Even by the late 1980s, most households did not have camcorders. Most households did not have a home computer. Even fewer had both. Thanks to my dad giving me some old gear as he upgraded, my household did.
Behold, a VHS video intro I did in 1987 on my Radio Shack Color Computer 2. The CoCo only had RF (TV) output and my VHS recorder was an editing deck and did NOT have a TV tuner. Since the CoCo did not have audio/video out, and the recorder did not have RF inputs, I just pointed the camera at my color television and recorded the titles that way.
Oh yeah. State of the art.
Awesome!!
Awesome!!!
The struggle was real.
Didn’t you also have any VCR with a built in tuner, able to be used just as a tuner, or a TV with video out?
(I guess that video out probably was more common in Europe, first with the few TVs that had a 6-pin DIN connector where the video+audio signals were bidirectional, and later about every TV with a SCART connector would have video out in addition to video in (and audio in+out)).
I would had thought that a major use case for video tapes would be to time shift TV programs. At least you would had been able to watch rental movies with your setup.
Btw did it have an RF modulator? If so that’s interesting, and clearly a sign of what time period it was from since if it had been newer it would likely had been intended for TVs that had a video input.
(When did video inputs start to become common in North America? My 1984 Thomson 14″ TV, also sold as SABA, has a scart input but it was one of the earliest. Some TVs had the older 6 pin DIN connector but that was kind of only on the more expensive models, since a “cold chassis” (I.E. galvanic insulation from the mains power) still was more expensive at the time. As an example though Grundig switched to having SCART connectors on every TV in 1985 (but later on around 1990 again started making a few budget models that didn’t have a “cold chassis” – there still was some saving in not needing a full transformer for the switch mode power supply).
Tangent anecdote: In the 90’s I had a portable VHS recorder with a separate camera. It was Telefunken branded, but OEM JVC, I think the original JVC model was HR2200. It had a separate same size unit that was a tuner, battery charger / power supply and timer. Factory it had come with NiCd batteries but i bought a 6.5Ah 12V sealed lead acid battery (for IIRC way cheaper than what new replacement NiCd cells would cost to buy), and inside this tuner/timer/PSU/charger box I added a 78S12 regulator with a voltage divider constantly outputting 13.8V to the battery pins on the multi connector going to the VHS recorder. I think that battery would had lasted for recording a full 4h VHS tape :)
It was rather heavy to carry the VHS recorder in a bag with a shoulder strap, and the camera was cumbersome as the viewfinder was at the rear rather than side mounted as on almost all newer cameras. But at least it did work :)
I had no VCR, just the portable VHS unit that had a big battery you could slide in and use it portable :-) It had one unique feature… it let you put video on top of the analog track without erasing it, allowing me to make music videos! It was a four head unit that did fairly clean edits, even without a “flying erase head.” WOW, memories.
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