Glad to see Tim Hunkin referenced! For anyone unaware, he's started posting remastered copies of The Secret Life of Machines to his youtube channel, along with a whole series on his knowledge on components for tinkerers from his viewpoint of making arcade machines. :)

The "It sounds like this" when you played the crunchy tape audio killed me lmao, amazing vid!

The “rods” on the hand grip were used to tilt the camera for capturing titles made on a4 paper with the lens in micro mode according to the manual This was common at the time even on local and some networks

when you pulled out the camera and were like "this thing is probably close to working, it just needs a recap, which is way beyond my capabilities", i went "what, really? a recap is really not that difficult, just time consuming" ... and then you opened it, and i understood why you said that.

I used to use this exact camera/recorder back in the early '70's at school. My social studies class allowed it to be used to make student "documentaries". They were laughably bad, but it was great fun. By far the biggest users of this equipment was the football team. The coaches had an obsessive desire to record and analyze games. I think a lot of the impetus to record games was that the other teams were doing it, so they had to as well.

nothing could've possibly prepared me for how literal "pistol grip" was

"The Secret Life of Machines" was one of the greatest series for someone who wanted to learn about basic engineering of household devices. It did not need any special production values and the host was so low key that you felt comfortable listening to him instead of being distracted by some bombastic loud-mouthed host. For those who honestly wanted to learn, the series was the greatest. Too bad there were so few episodes made. I especially enjoyed Hunkin's homemade contraptions.

I want this guy and LGR do an episode together, they would complement each other so much.

I may date myself, but I actually used one of these in high school. We had one in our high school television station and used it to do on location interviews and for making commercials for local businesses. Thanks for sharing, brought back some cool memories of running a small high school tv station using 1/2” open reel tape machines.

For your Vidicon video: It’s very fun to consider that all of those glorious photos from the Voyager 1 and 2 missions (and I think photos from the Viking Orbiters) are from digital vidicon still cameras.

The Portapak was an incredibly important piece of equipment. It revolutionised the art world. Andy Warhol, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik were all Portapak users. It put video in the hands of artists like no other equipment before.

I'm from the era of this camera and recorder setup. Our high school A/V department made the one at Hawkins School in Stranger Things seem feeble. We had two of these cameras and decks and a switcher setup. We did a school news show that we would feature in the cafeteria on Fridays, (shown on an a 25" monitor in BW) and we had a video yearbook for 1978, so if you had Beta or The Great Time Machine by Quasar (VX format), we could maybe dub a copy for you. 1978 was just when the first RCA Select-A-Vision VHS decks came out but it was a little late for me, as I graduated that year. Our setup worked well as the school acquired ours around 1975, It didn’t hurt that my A/V teacher was married to a broadcast engineer at the local NBC affiliate, so if the decks or cameras needed service, he was ready to assist. The thing you failed to mention was the price. $1,650 MSRP in 1972. Pretty steep. The first Betamax in the console with a Trinitron TV, the LV-1901 was $2,495, and the first standalone Betamax, the SL-7200 was $1,295. This was in 1975-76 money. I think The Great Time Machine (also ‘75) was $1,299 but I can’t find confirmation of that. Very interesting video.

This thing is really significant, IMO, because it demonstrates bare-bones video recording without any complications. Show people this video and they’d instantly understand how VHS works, without all the extra moving parts and complications.

Crazy that for a lot of things, Tim Hunkin still rules at the best visual demonstration of how something works.

The audio reminded me of the bad guys on the original Half Life.

Tons of schools, cable TV local access channels, and corporations used Porta-Paks. I used them all those ways, and never thought of them as a home format.

if that was what was before Beta, then this is the one and only true Alpha from SONY :D

Gravis is such a lovable, relatable, good humored human. I enjoy his commitment to the truth, personal honesty, and especially his sense of humor! Thanks for the dope videos that I rewatch on an embarrassingly regular basis ! Awesome content. Can’t get enough.

21:31, that magical moment where suddenly, bam, *it becomes the ‘90s out of nowhere*

You're a great presenter, I love watching your detailed takes on obscure video and camera stuff no one but you and apparently me, and the rest of your audience seem to care about. Really look forward to your future productions. Those little flip out rods on the pistol grip are only to be used when the camera is off. Its so you can set the camera down in an upright position so you don't accidently damage or dislodge many of the haphazardly designed circuits and tubes inside if you were to just lop it on its side. If you were using this camera in situ you had to be very gentle, lol.

