This could also be one of the VCRs you rented from the local video store if you didn't have your own VCR. The ones we used to rent ages ago looked exactly like this. It was put in a hard blue plastic case with a carrying handle.
I'd bet that you'd find the mechanical guts were pulled basically intact from a full size camcorder. It would make sense for them to not redo all the development for such a niche thing.
Yeah, the drum was certainly borrowed from a camcorder. And usually they are in pristine condition. Most likely the rest is also from a camcorder, so good luck with restoration!
The vaults that were designed for these recorders served as a protective unit against tampering with the tapes more so than protecting the unit as well. Back at the Station there was usually an officer assigned for each shift that would have the appropriate key to access the vault so as to remove the tape if needed for evidence or to rewind the tape for continuous use by the next shift. These were later replaced with digital units that used optical disks for data writing. The newer units were designed to activate with an input decided by each department, most often recording would start when the lights were activated. The later units utilize hard drives and even newer SSD's which allow for constant recording rewriting older video as drive is filled. The newer units utilize continuous recording similar to dash cams available to the public. In case of an accident a G force sensor trips and saves a portion of video before an accident and various inputs can trip recording as well ( lights, siren, excessive speed and sometimes even by the station itself to randomly monitor the officers).
That's what I love about my viewers, ready and willing to share fascinating stories about their experience with these gadgets. Thanks for taking time out and sharing your story! Thanks for your service as well.
I've owned a Motorola Two-Way Communications dealership/service center, since '77, and have performed (give or take) about 400 installations of radio/MDT equipment, emergency lighting (tons of Twin-Sonic and Code 3 installs), and Federal Signal/SVP sirens, into police vehicles. We started seeing Dash Cam equipment being installed by aftermarket contractors; some of whom - were bonded, most were not. These 'itinerant installers' bid on sales and installations, through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Revenue; the lowest bidder received the award. The Commonwealth would then offer Dash Cam/video recorder installs to local police departments at cost, which was at a 50% savings (on average) to the township, city, or borough. Most of the time, they would perform their installs after our radio and signal work was complete. However, very often, they would tie the 'under passenger seat' installations into the console bus bar, "my" console busbar. The Motorola, GE, and E.F. Johnson/Transcrypt control heads each had problems with emitting 'modulated noise' onto the tapes, forcing us to wire 14-GA power wires to the Dash Cam + VCR/DVR control panel, and an additional chassis "braided ground line" to the frame, or sub-frame. After viewing several hours of video, some showing 'emergency response mode', they began to notice that vehicles with Whelen Strobe packages/Whelen lightbars emitted "strobe-firing capacitor, SCR triggering" noise onto the tape/DVD. This forced us to pull the entire cam installation, and physically shield the power leads, and install a DC Isolation Transformer (usually Tripp Lite) onto the cam system. By the time this was all said and done, local and state governments dumped another thou into each vehicle, to correct the problem. One of my installers actually found a copy of "Debbie Does Dallas" stowed under the driver's seat, of a shift supervisor, who had the keys to access the strong box.
That's what I love about my viewers, ready and willing to share fascinating stories about their experience with these gadgets. Thanks for taking time out and sharing your story!
The only thing that I'm p'd about, is that I didn't get to view the "Debbie" tape. I understand that the problems with EMI continued until around 2005, with the first of the dash cam installations (in this area) taking place around 1990. BTW: I know where there are two TV Network "remote" trucks, circa '90s, parked - awaiting salvage. The microwave transmitters are the only items stripped thus far.
I like some of the silly modern gadgets that this guy reviews. Some of them are just funny and other are really cool. Of course, nothing beats vintage (except in picture quality)!
Thing is with modern stuff it it's just everywhere, so seeing someone reviewing something modern doesn't seem all that special to me and I find it a bit boring. But old stuff, well that's much more rare, especially if it's something that's really unusual, so I find those more interesting.
I do too, the build quality of the old stuff and the obscure modern stuff I've not seen before is fascinating. Please do not stop posting the modern finds!! :) I'll be getting my hands on a pair of Panasonic S-VHS home machines soon, I am tempted to video my impressions of them, we'll see.
