Total Rewind

FORMAT: Pixelvision

DATE: 1987

PRICE: £125
[2005: £235]

20x23x5 cm
0.5 kg

The PXL-2000 is a unique machine in many respects. It was the only linear-recording video system (using fixedheads rather than a spinning head drum) since the TelCan / Wesgrove reel-to-reel recorders from the 1960s; it used normal audio cassettes to record onto, rather than inventing it's own media - and it was the only video system to be developed by a toy company!.
The idea was to produce a camcorder which was cheap and simple enough to be used by children. "Normal" camcorders retailed at the time for around £1000, so the PXL was about one-eighth of the cost. The marketing stressed the simplicity of the system, and the fun of being able to make your own films. They'd have to be quite short films, however, as the machine could only record about five minutes of black-and-white video on each side of a C90 cassette.
The camera is quite a neat design, with an unusual but effective grip. The main cassette controls - record, play, rewind and stop/eject - are along the underside, where they won't easily be knocked, and the start/stop trigger is at the back, worked by the user's thumb. The lens is fixed-focus, and the only picture control is a filter which can be moved over the lens in bright light.
	The viewfinder is a simple optical affair - obviously a tv viewfinder would be too expensive, and so there's no in-camera playback. Instead, the camera can be connected directly to a television via a built-in modulator. The wrap-around handle also contained the batteries (6 AA cells) though there was also a jack for an external power supply.

Two versions of the system were available: a basic package consisting of just the camera, a bipod - a clip-on stand which supports the camera in an upright position - a cassette and the necessary TV connections; and a deluxe kit which included a 4.5" portable television and, unusually, a full set of batteries.

The system used ordinary audio cassettes, but even using high-bias chrome tapes, and running them at nine times normal speed (428 mm/s), the system could only manage a bandwidth of 160KHz. Since a normal video signal uses at least 2.5MHz, a novel aproach was clearly going to be needed to capture any kind of video signal!
	The CCD sensor had a resolution of 120 x 90 pixels, and was scanned 15 times a second - half speed, compared to NTSC. Even with this low resolution and slow scan rate, the signal needed to be compressed and pre-emphasized to get it down to 160KHz.
To make the most of what little signal there was, the picture appeared in the centre of the TV, with a large black border, to ensure that all the picture was visible however the TV was adjusted.

The resulting pictures were grainy and pixellated, low contrast, and suffered from "image lag" and trailing if the subject moved too fast.

Rumour has it that some children found the ghost-like quality of the pictures rather scary. Whether this is true or not, the system was not a great success, probably because of this poor image quality. Also, of course, by 1987 more families were getting "real" camcorders, and the prices were gradually coming down, so the need for a "toy" camcorder didn't last.

(Another toy company, Tomy, also attempted to sell cheap video to children. But their approach was to repackage a normal security CCTV camera - the kind you see above the counter in your local corner shop - with a long cablewhich could be used to connect it to your home VCR.)

From underachiever to underground Although the PXL was a failure in the 1980s, in the 1990s it saw something of a resurgence in popularity -- amongst amateur and underground film-makers. The grainy, low-res, trailing images gives a weird and dream-like quality which has become something of a cult. Pixelvision film festivals are held, and even some more major film-makers, such as Richard Linklater and Michael Almarayda, have used PXL cameras in their productions.
Since the camera only has an RF output, serious PXL'ers generally have their cameras modified to provide direct baseband AV outputs, allowing the pictures to be recorded directly onto more robust video formats. (Although, some filmmakers apparently insist on using the cassette recording system unchanged; since the system wears out quickly, each each recording made can be seen as a unique and transient peice of art, which can never be repeated...) Other controls can also be added, to control picture quality or give special effects. The term in the PXL community is that the cameras have been "fully bent". PXL this: a bent camera
Because of the PXL's cult status, the cameras sell in the United States for anything up to $500, even today. Mine came from eBay; it was only the second one I've seen for sale here in the UK since I started collecting in 1993...