I'm sure I remember seeing a camera with that sort of look in the film, Apollo 13 both for the press on the ground and for the astronauts to do their broadcasts during the flight. It'll be interesting to see how these first examples of small video cameras worked at the time!

The first shows I made in 1971 were made on these. The editing was caveman tech. Thanks NFB. Retired now (on paper)

My father went back to college in the mid 1970s for his masters program. I had to occupy myself in the Central Washington University library for 5 days a week. I think I was 7 or 8. I remember going through their catalog of lectures on this format. I was asking the Librarian so often to change the tape that she showed me how and left me to it. I dont know how many lectures I watched or even what they were about, but I had the power to choose a tape and start and stop it at will....... I think I spend as much time watching the reels spin as what was on the videos. Thanks for the memories.

New Cathode Ray Dude video is always a pleasant surprise.

21:30 Woah, that camera angle took me back to Zoom or Bill Nye the Science Guy. (And I mean the PBS show, not the video-conferencing software)

34 dense-packed minutes, unlike other *ejem* youtubes, cannot take my eyes off it, great, funny. So much work to make this. Thanks!

You are such a great talent, very intelligent and interesting. You deserve way more subs than you have now, but I’m sure you will get there in no time at all.

The description and animated demonstration of helical recording was so cool. I had no idea that's how video was stored on magnetic tape. It really is genius. Also I'm glad you decided to record youtube poop on a 1960s camera. You're probably the first, last, and only person who will ever do that.

From what I remember, the tubes in vintage studio cameras were huge, whereas by necessity, the portable cameras had much smaller tubes. And I think I'm right in saying studio colour tube systems had a tube each for red, green and blue, which again, you couldn't replicate on a portable - just a single tube mushing all the colours together, doing the work of three tubes, and getting a much lower quality image, on a lower bandwidth tape.

Omg, PLEASE make that video about those reverse CRT recorder doohickeys! My smooth little brain can’t even begin to try to imagine how that technology works but I am fascinated and I need to know more but I don’t want to look it up myself because I’d rather hear you explain it to me first lol. No rush tho, I know you’re busy and I love all the content you’ve been coming out with 😌

I was part of an engineering club at university and we were located in the basement next to the dumpster area. We lived off of the discarded office furniture and computer supplies. I graduated in 2016, and most of the stuff there was pretty uninteresting; your typical filing cabinets, broken chairs, and dividers from the '90s and early 2000s, actual garbage, and discarded construction materials. But, every now and then, there'd be seriously interesting items such as old Apple computers and peripherals from the '80s to '90s, recorded media, and both consumer and professional A/V equipment from the '60s-'70s. At some point, the administration caught on to students taking this stuff and using it in clubs or bringing it home, and erected a cage around the entire area with a locking door. Right as the cage was being built, there was a stack of professional-grade equipment using the tape format in this video over in the e-waste section. I was seriously tempted to take one of the machines, but couldn't reasonably get away with it. I regret not having at least tried, BUT, I was able to get a tape reel, sealed in box. It's yours if you want it.

I used this exact cam & recorder in high school in the 70's and at the time it was the most used device in our school's TV studio. The original equipment was installed in the early '60s and it used those giant AMPEX 2" machines and giant studio cameras. This was portable and we could record anywhere and that's what made it so popular. were slowly changing over to U-Matic decks for recording off-air and broadcasting, but when there was a game or concert this was small enough to drag with you anywhere! You might find it useless but we thought it was awesome! Thanks for showing it, I had fun watching it!

Love that TEAC! Great machines those are. The early 80s models are super cool because the have the SYNC mode for recording, meaning you can actually record new material in real time with something previously recorded on a different day! Great video btw, I learn so much about things when i watch these because of how well researched they are. I think these 30 min to an hour long videos hit the sweet spot of information vs pacing, so i'd stick to that format. Would love some more PC Mag streams as well because those were so much fun!

This video is fantastic buddy, you really make great content and it gives us a look into where we have been and how far we have come. Please keep up the awesome work and thank you for your effort!

Well done CRD, I have worked in the television industry in Australia for 30 years, starting with two inch tape and the transition to one inch, three quarter inch and half inch broadcast tape formats. I never knew Sony developed a half inch open reel tape format. Also impressed by your descriptions of how helical video is recorded. Fabulous production and a detailed demonstration of both recorder and camera. Keep up the great work dude. Im now a subscriber.

