Color Tube video camera tear down and set up

[@hydrolisk1792]

Thank you for the awesome description of how the single tube cameras work :)

[@arongooch]

Nothing beats breakfast and a 12voltvids video ;)

[@Truckguy1970]

Have you ever tinkered around with studio cameras like the ones from the 50s and 60s that had loads of vacuum tubes?

[@RhythmGamer]

Wow thats pretty cool, Had no clue it was going to be that simple. Cant wait to see the professional one next!

[@VintageElectronicsGeek]

Awesome video! A lot of great tips on working on them, especially replacement of the tube...thanks!

[@douro20]

In my experience with single-tube colour cameras I have found that in the right lighting conditions they can produce an excellent picture.

[@12voltvids]

There was some broadcast single tube cameras, the DXC1800 for example which is demonstrated on the last video has an excellent picture if you give it enough light. You can see it directly compared to a high end consumer model, under the same conditions and the difference is striking.

[@supermasterPIK]

Yes. I´m not a technician and even had taken apart this stuff, but in 70s "chapulin Colorado" tv Show, there´s the "candles" effect -> when filming bright light, such as candles, there´s a "trail" that follows the camera, leaving some white stripes. That happens only with tubes , not modern CCD systems.

[@BXM922]

Hi there, would this video still apply to a Panasonic Wv-3400 model? I need to take some apart and I’m completely lost on how to deal with video color tube cameras

[@mitchlazer7948]

went through a few of these making video feedback thru a color corrector and videonics mixer -neat to see the guts !

[@Tapes1982]

I’m fixing one of these now. Almost done. Tons of problems. Clean that power switch good lol

[@krhoft]

I am really surprised at the dodgy circuit board jumps and kludge fixes for this consumer grade "premium brand" product. The early 1980's was a time when Toshiba was trying to bring their quality on par with other Japanese manufacturers. Yes, I know "fixes" were done on low production consumer products, but I am still surprised at the number. I really appreciate the time you take to explain what you are doing and how these vintage appliances worked. Kudo's

[@douro20]

Have you seen a pyroelectric vidicon tube before?

[@Darryl603]

Pretty cool! Thanks for taking the time to share

[@12voltvids]

I'll do another one to show the DXC1800 and the different way that the professional division assembled their cameras as opposed to the consumer world. The entire camera is netal, and laid out totally differently They don't care about size or weight when you are talking a pro model. It is all about how easy can the facility engineer fix it.

[@Darryl603]

Nice! Looking forward to it. Great addition with the light so you can see what you're looking at! I know how you feel, you should see my bench : )

[@mrjohhhnnnyyy5797]

Enjoyable to watch, thanks for sharing!

[@KylesDigitalLab]

37:13 What exactly are you doing to effect the picture? I'm confused. What do the adjustment things look like?

[@12voltvids]

I am changing the vertical and horizontal scanning size on the vidicon tube which will change the video signal being picked up.

[@KylesDigitalLab]

@@12voltvids I mean what on the PCB is causing that to happen?

[@12voltvids]

Adjusting the vertical and horizontal pots that change the scanning of the tube. No different than the scanning of the picture tube. Think of the camera tube as the opposite of a picture tube.

[@KylesDigitalLab]

@@12voltvids But how are you changing how the beam scans?

[@12voltvids]

@@KylesDigitalLab the camera tube is scanned exactly the same way the picture tube is scanned. There are always the same number of scan lines. If you turn down the vertical for example you are in effect placing the lines closer together so the net result on the picture tube is a stretched picture. If you enlarge the scan you will make the image smaller. If you extend past the target you will see the round face. I will do a deep dive with a black and white camera and crt monitor and go over this. Could be interesting. Watch for that next week when when i get back into the studio.

[@westelaudio943]

Very nice. Despite the worse definition, this technology is far more interesting than it's digital/solid-state counterpart.

[@12voltvids]

There is just something cool about electrons streaming out into a vacuum and either scanning an image into an analog video signal, or painting a fluorescent screen to make an image. By comparison digital screens and image sensors are actually quite dull and boring.

