Retro Gear Time : RCA Pro Edit Camcorder

On the final episode of Retro Gear Time, Nick and Dan go back to where it all began: the RCA VHS Camcorder. If it weren’t for this camera, would Mosher Media be here today? Who knows! We’ll be returning to your regularly scheduled Gear Time soon, so stay tuned!

       Welcome to our final entry of Retro Gear Time. We’re talking about another camcorder here, but this one is different from the ones we’ve looked at over the past few weeks in a number of ways. It’s also probably the oldest gear we’ve seen yet- we’re talking probably 1986 or ‘87.

       So this is the RCA Pro VHS Camcorder, and this was the high end state-of-the-art VHS home movie camera when it came out. Just like all the old stuff stored in my basement, there’s a story behind it that renders me unable to throw it away, for sentimentality.

       When I was a kid in the mid 80s, my brothers and I had tons of fun shooting home movies with VHS. Well, my parents went on a vacation and took our VHS camera with them, which they felt was theirs (since they bought it.) They were on a cruise, and my dad decided to take the camera on a boat ride, and that’s when it fell into the water. Anyways, the homeowner’s insurance policy they had at the time agreed to replace the camera, so in 1986 the Mosher family got this incredible camera that we have with us today, the RCA Pro VHS Camcorder.

       Looking at similar cameras of the time, this one has a whole slew of neat features. It doesn’t turn on at this time, but if it did, I could show you the character generator. It had this amazing blocky font to put titles right over your home movie, but you had to do it at the time of recording since you could not go back and edit that onto the tape.

       Another feature it had was audio/video dubbing. There is an input on the camera where you could run audio into your recording. This would usually be from a tape deck, but this was in 1988 or ‘89, so it could have been from a CD player as well. On top of that, you could run video in from another source, and use this as a video editor. It was the all-in-one moviemaking machine with the on-board edit. It even has a macro lens feature, so if you wanted to make a picture video, you could put your photo in front with the macro mode.

       This was an absolutely phenomenal camera, and I kind of wish it still fired up!  I still have the battery, but I would have no idea how to charge it, or if it’s even legal to have.

       Thanks for keeping up with Retro Gear Time. We’ll be back next week with some technology that’s maybe a little more relevant!  See you on the next one.