Enjoyed it man. I love vintage tech. I have subscribed to your channel. Great seeing a 1969 video recorder. I was surprised it had a microchip board in it. I didn't think that technology was being used then I thought it was the late 70s. Makes me wonder how many other machines had it in as they transitioned over from cathode ray tube metal monsters to the micro tech/nano tech mini devices we have today. It blows my mind how I can film a HD+ video on my phone?!?-and upload it onto the Internet in minutes now over the internet. How advanced technology is now and how it's changed. I remember the big clunky consumer tech from the 80s where it was a novelty if someone had a video camera at a family gathering, otherwise people just didn't own one or use them. It was a company thing not a consumer thing back then. 😉😊😎😍

32:57 At least now you have an easy way to get a late 90s/early 2000s first person shooter radio chatter filter.

I used one of these in college and it seemed pretty revolutionary to me. I made and edited my first experimental videos on two of these. I still have a few reels of tape somewhere.

A thoroughly researched and well-edited video, with the original equipment to boot. Great channel.

I find the simplicity of this old tech compelling. When you're actually able to understand what everything does, it somehow makes it more intriguing.

As I said before, this is like LGR Oddware but even better. Outstanding presentation, insanely interesting and enjoyable to watch. Thanks for the video!

That size lead batteries were still used in buglar alarms around the turn of the millennium. Well stocked parts resellers should still be able to supply them.

I just subbed man, this is the second time I've stumbled on your content and it has greatly improved. You have a great ability to convey information without droning. Keep it up with the great content in an underserved genre.

In 1974, when I was 14-years-old, I spent a lot of time carrying around (lugging?) that model of Sony “Portapak”, and the matching Sony camera, for “Cable 10 Mississauga” (Ontario, Canada) Community Cable TV channel. At that time cable companies in Canada had to offer community access TV to get a licence to operate a cable TV system. The community channels were volunteer staffed; I was a volunteer. The Portapak was used to cover small events like a park gathering, speeches, school events, even gathering aerial views of Mississauga. I can still feel the action of pulling the record and play levers together ... and the metallic feel of securing the video connector. There was a strict rule to NOT point the Vidicon tube camera at light sources as it would burn in dots or lines ... or worse ... burn out! My grade six school also had that model of Portapak (that I volunteered to use ... my first experience shooting video!).

Pro tip: reverse one set of connectors so that it is impossible to connect with the wrong polarity.

I did watch your documentary, and it was bloody brilliant.

I think it was 1974 when my video direction and technics school bought one of these. Prior to this, we had been using the Akai 1/4" B/W video tape recorder, don't remember the model. It was fun, learning the intricacies of video signals, recording, etc...Carrying it around was something for strong people, but we were young. Nice video

This is so well written and engaging! You can really hold my attention well, I will try and share it around.

New CRD! I'm here for IT!!!!

I’m amazed by the contrast between how ingeniously clever the concept of helical scan recording is and how much it made possible, and how it has all but faded past boring everyday use into nearly complete irrelevance today. Sadly somewhat like CRTs!

The tripod stand on the pistol grip wasn't for positioning the camera while recording. The camera had playback capability as well, displaying the image on that teeny, tiny crt in the viewfinder. You could open up the tripod legs, place the camera on a desk at the perfect viewing angle, flip up the viewfinder, and check out your recorded footage without the need to hook the deck up to a monitor.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you went to all the trouble of hooking up a bulky 1960s camcorder and the first video you played on it was Hank of the Hill.

I always love seeing this early stuff. I grew up in the late 80s/early 90s and camcorders were fun, but they were just plastic bricks with buttons.

I always see these things and want to run out and buy one then I think to myself - I would never have a purpose for this. I have a 90s Canon Point and shoot that takes amazing pictures for a point and shoot from that era - it was $600 when it was new so I guess. But even then I rarely use that. :/ At least I can live vicariously through you.

It's really refreshing to see videos really well created like that. Thank you for your efforts in making a really good script !

21:30 That angle is great and that audio gig really cracked me up, keep up the good content man.

The bipod kinda makes sense in the context of health science use. Maybe they filmed dissections or something else needing tabletop macro 🤔

A lot of the forerunner formats to the ones that reach mass adoption are Friggin weird. I love that it is open reel, which sort of seems like a bridge to the cartridged formats that made it big. I hope to one day need a spool like this from Thingiverse.

@21:30 this cut to Low-angle shot, simply amazing!