[@videolabguy]

Broken wire in the ten pin plug doomed a collectors item. I'll bet a dollar to a donut, the wire broke off of pin one in the ten pin plug. Oh, well. Still, it is great fun to dismantle things for learning purposes. I'll re-balance the the universe by building cameras from discarded parts. (Got a three tube color prism block, plumbicon tubes (I hope) and deflection yokes coming in the mail today. Someone else did this to a broadcast camera and reduced it from a thousands of dollars value to $40! Um, thanks?) Keep up the good work!

[@dalemettee1147]

I didn't have the 2400 but I did have the 2200. One thing about this camera is the fact that the strap on the front hand support would cut the blood circulation in the right hand and your fingers would go to sleep and get numb. HA,HA If the onboard mic was used, the zoom control would have to be handled very carefuly because the movement would be picked up by the mic.

[@richardd.9816]

As a collector of first generation color consumer cameras and early video tape recorder equipment, I still have a working Cartrivision vtr I bought from Olson electronics in the mid 1970s it kind of hurt to see you smash the camera with a hammer. In my twisted mind I was thinking that there has to be another person who has the same disease I do and could have used something from that camera. It would have taken to post a note on videokarma or similar site and offer it for shipping costs and your time. However like I said, I am not a well man who has not grown up yet. All the best Richard

[@12voltvids]

Can't save em all. I have 3 Sony vintage cameras, an HVC2400, and HVC2800 saticon camera, a DXC1800 broadcast camera, and an Panasonic Newvicon camera, plus 2 black and white cameras. This one had been exposed to salt water, as had the SOny HVC2200 I was gived from the same person. He used to take them out on his yaught, and got everything wet with salt water.

[@jonathanmonge7806]

hey how much would you charge for a laser player fix

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

I wonder if this camera used delay multiplexing to get the Red,Blue and Green signals from one vidicon tube.

[@12voltvids]

Should be TDM, time division multiplexing. Some tubes used a beam index reference, which put an internal screen behind the target between the red and blue stripes, and even the beam passed over that grid, it was detected and was used to synchronize the PLL, but most just locked the PLL to the color burst,

[@RubberChickenFilms]

Hey, I have a question I was wondering if you could potentially shed some light on--I recently bought a vintage 3 tube camera and long story short, when the camera is turned on, I see black with a small white dot on the screen. Does this mean one (or all) of the tubes has burned out? I'm not super versed in these, so any clues/info would be appreciated. Thanks!

[@12voltvids]

That is called a hole. Usually when some schmuck points the camera at something bright, like the sun, it will literally burn a hole in the photo sensitive materials in the target. If it was just one tube then the hole would be the color of the blown tube. Because it is all 3 then all 3 tubes are shot. That's a bummer. Would love to have an old 3 tube like the dxc327 I used to have mated to my old bvv1 betacam recorder. I have a couple of 3ccd cameras and they produce a really nice picture. I think I will do an hd comparison video in the next couple of weeks. Take my 3ccd Sony HDV camera and my 1" cmos 4k camera shooting in the best 1080 mode and go shoot some pictures. Same scene on both cameras and do a demo to see how much difference there is.

[@RubberChickenFilms]

@@12voltvids Thanks for the info! It's pretty small, I think to the point that it probably wouldn't be noticable, really. I actually finally got it working now. Just need some color adjusting. Good luck with those videos. Sounds interesting!

[@12voltvids]

@@RubberChickenFilms My old professional jvc eng camera (it's a dv camera) has several dead pixels that show single pixel red and green dots. It was like that when I got it. I sent it back and the tech brings me into the shop and holds a frame up to the screen. Says the bad pixels are not in the 80% of center that the warranty covers so I was shit out of luck. It really stung because I had dropped 10,000.00 on the camera and tripod. I used it only for 4 years and then upgraded to HD equipment. That camera now just sits as a decoration in my living room. Probably doesnt even work now because it hasn't been used in forever.

