History
Video cameras originally designed for television broadcast were large and heavy, mounted on special pedestals, and wired to remote recorders located in separate rooms.
As technology advanced, out-of-studio video recording was made possible with the use of compact video cameras and portable video recorders, as a detachable recording unit could be carried to a shooting location. Although the camera itself could be quite compact, the need to carry along a separate recorder made on-location shooting a two-person job. Specialized videocassette recorders were introduced by both JVC (VHS) and Sony (U-matic, with Betamax) releasing a model for mobile work. The advent of the portable recorder led to the elimination of the phrase, "film at eleven", which meant that recorded video footage could be aired on the "6 o'clock news" (evening news), as it was no longer necessary to account for protracted film development processes.
In 1982, Sony released the Betacam system. A key component of this system was a single camera-recorder unit that eliminated the need for a cable between the camera and recorder, dramatically improving the freedom of the camera operator. Betacam used the same cassette format (0.5 inches or 1.3 centimetres tape) as the Betamax, but had a considerably faster running time that enhanced quality and reliability. The Betacam quickly became the standard for both broadcast news and in-studio video editing.
Possibly based on the industry response to the Betacam, Sony released the first camcorder for the general consumer in 1983. The Betamovie BMC-100P used a Betamax cassette and typically rested on the shoulder of the operator, due to a design that could not be controlled with a single-handed grip. During the same year, JVC released the first camcorder based on the compact VHS-C format.
Continuing in the area of video recording, Sony came up with its own compact video cassette format in 1985—Video8. The VHS-C and Video8 formats were perceived as both beneficial and problematic, according to their respective designs, and it has been reported that neither was more successful in comparison to its counterpart. In the same year, Panasonic, RCA and Hitachi began producing camcorders that used a full-size VHS cassette for recording and were capable of collecting up to 3 hours of footage. The release of these shoulder-mount camcorders created a niche following, consisting of videophiles, industrial videographers and college TV studios. Super VHS (S-VHS) full-size camcorders were released in 1987, exceeding the broadcast quality at the time, and provided an inexpensive way to collect news segments or videographies. Sony subsequently upgraded the Video8 and released the Hi8 as a competitive model to the S-VHS.
Read more about this topic: Camcorder
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