Very similar to the portable vhs recorders of the early 1980s that had a shoulder strap and powered by a 12 volt battery, and you could hook a video camera to and record video where ever you went. There was an external rf tuner that you could connect, and play your recording on your tv. I love how this unit of yours threads the tape around the back of the video head just like à beta vcr does. Very cool unit you have. Love it.
"Stuff was much better made " type comments fits the 70's and partially 80's better IMO. This was manufactured in '96/'97, and there was a lot of very flimsy / placticky stuff in the market already at that point. This piece of equipment is made to run for long hours everyday with as little maintenance as possible. It has to be a reliable, heavy duty machine because of the scenarios its meant to be used, so comparing it to consumer grade products is not quite appropiate, I guess.
I have a VCR that had exactly what that video drum had, but worse! I tried everything I could think of, alcohol didn't work either, until I just went ahead and used brasso being very careful not to touch the heads. Look new again. I had another case with a reel-to-reel recorder, there was so much crap on the head that the left channel was practically absent you'd only hear muffled sounds, you could scape your nail on that crap and it no amount of alcohol would remove it, since I had nothing to loose I went ahead and cleaned it with brasso, at the end the head looked brand new and was playing perfectly.
The "Vault" these things sat in was designed to be tamper resistant in accordance with whatever standards they put to chain of evidence. The VCR was to remain in that box until such a time the tape could be extracted with a proper chain of evidence if the tape contained footage to be used in court. They typically had a tamper seal on them, ergo, even if you mustered up keys to it, which officers did not have, only ranking supervisors, you'd be in a deep mess if your seal was broken. Some of them where fire / flood resistant, most where designed to survive a crash. I use to know a retired officer that explained the annoyance of the vault because sometimes these units would fail, and finding someone with keys to said vault could be a pain. It was a liability to send a car equipped with a dash cam out if the system wasn't functioning. The vault was primarily there to ensure the film was not tampered with, seems excessive especially in the days of video editing being very hard and very uncommon to do convincingly, but hey, I guess it worked?
Was there ever a portable VHS VCR with a built in LCD screen, like the Sony Video Walkman line. I think I remember seeing something like that in a video magazine in the early 90's. I'm surprised that those didn't exist.
I almost bought one of these 2 years ago at the dayton hamvention. The guy had the VCRs and the cameras too, along with well used wooden night sticks. Think the VCRs/cams were $10 each and the night sticks were $5. Almost bought one of those too for kicks.
I had a Panasonic portable VCR. It was a consumer-grade model with very professional features. It was silver in color and had a separate tuner that would link with a cable when used in doors. I used it to create music videos over home footage of skateboarding in the 90s. I'm sure nearly all of the videos I made would be copyright infringement material today.
Nice to see another great video from you! Big fan of your work, always great that you show us the insides of these cool machines, whether they need repairs or not... this makes your channel one of a kind.
I'd like to offer a suggestion for your videos if you're open to one - change your mic setup so that we can hear the device you're reviewing. Your videos are great and your voice is obviously loud and clear with what I assume is a lapel mic, but it sucks that we can barely hear the device itself. Just using the mic on your camera would solve that and be more than sufficient.
I always wanted a top loader, they just look cooler IMO. I was born in1978 so affordable VCRs were just coming onto the market when I was a kid, tho they were still out of my family's price range st the time, so we would rent one occasionally. I remember big heavy top loading units this thing is much more modern, wouldn't mind having one as I still have quite a few tapes. Thanks for the upload good stuff!
i still own an old NV-180 VHS panasonic, part of the F10 ENG system prosumer camcorder.It was back in 88'.It's seems to me this mechanical of this panasonic it's very similar
Hey Databits, what is the number for the 12 volt adapter. I just got one and without the adapter. Is there any similar 12v adapter I could use out there? :)
I have a panasonic AG6400 which I from the sticker onthe back came from a small film studio in california. I checked, there still in buisness! The thing works great though I had to touch up some of the solder joints.
Spec sheet for the full line of such surveillance VCRs here. A bit sparse, but interesting to see how it's still available on some obscure corner of a Panasonic site. ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/brochures/B_AG-750.20.10.pdf
The image quality was quite good, however the only way I could keep a stable picture was to hold the tape around the sync head with a screwdriver. Again, possibly due to abuse of the player before shipment.