How about the Akai potable 1/4 inch VCRs? In early January 1973 I made history with my Akai VT110 quarter inch reel-to-reel video recorder (explained later). This Sony 1/2inch recorder was the forerunner of the Akai I had. Also, this KZfaq video was terrific and very educational even for someone who was 25 when the product was released and into video as a hobby. Great job Cathode Ray Dude!! Anyway, in January 1973 I was on a flight from Madrid Spain to New York City returning from a whirlwind trip to Europe. We were flying on a TWA 747. About an hour and a half out of Madrid, the captain made an announcement that our flight was the target of a terrorist bomb threat. It seemed if the Basque Separatists ransom demands were not met, the bomb on the plane would explode when the flight went below 3,000 ft. This was regarded as a valid threat by the authorities and we went through many scenarios including flying to Denver Colorado, altitude about 7,000 feet. Obviously, the threat proved benign but not without some tension on board. As I said earlier, I was returning from a pleasure trip that included Landon, Paris, Rome and Madrid over a two week period. For that trip, I had my newly purchase Akai "portable" VCR with me that I used to document the trip on board as my carry on. The KZfaq (link below) is edited footage taken on that flight including interviews with several of the passengers on the plane. Interestingly, when I got interviewed on WCBS and WNET TV, my father recorded those interviews on a TV VCR that was part of a console TV in the appliance store he worked in. Later that week, I transferred those interview to my Akai machine to preserve them. My machine was stolen in 1974 but I have had the original tape in my garage until 2006. I found a service provider in Maine who had a working Akai VT110 who transferred that tape to an MP4 file for me. I then edited the file into the KZfaq video you can view here ( kzfaq.info/get/bejne/er-XdMmK2dbQeKs.html ). As a postscript, Akai also sold a color version of the machine about a year later but that was too expensive for me at the time.

I kindof like this design better than a spinning head: it probably means less wear on the tape.

"I'm surprised it doesn't have zerk fittings" - now that's an idea... Shame it's a collector's item...

Used this camcorder a lot in high school in 1973-76. The school library had 2 porta paks which students could sign out for the weekends. After making a few shows we were allowed to use the 1/2 inch editing studio in the the board of education basement. We ended doing a modern day remake of Hamlet as a english class project. We had the music teacher doing a piano soundtrack, stuntmen diving through open windows and a dirty harry detective character driving his customized 1960's chevy impala. We made a camera dolly with one guy running the porta pak and another pushing (running) behind the dolly. Had so much fun with this equipment. How it stayed in one piece I have no idea!

Wow ... I really had thought, that Betamax, Video 2000 and VHS where the first ... which in fact they were, if you look at the number of sales, but not at all from a technical standpoint. You really filled a gap there! The expanation of the tilted drums and why it was sodesperately needed is the first I ever understood! I also didn't know about the Vidocon. I thought later Camcorders just had the advantege of having the recording mechanism inside. But it was obviously more about the image capturing method. Outstanding work!

This dude is doing Techmoan better than Techmoan and VWestlife better than VWestlife, step it up youtube algorithm

It’s utterly useless but it’s exactly the sort of thing I want

Very nice video! It seems really neat, and I want one even though I don't even have the slightest use. Reel-to-reel video just looks so cool.

Your videos are SO GOOD. Thank you for keeping this stuff from being completely forgotten.

I came from Technology Connections' tweet, and I found an amazing channel. Great job!

Absolutely incredible! Awesome vid!!

When I went to high school we had our own tv studio and we did a daily news show. We had this Sony mini cam and it was the coolest thing ever. Your looking at it from today back and you know everything that came after it. No matter where we went to video record this device always attracted a crowd. Even the local tv channels that would show up to get video on a high school football game we had to always spend time showing them our Sony min cam. As a kid in high school having the respect from the professionals and they took time to review the video we captured and gave us ideas about how to capture video the perspective to make your video more interesting and took time to invite us to their stations editing room, just because we had this equipment. Looking back this may not thrill you but if you were there in 1967 and seeing this come out in 1968 it was huge and damn impressive. The best thing was it was cool.

