My first experience with Betacam was (I think) in 1982. I went to a presentation organised by the Southern centre of the Royal Television Society, at which a Japanese gentleman from Sony showed the first Betacam camcorder. This was before SP of course, and one of the features was that although they produced special Betacam tapes (a blue shell), you would be able to use standard Betamax tapes "from any high street in the world" if you ran out.
The demo tape shown to illustrate just what a great tool a camcorder was included shots taken inside a phone box, and a single take with the camera starting in a moving car, the car stops, camera passed out through the passenger window to follow the driver as he got out and walked away.
Since then, many years of involvement at various levels with BVW, PVW, UVW and more recently DVW machines.
Submitted 14 December 2000 13:58