The VCR in my camper is 12v and has a remote, 4 head HI-FI and a TV tuner and also records the rear view camera input. Does not have a Mic or headphone jack like yours does.
databits It says "DIRECTED VIDEO" on the tape door. A front loader vhs. I watched Back To The Future with it! I'm going to look in it and see if it has the compact video drum.
made in japan now its made in china...i always look at things to see whats still made in japan..i always wanted to buy north american...excluding mexico of course..
This could also be one of the VCRs you rented from the local video store if you didn't have your own VCR. The ones we used to rent ages ago looked exactly like this. It was put in a hard blue plastic case with a carrying handle.
I'd bet that you'd find the mechanical guts were pulled basically intact from a full size camcorder. It would make sense for them to not redo all the development for such a niche thing.
Yes! I hope one day to find parts and/or another unit and restore it to working order.
Yeah, the drum was certainly borrowed from a camcorder. And usually they are in pristine condition. Most likely the rest is also from a camcorder, so good luck with restoration!
@@bigbro5793The VCR is a early 90s Panasonic VHS camcorder
The vaults that were designed for these recorders served as a protective unit against tampering with the tapes more so than protecting the unit as well. Back at the Station there was usually an officer assigned for each shift that would have the appropriate key to access the vault so as to remove the tape if needed for evidence or to rewind the tape for continuous use by the next shift. These were later replaced with digital units that used optical disks for data writing. The newer units were designed to activate with an input decided by each department, most often recording would start when the lights were activated. The later units utilize hard drives and even newer SSD's which allow for constant recording rewriting older video as drive is filled. The newer units utilize continuous recording similar to dash cams available to the public. In case of an accident a G force sensor trips and saves a portion of video before an accident and various inputs can trip recording as well ( lights, siren, excessive speed and sometimes even by the station itself to randomly monitor the officers).
That's what I love about my viewers, ready and willing to share fascinating stories about their experience with these gadgets. Thanks for taking time out and sharing your story! Thanks for your service as well.
I've owned a Motorola Two-Way Communications dealership/service center, since '77, and have performed (give or take) about 400 installations of radio/MDT equipment, emergency lighting (tons of Twin-Sonic and Code 3 installs), and Federal Signal/SVP sirens, into police vehicles. We started seeing Dash Cam equipment being installed by aftermarket contractors; some of whom - were bonded, most were not.
These 'itinerant installers' bid on sales and installations, through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Revenue; the lowest bidder received the award. The Commonwealth would then offer Dash Cam/video recorder installs to local police departments at cost, which was at a 50% savings (on average) to the township, city, or borough.
Most of the time, they would perform their installs after our radio and signal work was complete. However, very often, they would tie the 'under passenger seat' installations into the console bus bar, "my" console busbar.
The Motorola, GE, and E.F. Johnson/Transcrypt control heads each had problems with emitting 'modulated noise' onto the tapes, forcing us to wire 14-GA power wires to the Dash Cam + VCR/DVR control panel, and an additional chassis "braided ground line" to the frame, or sub-frame.
After viewing several hours of video, some showing 'emergency response mode', they began to notice that vehicles with Whelen Strobe packages/Whelen lightbars emitted "strobe-firing capacitor, SCR triggering" noise onto the tape/DVD. This forced us to pull the entire cam installation, and physically shield the power leads, and install a DC Isolation Transformer (usually Tripp Lite) onto the cam system.
By the time this was all said and done, local and state governments dumped another thou into each vehicle, to correct the problem.
One of my installers actually found a copy of "Debbie Does Dallas" stowed under the driver's seat, of a shift supervisor, who had the keys to access the strong box.
That's what I love about my viewers, ready and willing to share fascinating stories about their experience with these gadgets. Thanks for taking time out and sharing your story!
The only thing that I'm p'd about, is that I didn't get to view the "Debbie" tape. I understand that the problems with EMI continued until around 2005, with the first of the dash cam installations (in this area) taking place around 1990.
BTW: I know where there are two TV Network "remote" trucks, circa '90s, parked - awaiting salvage. The microwave transmitters are the only items stripped thus far.
