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| FORMAT: BetaMovie | ||||||
DATE: 1983 PRICE: £1000 [2005: £2260] 36x22x13cm 2.5kg | |||||||
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| The BMC-100 was the first combined camera and recorder to go on sale, in 1983. The first thing you notice about it is that it is clearly a rectangular recorder, with a camera bolted on one end, and a handle at the bottom. What is less obvious from the photos is how small it is, for its age -- the recorder unit is about 15cm square, barely wider than the standard Betamax cassette which goes inside. | |
| This miniaturisation is truly remarkable, considering the size of the Betamax VCRs of the day, and it took a very creative design to achieve it... The head drum is 45mm, compared to the normal Betamax size of 75mm, and spins at 2500 rpm rather than 1500. The tape is wrapped nearly all the way around, 300 degrees, but most unusually of all, there is only one head on the drum. This arrangement meant that the head does not pass the tape at the normal speed, so the signal has to be electronically "time-compressed", before it is written: |  |
 | Betamovie scanning In 1/50th second, the single head writes a full field, at 120% normal speed, and crosses the 60-degree gap ready to start the next. |
| At the end of this convoluted process, a tape emerges which could be played back on a standard Beta deck, but the weird scanning system is not reversible, so it's not possible to play back the recordings in the camera... the BMC-100 could not play back its own recordings! Of course, instant playback is one of the main advantages of video over film, and it seems pretty strange to leave it out. | |
 | The other surprise with this machine is how little is automatic. Manual white-balance, zoom and exposure controls are not that unusual, for the era, but the Betamovie didn't even have autofocus. Even more remarkably, the viewfinder is not electronic, but a rather neat optical system, which lets you see exactly what you're recording by looking direcly through the lens, via a system of mirrors and prisms - very like an SLR stills camera. |
| Controls are limited, because of the lack of playback. Apart from the on/off, record and zoom controls, there is a white balance button -- used in conjunction with a white semi-translucent lens cap -- and a toggle between indoor and outdoor lighting -- and that's it! A row of warning lights on one side and a set of input and output sockets on the other completes the line-up. The machine is pretty noisy in operation; clicking relays and whirring motors greet every operation. Having said all that, the BMC-100 is a very well designed unit. The cine-camera style handle, which holds the normal record/stop and zoom controls, folds up when not in use, and also contains the NiCd battery pack. |  |
| The viewfinder too folds up, to allow easy storage, and the boom microphone is mounted on flexible rubber pads to reduce the amount of camera noise picked up. | |
 | The BMC-100 was followed by the BMC-200, which added autofocus, and a few other models. But Betamovie was killed by the demise of Betamax itself, and the arrival of Sony's own 8mm camcorder format. The AF BMC-200 |
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