[@RubberChickenFilms]

@@12voltvids That's awful. My friend had a Digital 8 camcorder that happened to. It was dropped once, and had messed up pixelation in part of the screen thereafter. C'est la vie.

[@12voltvids]

@@RubberChickenFilms Right but digital 8 is consumer. This was an ENG professional digital camera. Big, on the shoulder camera. Same type that news crews used. Only if the dead pixels are in the prime area they were covered. Consumer cameras had no warranty for dead pixels. You see it in TV shows and movies from time to time. There will be a shot with a stuck pixel that is not discovered during the initial filming and I am sure the editor saw it and though "oh shit" but because it was already in the can they weren't about to go reshoot. So every cut from the bum camera has the bad pixel in the shot. Even more noticable is when they try to mask it in post. Then it really sticks out.

[@supermasterPIK]

Got A JVC GX 22 tube camera hooked to a HR 22U JVC portable unit. . When powered ON, red light blinks and does nothing more. What can I do? NEVER point the tube camara into the sun, may cause damage

[@FindLiberty]

Oh yea, all the fun times (for me in the early 70's working at Ampex and then Sony Service); thanks for the memories! lol, The Nearly Forgotten Secrets of the "PLUMBICON" Luminance Tube and Red/White Card! (just don't go there)

[@jameswest8280]

I used to work on those. Those were the days you could actually charge for your time, it doesn't pay to repair anything these days. If you can buy a new DVD player for $50, what am I supposed to charge the customer? I'm getting all nostalgic.

[@12voltvids]

No money. Why do you think I got out?

[@jameswest8280]

@@12voltvids I went into industrial electronics, when a company spends 100s of thousands, or millions on a piece of equipment, they're not likely to replace it any time soon. I've seen machines 50+ years old still in use.

[@12voltvids]

@@jameswest8280 I went to work for the phone company. I'm 3rd generation now. My uncle worked there for 30 years and my cousin was there 20 her husband did 30, I'll put in 20 and call it a day. Get a few more years on the pension. That's an industry that has sure changed. Went from dial tone on copper to digital loops on copper to fiber optics. I did 20 years in the repair business and now just work on stuff to pass the time. To help people out keep their old gear running.

[@jameswest8280]

@@12voltvids cool, thanks for the uploads.

[@videolabguy]

The Sony DXC-1800 was NOT a professional camera. It was a pro-sumer camera and the Trinicon cameras, in general, looked like crap. Not because they were designed that way. But, because the users would dick with the internal adjustments, especially the enhancer and make them look downright grizzly with salt and pepper noise. I was the video service department manager at Videomedia in Sunnyvale CA from 1981 to 1983. Give me a three sensor camera ANY day. One tube cameras are poo poo!

[@KylesDigitalLab]

The DXC-1800 as an industrial camera, HVC was consumer/prosumer. From what I understand it's a low-end professional camera. Honestly the single tube Trinicon cameras look pretty good compared to the regular single tube color vidicon. It's nowhere near a 3 tube but it's pretty good.

[@hannonm]

spare parts for other camera's you could use the 2nd one to keep on the scope and have a P.I.P in your video's

[@arongooch]

Could be a few spare parts like transistors maybe but them caps probably wouldn't be worth salvaging or even the resistors etc.

[@MDFRESCUER]

Interesting piece.

[@zx8401ztv]

Your videos are allways enjoyabe :-D. Shame the toshiba was terminal, but you have plenty of good cameras and i suppose its not special, but keeping the tube would be my choice as well :-). i was worried by the hammer, you didnt damage it i hope :). Clever old sony, picture or film conversion, smart cookies. Its been warmer in the uk than normal and i leave the windows open, i get the invasion of the moths lol, some are big buggers, but harmless, unless one lands in my tea Grrrrr. Love that cat, pussy wet tail :-).

[@supermasterPIK]

Vidicon or Nivicon (JVC)

[@supermasterPIK]

HR 2200 UM

[@KylesDigitalLab]

Do you mean Newvicon?

[@TheGrimers]

Great video...Best part is at 31:31 or sure..