Now THIS is the kind of thing I subscribed to this channel for, odd and vintage AV stuff! Not silly modern gadgets.
All the content is good. :)
I like some of the silly modern gadgets that this guy reviews. Some of them are just funny and other are really cool. Of course, nothing beats vintage (except in picture quality)!
Thing is with modern stuff it it's just everywhere, so seeing someone reviewing something modern doesn't seem all that special to me and I find it a bit boring. But old stuff, well that's much more rare, especially if it's something that's really unusual, so I find those more interesting.
Nice thing is, you get BOTH here! You can always ignore the silly modern stuff. I love gadgets of all eras...just me.
I do too, the build quality of the old stuff and the obscure modern stuff I've not seen before is fascinating.
Please do not stop posting the modern finds!! :)
I'll be getting my hands on a pair of Panasonic S-VHS home machines soon, I am tempted to video my impressions of them, we'll see.
Very similar to the portable vhs recorders of the early 1980s that had a shoulder strap and powered by a 12 volt battery, and you could hook a video camera to and record video where ever you went. There was an external rf tuner that you could connect, and play your recording on your tv. I love how this unit of yours threads the tape around the back of the video head just like à beta vcr does. Very cool unit you have. Love it.
That would make one cool little audio recorder... MUCH better fidelity than a cassette deck
"MADE IN JAPAN". All the best stuff is made in Japan.
gubr78 I see what you did there 😁
i also see what you did there. :)
gubr78 Yeah, Stuff was much better made back than.
And Germany ;)
"Stuff was much better made " type comments fits the 70's and partially 80's better IMO. This was manufactured in '96/'97, and there was a lot of very flimsy / placticky stuff in the market already at that point. This piece of equipment is made to run for long hours everyday with as little maintenance as possible. It has to be a reliable, heavy duty machine because of the scenarios its meant to be used, so comparing it to consumer grade products is not quite appropiate, I guess.
I have a VCR that had exactly what that video drum had, but worse! I tried everything I could think of, alcohol didn't work either, until I just went ahead and used brasso being very careful not to touch the heads. Look new again.
I had another case with a reel-to-reel recorder, there was so much crap on the head that the left channel was practically absent you'd only hear muffled sounds, you could scape your nail on that crap and it no amount of alcohol would remove it, since I had nothing to loose I went ahead and cleaned it with brasso, at the end the head looked brand new and was playing perfectly.
The "Vault" these things sat in was designed to be tamper resistant in accordance with whatever standards they put to chain of evidence. The VCR was to remain in that box until such a time the tape could be extracted with a proper chain of evidence if the tape contained footage to be used in court. They typically had a tamper seal on them, ergo, even if you mustered up keys to it, which officers did not have, only ranking supervisors, you'd be in a deep mess if your seal was broken. Some of them where fire / flood resistant, most where designed to survive a crash. I use to know a retired officer that explained the annoyance of the vault because sometimes these units would fail, and finding someone with keys to said vault could be a pain. It was a liability to send a car equipped with a dash cam out if the system wasn't functioning. The vault was primarily there to ensure the film was not tampered with, seems excessive especially in the days of video editing being very hard and very uncommon to do convincingly, but hey, I guess it worked?
Four heads with 270 degree tape wrap, definitely designed to be compact.
This is very special, I didn't know it existed.
Rodney kings beating was probably recorded on this VCR.
It was recorded by a bystander, Not a dashcam.
can't wait until they remake these to display 1080p in 4:3 ratio
Some day...we hope!
Was there ever a portable VHS VCR with a built in LCD screen, like the Sony Video Walkman line. I think I remember seeing something like that in a video magazine in the early 90's. I'm surprised that those didn't exist.
Yes. Go look up Audiovox Portable VCRs.
Although this is old, they do exist, by Audiovox, portable and battery or ac operated. Still works great after all these years.
I almost bought one of these 2 years ago at the dayton hamvention. The guy had the VCRs and the cameras too, along with well used wooden night sticks. Think the VCRs/cams were $10 each and the night sticks were $5. Almost bought one of those too for kicks.
So you bought 2 night sticks instead, right?)))
Legendary channel!