Fantastic stuff as per usual, keep up the excellent work 🙂👍

i remember each of these versions of video, i never really thought about what machines were capturing the images to begin with and just felt like our tvs and vcrs were getting better. super cool to see the rest of the story. i was engrossed in the video lol it was quite interesting well done

I'm excited for this potential future video on vidicon tubes, I understand nothing about them except that they're how we got pictures back from the Voyager probes

I was “the” kid in my school who recorded school events using the SONY Portapak, and the SONY camera that worked with it. It even had a TV tuner built in so it was possible to record TV broadcasts. 50 years ago it was the coolest thing possible. Nobody had ever imagined such a thing before it.

It’s not often that I’m thankful for KZfaq recommendations… but i love the fact that I got recommended this video of yours! Have subscribed, and look forward to seeing your future videos!

I have no knowledge of the detailed workings of this machine (other than what I learned from this awesome video) but as an amateur astronomer I can say that the three pairs of screws under the lens mount sure do look like the sort of push-pull system used for optical alignment in certain types of telescope.

I remember using one of these when I was in grade school I ran the thing (so much fun). Its called simply "Video Tape Recorder" or VTR for short. Great video, never thought I would see one of these again.

Nice video! P.S, you can use the same cable you used to get video into the VTR to get a clean video signal out of it. There is a switch between "CAMERA" and "TV" right next to the EIAJ plug, and when it's TV mode it will send a video signal on the same pin that's used to input video. This was so you could review your footage on the camera's built in CRT viewfinder, or hook it up to a TV using an adapter cable that adapts the 10-pin EIAJ plug to an 8-pin multi connector that would plug into a TV (If I'm correct, the TV would use it's own internal tuner and send video from the tuner to the VTR using the same 8-pin to 10-pin cable and use the trigger pin to time recordings) Of course, tapping into the baseband signal before it's sent to the RF modulator is another way to do it, and the signals should be the same. I don't own a EIAJ VTR to test this, but I have do have a Panasonic portable VHS recorder and it uses the same EIAJ plug, and it sends composite video to the camera to be reviewed on the camera's CRT viewfinder. I also owned a General Electric (made by Panasonic) TV tuner/timer unit from 1981 and it actually uses the same EIAJ plug to connect to the VCR. I would assume you can use the EIAJ plug with a tuner,.

I saw a video of David Bowie in the early 70s walking along the beach with one of these over his shoulder singing Drive In Saturday. I wrote to the BBC who ran the video on a show called Top of the Pops and asked what the device was and how much it cost. I was a child at the time so almost any price would have been beyond me. They said they didn't know as it was made by a third party producer. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the future. I have owned many camcorders since and recently got the A7s iii. A camera a light year away from this but your video was a real trip down memory lane for something I wanted so much at the time. Excellent video.

Our elementary school bought one of these Sony open-reel video decks in the early 70s. I distinctly remember the reels being offset; that differed from Dad's reel-to-reel audio deck. In 1974 my teacher took the Sony home, recorded the pilot episode of Little House on the Prairie (trying to remember to pause during commercials and unpause before the show started again, not very reliably), and played it for our class.

Watching you thread the reel-to-reel and I’m remembering my old question from decades ago: why do people do it that way? Rewinding the reel and then storing it is almost as bad as leaving vinyl LPs stacked up sans jackets. I guess most people don’t play the tapes frequently, because if they did they would notice the sound stage slightly moving around between left and right channels as a music tape plays. I learned this working as a deejay in nightclubs. I’d make 3-hour tapes for use during afternoons and early evenings, before the dancefloor was officially opened.After a tape had been played a few dozen times, the sound would seem to move back and forth, just slightly but noticeably. The way to prevent this was the “tails-out” rule. Put the tape on the deck, rewind it, play it, return it to its box, grab the next tape, rewind it… Point is to rewind before playing, not after. This allows the take-up reel to pull the tape in very slowly and smoothly, and when the tape is done, if you look at it, the edges are very smooth on the reel. If you look at a reel right after rewinding, you’ll notice the edges are rough, not laid down evenly. I’m not sure what happens to the tape when it is stored straight after a rewind, but over time the sound is negatively affected.

Oh heck yeah new CRD!! Also was NOT expecting to see The Secret Life of Machines mentioned here. I watched that show growing up!

We had one of the portable units in our High School film-studies class. One neat feature was 'in-camera' editing: You put the machine in PLAY + PAUSE, then jog to the exact frame where you want the cut. Engage RECORD, and take it out of PAUSE to start recording. Perfect cuts, just about every time. Visually, it worked fine, but there was always a 'pop' in the audio. We found out you can't splice these tapes using audio-tape techniques.

