Compact Video Cassette

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Video Compact Cassette, better known as Video 2000.
Technicolor Compact Video Cassette (CVC)
Home movies, Video production
Released1980

Compact Video Cassette (CVC) was one of the first

home movie
market. The system, which included the VCR and a hand held video camera, was very small and lightweight for its time.

Design

The CVC format used a cassette similar in size to a

compact cassette, which made the design more space-efficient. Initially only V30 tapes were available which ran for 30 minutes, then later V45 (45 minute) and V60 (60 minute) models were introduced. The format was released for NTSC, PAL and SECAM
television systems (with cassettes labelled "VExx") and, like most analogue systems, tapes had to be played on machines using the same TV system as the recording.

CVC camera and players

Technicolor CVC Videocassette recorder with monitor
Siemens CVC Videocassette Recorder

Funai 212 came with a

battery, and had a separate power pack. Despite some references suggesting otherwise, the VP100 did not support multiple recording speeds, and only recorded at the standard CVC speed. Still-frame and variable speed playback were supported in common with other CVC machines. Model 212 was also available in France as a SECAM recorder, the variant letter for this model is unknown. SECAM tapes play in monochrome on PAL players. Around 1990 TEAC
produced CVC format machines in both PAL and NTSC for military use.

Specifications

Technical issues

Technicolor hoped that CVC would compete with

8mm film
, but the Vidicon tube used for the bundled camera had poor low-light sensitivity, limiting its usefulness for home indoor use. An even worse attribute of the cassettes was the low quality of the tape stock which was prone to dropouts (appearing as lines of white snow) during video playback. These dropouts would show much more prominently than on wider tape formats. A drawback of the CVC player resulted in the mechanism's loading ring frequently failing to complete its intended travel as the decks aged. The load ring failure would render the unit unusable.

Professional adaptations

The CVC videocassette format was also adapted for professional broadcast and

ENG use by Bosch for their "Quartercam" (aka "Lineplex") format in 1982, much like how Betamax was adapted by Sony for the same professional & industrial uses as Betacam, as well as the M format from Panasonic, adapted from VHS
.

Nippon TV (NTV) in 1981 also had a camcorder developed for them called the "CV-One" that also used CVC videocassettes, but using component video recording instead, much like Betacam, Lineplex, and M. The CV-One was followed by a newer model, developed by Hitachi under contract to NTV in 1982, called the SR-1.

References

External links

Look up compact video cassette in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Compact_Video_Cassette&oldid=1215641949"