Vintage DSLR forum

Does any one know any thing about this camera? from 1987


??? Casio VS-101 ??

avinoam

Hi,

That was another one of those analog Still Video Cameras, like the Nikon QV-1000. This one looked like a handheld motion video camera (as opposed to a still camera). There were several makers offering these at that time.

This one used the 2" mag disc media and stored the image as an analog Frequency Modulated signal on the mag disc in much the same manner as the analog motion video cameras stored their signal on tape. The format is NTSC video, output to a video monitor. But it's only one frame, played over and over as long as the disc spins. I can't recall how many frames would fit on one of those discs.

You could play the images from the camera, or there were stand-alone players for the discs. There were even some editing decks out there, as one of the markets these were aimed at were electronic news gathering.

This is one of those technologies that I refer to as a 'solution looking for a problem'.

The still shooters kept on shooting film and waiting for digital to arrive. The NTSC video shooters kept on shooting motion video on tape. Did anyone in our little community here buy and use one at the time? I know some folks mess with them now, of course.

Later!

Stan

I really wanted a Canon Xapshot when those were being marketed (ca 1990?). I couldn't think of any excuse to buy it, though, so I didn't. I have one now, of course, along with a Sony Mavica 5000. I've taken photos with the Xapshot, and they are as good as you could expect from NTSC video (not very). I really need to actually get the Mavica up and running sometime. All it needs is a battery, and I believe it shares the battery with some video cameras, so they may still be posisble to find.

Cheers,
Ross