I had a Panasonic portable VCR. It was a consumer-grade model with very professional features. It was silver in color and had a separate tuner that would link with a cable when used in doors. I used it to create music videos over home footage of skateboarding in the 90s. I'm sure nearly all of the videos I made would be copyright infringement material today.
Nice to see another great video from you! Big fan of your work, always great that you show us the insides of these cool machines, whether they need repairs or not... this makes your channel one of a kind.
I'd like to offer a suggestion for your videos if you're open to one - change your mic setup so that we can hear the device you're reviewing. Your videos are great and your voice is obviously loud and clear with what I assume is a lapel mic, but it sucks that we can barely hear the device itself. Just using the mic on your camera would solve that and be more than sufficient.
I always wanted a top loader, they just look cooler IMO. I was born in1978 so affordable VCRs were just coming onto the market when I was a kid, tho they were still out of my family's price range st the time, so we would rent one occasionally. I remember big heavy top loading units this thing is much more modern, wouldn't mind having one as I still have quite a few tapes. Thanks for the upload good stuff!
Imagine something important going down but you had to stop and adjust the tracking.
Nice,but sadly everything is digital these day's i liked how digital technology was interfaced with analogue systems like these vcr decks.
Nice vid but I can't help but wonder how many people's rights we're violated with this particular unit😋
its basically a typical camcorder but without the camera section attached.
i still own an old NV-180 VHS panasonic, part of the F10 ENG system prosumer camcorder.It was back in 88'.It's seems to me this mechanical of this panasonic it's very similar
Looks like the brake isn't engaging correctly on the take up reel, allowing excessive slack on loading
I wonder what percentage of it's innards are shared with ant Panasonic camcorders of the time.
Is it just me, or the brake on the take-up reel is a bit loose?
I would agree.
That thing's awesome...practically mil-spec.
08:19 ... and it has an AWESOME tape in it, too! :-D
Hey Databits, what is the number for the 12 volt adapter. I just got one and without the adapter. Is there any similar 12v adapter I could use out there? :)
I have a panasonic AG6400 which I from the sticker onthe back came from a small film studio in california. I checked, there still in buisness! The thing works great though I had to touch up some of the solder joints.
Can this exact mechanism be found in Panasonic VHS camcorders?
Was this type of VCR used on the Cops TV show at some point?
TheRealDealYTPs Maybe the dashcam, but the on-foot Chase footage was more than likely captured using a professional grade U-matic or Betacam camera.
I don't know why they didn't use these mechanisms with a small drum in normal VCRs.
What brand and model is this?
What is the model number?
Spec sheet for the full line of such surveillance VCRs here. A bit sparse, but interesting to see how it's still available on some obscure corner of a Panasonic site.
ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/brochures/B_AG-750.20.10.pdf
Beautiful
~300 line head? Well we have all seen old dash cam video.. 300 must of been enough.
cops mishandling something, im so surprised.....
No video of it playing something?
Oh I want one do they still make them
Model number ?
Did you have a chance to hook it up to a monitor? How was the image quality?
The image quality was quite good, however the only way I could keep a stable picture was to hold the tape around the sync head with a screwdriver. Again, possibly due to abuse of the player before shipment.
Nice!
The VCR in my camper is 12v and has a remote, 4 head HI-FI and a TV tuner and also records the rear view camera input. Does not have a Mic or headphone jack like yours does.
Cool! What brand is yours?
databits It says "DIRECTED VIDEO" on the tape door. A front loader vhs. I watched Back To The Future with it!
I'm going to look in it and see if it has the compact video drum.
Why don't you add some video and audio footages from this unit in the video as it is mentioned as hifi
Unfortunately the unit has broken tape guides and until repaired would not represent the picture quality possible.
But does it play?
nice vid.
wow smallest VCR I ever seen
👍
Classcic
cool
Want to see small head drum, look at the sony dat walkman...
Cool video🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
Not much bigger than current Blu-ray players (2015-2017 models)
I love it dont suppose you could get me one ?
Talk about no frills. With no LCD display and top loading they were able to really cut down on the size!
N
made in japan now its made in china...i always look at things to see whats still made in japan..i always wanted to buy north american...excluding mexico of course..