting to think that - these cameras are seeing the future - recording things well past possibly whatever their creators thought was possible.

love how much fun you had with this one, it’s nice seeing familiar stuff cause I live in north carolina. loved the distant sounds of dogs barking during the night time footage. LGR camera content is great

Crazy how VHS was still a thing well into 2003

So, I need to say this: Thank you for keeping my childhood/teenage years alive on this channel. That said, I didn't get into any of the tech stuff as a kid/teen, other than 8 bit and 16 bit consoles, stereos and a distant interest in computers. I literally did not have my first computer till 2003 when I turned 20. To that point, I gamed on, did work on, and worked on, computers but they were never mine or even in my own home. You have helped me live the parts of the PC world I missed out on, both games and hardware. And I do thank you for that, your channel has been great from day one man. And this kind of stuff is just bonus. :)

Had one very similar to this that we bought at a Sam’s Club back in 2007. Was told as long as we had the receipt there was a lifetime no questions asked return warranty. Flash forward to about 2019-early 2020, we had cancelled our membership since our store had closed, we find a box in the basement with, what do you know, the camcorder in box with all of its accessories AND the receipt. We decided to wait a couple weeks until the closest Sam’s had a “no membership required” day. We take it back to the service counter and the clerk looks at it, looks at the receipt, looks at it, looks at the receipt, and says “when did you purchase this?” we tell her “oh about 12 years or so ago. She gives us a bit of a confused look and says “well it’s got the warranty, do you want in store credit or back on the card?” And just like that we had $329 of in store credit and got a whole cart worth of groceries for free.

this is what my memories look like.

that VHS pizza inspired instant hunger

I'm always going to have a soft spot for technology from the year I was born. Somewhat of a stepping stone year, things start to look more digital but still using old school techniques at times and haven't quite hit late 2000's quality. 20 years since I was born, slightly more than half of that time I have been watching LGR, and getting a better idea of what the world was like to experience when I was born. Truly grateful for the ability to have a look back like this.

It looks great! I have so much nostalgia for that old LGR look as well, remember watching your first videos fondly.

There's something very special about "new old" when it comes to tech. I recently bought a brand new, unopened in box Sony PVM-14M2U ("14 CRT TV from 1997) for the equivalent of $180 and a Playstation 1 (also unopened and brand new) for $120 with a bunch of games. The smell and the feel of brand new tech I remember so well from my teens is a very nice feeling. It's gonna be a perfect addition to my 1990 Toyota HiAce HolidayAce Camper/RV. Would love one of those old camcorders for recording my adventures.

What is that font... What IS that font?! How did you do that?

where has the time gone…

You're crazy! Going in back alleys! You could have encountered kids of the block trying to steal you ! They would have been like : New kids on the block: "Hey! Give us your.... your... 🤔Give us your device old maaaan!!!" 😆 PS: I'm 41 now, and I'm nostalgic of the VHS era too ! The VHS camcorders, the VHS quality, the VCRs (the noise when you insert or eject a tape), even the VHS renting on saturday night. Thanks for the throwback, it felt good !! (And it was weird to see a flatscreen TV and a PS5 controller on VHS, a little bit anachronistic, it has some time travel vibes :D ).

I really like the look of vhs footage. Really brings me back to a simpler time. Thanks for this 😊

lmao did he downvote his own video😂

Did you thumbs down your own old video in this video? LMAO

Watching this video made me feel i was transported 20 years back in time! Thank you.

I do really like the old VCR LGR videos. With the old armchair and everything. It was nice sharing this nostalgia moment you had for the camcorder.