CEI Competes For the High End of the 1970’s Video Market

CEI, a small California video company, once made a vidicon camera using three one-inch tubes and relay optics rather than a splitter block. It was called the BBC-2 and was marketed by a very big name in American electronics—Ampex.  More

Philips LDK14 Camera Competes in the Emerging ENG Market

In the late 1960s, Philips competed in the camera market with the three-Plumbicon LDK 13, a two-piece, camera-backpack system that was labeled “Pye” in the United Kingdom where the cameras were used in two BCC experimental mobile news units. More

Sony’s BVP 300/330 Series Cameras Cemented the Company’s ENG Legacy

It was in 1974 that Sony introduced the VO-3800, the first portable U-Matic VCR. Though its design was primitive and it was never built for professional use, this 30-pound “brick” became the first portable recording device widely used in the explosive new field of professional ENG.More

Ikegami’s HL-77/79 Cameras Were King of the Hill in the Late 1970s

Though RCA’s TK-76 was introduced in 1976 and Sony’s Betacam arrived on the scene in 1982, there was a long period—more than a decade—when two-piece camera/recorder packages were the staples of broadcast news. Two industry favorites in this heyday in the late 1970’s were Ikegami’s HL-77, quickly followed by the HL-79 series. More

Sony’s Betacam Opens the Camcorder Era

It was late in 1982 when Sony began delivering its first Betacam camcorders. The early shipments combined a Sony single tri-stripe Trinicon tube with a BVV-1 Betacam onboard record deck. The camera-recorder combo could be operated separately, but were bolted together to create the industry’s first one-piece camcorder.More

The Early 1970s: The ENG Era is Born

The HL stood for “Handy Looky,” a name that Ikegami still uses today for some of its camcorder models. However, portable video cameras from the early 1970s might not be considered so portable by today’s standards.More

“That Was Then!”
RCA's Last Great Studio Camera: the TK-47

In 1978, RCA introduced the TK-47, a camera that what would become the company's last hurrah in full-size studio cameras. The ubiquitous camera became a television industry workhorse--and was still selling well when RCA exited the broadcast business in 1985--until the era of CCDs made it obsolete. More

“That Was Then!”
In the Mid-1960s, Philip’s Norelco Brand Meant Something Other Than Electric Shavers

Today, the brand name Norelco is synonymous with Philips-made electric shavers. But in the mid-60s, when color television began to take hold in America, the Norelco PC-60 was Philip’s introduction to the famed Plumbicon picture tube.More

“That Was Then!”
RCA TK-42 Ushers In The Age of “Living Color”

It was New Year’s day, 1954, when NBC made history with the first live national broadcast in “living color” over a 22-city network hastily constructed by AT&T. The event, the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, was tailor-made to show off RCA’s brand new color television technology. More

“That Was Then!”
RCA TK-11: The Industry's First Workhorse

Before CCD sensors, there were tubes. American inventor Philo Farnsworth, age 14, drew his idea for an all-electronic TV pickup tube on the blackboard at school in 1922. A farm boy, his inspiration for scanning lines came from the back-and-forth motion used to plow a field. More