Thanks for the GREAT explanation of how VCRs work, how they record video, and that most of the complex machinery is used to thread the tape around the recording drum. Don’t know if you are a teacher, but you’re fantastic at it!

Excellent presentation, and for me a pretty heavy dose of personal nostalgia: The high school I attended had one of these portables, plus an AV-3650. Purportedly, the football team used it for analyzing practice, but I don't remember seeing any such footage. Oddly enough, many years later a friend somehow ended up with the very same portable and camera (I had ways of being sure), then he eventually gave it to me. By the time it arrived in my possession it was rapidly going from barely functional to useless. The one thing I was able to do experimentally was prove it would pass a colour signal. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to move the tape to try to record anything in colour. After that it only gathered dust until I lost it along with a lot of other things when I couldn't pay for all of my storage. The tape speed is 7.5 IPS, which with the 5" reel provided half an hour of recording time. The AV-3650 accommodated 7" reels, so it could provide an hour. Of course, that speed made the linear audio quite good. Also, the tape path is much more like that of Beta or U-Matic than VHS.

What a great video! I've wondered what sort of home/amateur video equipment existed back in the pre-cartridge days, especially since I discovered Terry Ork's 1974 video footage of the band Television rehearsing, I imagine he was using a later version of this very same machine! Media preservation is one of my greatest passions, and it's equally as important to highlight the hardware that made it all possible. It would be a dream for me to one day be able to restore one of these machines to getting it working as good as new, though I suspect most remaining tape is all flawed.

Thank you for including Tim Hunkin's work, I've been thinking it was called "How Stuff Works" and have been unable to find his series as I so enjoyed it, wanted to watch it again and learnt so much from that series back in the early 90's.

amazing rig!! I had no idea these existed! its almost a wonder that the camcorders we got later weren't more like this!

Consistently interesting content! Keep it up man :)

Great video man. Can't believe this is the same channel. Well done.

your're one of the few yt channels that makes videos that I enjoy watching from the beginning to the end

It is said that Bob Crane used equipment like this to capture some of his private tapes in the early 1970's, the twin legs on the pistol grip for the camera would come in handy to help give good camera placement for such videos.

Very good video. Thank you for taking the time to make it.

I used this exact machine in high school and in college. Later on I used them in a government jobs. It was intended not as a consumer format, but more as an educational and industrial format. Panasonic was also a manufacturer. There were also table top desks, some that could perform assemble and inset edits. It was replaced in that arena by 3/4-inch U-matic cassettes. I saw industrial VHS with editing systems emerge in the late 1970’s and early 80’s.

When I was in high school they had just purchased this same system. I was in charge of it during one of the class periods. It was really cool. Thanks for letting me see it again.

Our school had one of these back in the 70s and I remember usin' it for some sort of 'TV commercial' project we did. Playback was on one of those school TVs on a high stand with wheels and cabinet doors - might've been B&W back then, can't recall. The mock 'TV commercial' we shot was kinda cool, tho. A fictional product called 'Disappear All' - a spray you could use to make things invisible. We briefly demonstrated it on-camera - spraying it on a pencil on a desk. After spraying it we stopped tape - took away the pencil without moving the camera...and rolled tape again. Seemed impressive to a bunch of sixth graders, lol. Spielberg never hired us.

the story at 1:45 has everything, a hope, a tragedy, a new rise.... all that in 15 seconds is just amazing but in reality, the video is great and I hope to see much more old video content from you, and hope to see you become much bigger as a channel

Having used this system in the past. It was considered "semi pro" grade. The setup I used consisted of 4 cameras a mixer a time sync device, local intercom to talk to the camera operators 4 preview monitors. and a similar desktop version of the tape recorder. Even TV stations used this setup for smaller soccer games. The only alternative was 16mm film. Although the system was obsolete when I got it in the late 70ies. It had a wow factor and although the b/w the cameras we used were fairly good. They resolved (if my memory is correct) between 300-350 lines. All the stuff except the recorder was mounted on 19" racks and could be used for broadcast and archival recording. We had a lot of fun with this system, tons of cable, basic video mixing functions (even picture in picture). A fairly similar "portable" system was included in the package but the quality was vastly inferiour. Perhaps time to reanimate the system somewhere in my attic....

In Jr high (early 80s) - I used to run one of these (same camera, later, larger tape deck) for taping basketball games in a dimly lit, 30s era gym with incandescent lights. You can imagine what those looked like. The cable would frequently flake out and need repair.