Direct mp4 download or play: My First Home Video
I’m quite sure this is the first video recording of my family. There is no date stamp on the tape, but this would have been 1986 or ’87. The Styrofoam packaging from the box of my new Sony CCD-V110 8 millimeter camcorder is visible on the sofa next to my mother. Also, the box appears briefly as I’m panning. My mother, father and two cats Big Butt (fluffy white long fur), and Baby Doll which I refer to as Tabatha Stinkaton or Stinkington.
This camcorder recorded in regular 8 millimeter video and mono AFM (audio frequency modulation) also known as Hi-Fi. The built-in microphone was very sensitive, especially to higher frequencies and had a slightly “tinny” quality. It picked up a lot of noise from the camcorder, as well. There’s an external microphone jack and using an external microphone improved the sound quality quite a bit. Also, I figured out how to connect the output of an audio mixer to the microphone jack without causing overloaded distorted sound. If I’m remembering right, the microphone jack had plug-in-power present (a low voltage, usually a couple of volts to power electret condenser microphones), which needed to be blocked with a capacitor.
The last part of this video features briefly using an external microphone, the display of my police scanner and the tuning indicator of my RadioShack shortwave receiver. The sound was of the scanner and several other radio tuners and possibly TV audio, plus some digital delay echo. This audio was mixed to mono and connected to the camcorder.
Sony CCD-V110 8 mllimeter camcorder
Bearcat 300 police scanner
Realistic DX-302 receiver
Hre’s a link explaining how “Hi-Fi” sound works in video recorders:
