Sony Betamovie BMC-110: Test Footage

Sony's very first Betamax camcorder! This little gem was manufactured in 1984 (released in 1983), and was Sony's introduction to the home video recording market. This camcorder, while being revolutionary, had some MAJOR shortcomings that contributed to Betamax's decline and, ultimately, its failure.

This camera's biggest flaw is that it does not have the ability to play back video tapes. That means you NEED a VCR to be able to play back tapes, and Betamax VCRs are known for being broken constantly. On top of that, the viewfinder is unable to articulate, so any angle that's lower than bending down is going to result in some kind of awkward yoga-ish position to make sure you're getting your shot. Not to mention, the shot might look a little different, since the viewfinder is optical. You don't get a very accurate representation of the video quality.

I bought this camera for $30 at a thrift store, and it came with some batteries (all of which were dead) and two video tapes! So, if the batteries were dead, how did I manage to get this thing out of the house? Well, as it turns out, the batteries aren't too hard to disassemble. My brother helped me pry the thing apart, and we put some new Nickel Cadmium cells inside!

The warning at the beginning of the video was part of that whole "VCRs known for being broken" thing. This Betamax VCR that I've got had to have a belt replaced... twice, the video feed stopped showing until the power was recycled, and sometimes it would just decide to stop playing the tape for no reason.

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