A Video Double Bill
Today we have a Main Feature with a supporting Short.
The main feature has turned out to be of my personal favourites from recent weeks - its all about Video 8 - I hope you enjoy it too.
The supporting feature is a quick tip that will only be relevant to some BMW Mini owners, but I thought it was too handy not to share - the link for this is here: https://youtu.be/el2Za4w61aM
Now as far as the names on the Roll Of Honour go in the outro of the main video - I’m working about two weeks ahead at the moment in preparation for my summer holidays. So as this video was completed on the 24th May, any names of new $5 Patrons who joined more recently will be on upcoming videos.
I’d better also mention that my piece to camera at the beginning was shot before the one used on the Custom Vinyl video from a couple of days ago (just in case you were wondering why my decor has taken a backward step).
The short tip video doesn’t have an outro as it’s just a quick off-topic extra I shot this morning. Given it's lack of relevance to most of my viewers I’m unsure whether I should turn on Subscriber Notification upon its release or just set it loose without any fanfare.
Patrons will have at least three days early access on these videos...so I'll only be turning on the youtube comments one day before the official release to avoid starting a riot.
As always, I'm extremely grateful for your continued patronage - and don't forget to send any ideas, suggestions or tips through the email input@techmoan.com or via the messaging function here on Patreon.
RetroTech: Video8 - Forgotten Ambitions & the Crazy Walkman Compo (YouTube)
Comments (27)
I love this video. I used to buy Sony products. This is one of many examples how convoluted Sony has become over the years.
Top job again. No recollection beyond the camcorders so was interested to see this. You get the impression that there was a room full of engineers at Sony that kept coming up with the madcap devices and then just st handed them to the marketing team before returning the to room to produce the next one. p.s. thumbs up for the muppets.
I had a clamshell-style Video Walkman in the early 90s that I used to build up a little collection of movies on 8mm tape for my portable viewing pleasure. Most of them I recorded from my own Laserdiscs, but I was also a member of the Columbia House 8MM club so I had some prerecorded movies as well. Of course now I can (and do!) have dozens of higher quality movies with me at all time on my phone, but at the time watching movies on the go was fascinating to me. Oh by the way, I thoroughly approve of your inclusion of Jabba the Hutt in the samples!
You really were living the dream back then...maximising the best of the current tech to get a taste of the future. Capturing the Star Wars videos was a bit problematic...so from the sections I could capture I tried to show the parts of the film that would have been changed in the updated versions, so there's the subtitles on Jabba, the actor inside Vader and the end celebratory music.
I love Sony's days of producing any old gadget then seeing if sells. Wonder what else is floating around in the lower depths of EBay.
I always wondered how they managed to make any money doing what they did - The amount of time and effort they put into bringing a product to market that they then often discontinued after a year. Another thing I never really got is how anyone could make money selling products that were only available in Japan...it just seemed like there wouldn't be enough people living there to sustain so many gadgets from all the different tech companies.
Not the most giant fan of the puppets, but this one is an exception. As for that ...thing...who thought this was a good idea?
I'm still unsure of the value of the puppet sections - and they are incredibly difficult to think up. This may be the last one for a few weeks because I'm out of ideas.
I used to work at a local TV station and though I can't recall the model number of it we actually used a Sony Hi-8 dual deck until for editing and playing commercials and playback of local events shot on our MASSIVE Hi-8 cameras. Those things must not have had CCDs. My boss had to do all the editing of the commercials because it was a complicated endevour utilize a bunch of tiny buttons that only he could understand. I'd forgotten all about that deck until I saw your video. Thanks!
It's probable that they were professional grade Three-CCD cameras..those could get pretty bulky. I'm happy that I could bring back a few memories.
I may have missed it but have you ever researched and looked at pinhole cameras, spycams and other micro imaging devices that have been on the market? every now and again I'd see ads for them in magazines and catalogs but.. never tried getting one. I am curious on the varied and odd tech involved and exactly what kind of quality it produced. :)
Years ago I did some videos about 'spy' equipment, including a couple of pens and a set of glasses and the videos were quite popular. I keep meaning to get back to it, but for some reason I get side tracked. I've got a couple of devices sitting in boxes somewhere.
good point, well made :o)
I can say that the next video is about a simple smart home solution...but after that I'm not too sure as I haven't started on it yet.
really enjoy, and look forward to, your retro tech videos would love to see a sweep of your storage/ loft / spare cupboards to give us a glimpse of what may be forthcoming
I learned a while ago never to announce an upcoming project. When people kept getting in touch to ask me if I'd heard of a 'thing that was like a mini cd inside a case, called a minidisk (sic)" After well over a hundred similar messages I finally thought I'd have to try to do something to assure people I knew about minidisc...so in a video I mentioned that it was something that I'd probably cover at some point in the future. Unfortunately that then meant that for two years under every video I put out, a good percentage of the comments were asking me why this wasn't the minidisc video that I'd promised was coming next. So it's probably best if I don't do any spoilers.
Great Video! One of my favorites. Some crazy gear. Hey Mat, where do you keep it all? You must need a storage unit by now!
I've got a lot of boxes in the loft...I did look into the idea of a storage unit...but there are none local and the prices are crazy....I'll just keep stacking things up until the roof comes in.
Neat video. I always wanted one of the Hi-8 VCRs.. I don't know a model number, but it looks just like a VCR but a but a but shorter and thinner, and the tape actually loaded into the front just like VHS. I would have used one of those for time shifting and home-recording back in the 1990s but the trouble was they cost about 6 times what a comparable VHS recorder cost. So there's no wonder why they never succeeded in the market for home recorders. I also enjoyed seeing the footage of your MR-2. I always wanted one of those when I was first getting my driver's license.. but never got one. I had no idea that pre-recorded movies were ever made for the format.
I think that MR-2 is probably my favourite of the cars I've owned over the years, it looked like a mini Ferrari.
Royal Tennenbaums on 8mm tape is the most hipster thing I can possibly imagine
I love the research you put into these: raises your videos above the crowd - and all very "Genteel" and civilised. And then there's that other mad Pom Colin Furze :p Much appreciated.
Thanks, this one started off a couple of years ago when I bought the Hi8 machine, but I didn't think it was interesting enough to warrant a video, but then I found the Video Compo by chance, and a couple of days later while looking for PAL tapes for it, came across the Airline tapes and it all started to come together into a tale worth telling.
Hehe, I like the use of the Eye of Sauron video I sent you. How many percentage of the comments will be about that you think? 😂 Fun stuff about old tape formats. Always a pleasure to watch your videos. :)
I'd expect a good 50%...I'd better put a link back to the Worldeye video in the video description (that no-one will read). Now if only you had a rotating Deathstar video...
Great video. It's funny, the company I work for actually did the copying of the Hi8 tapes for in-flight entertainment. As I remember the recording was actually done in the NTSC format (due to the longer recording time). So I remember the Swedish Film intro (terrible organ music playing over the warning). At the time the company was called SDC and it was a facility house located in Denmark manufacturing VHS copies (rental and retail copies) and master tapes for televison and so on for the big distributors in scandinavia.
That's a heck of a coincidence, and yes the videos were in NTSC, which I thought was odd given the region they were being used in, but of course it makes sense when the longer play time of NTSC is taken into account. I emailed the US duplications company mentioned in that magazine article to see if they were still making 8mm tapes for any airlines, but unsurprisingly they didn't get back.